The Hustler quotes

View Quote [to Eddie, stumbling after some drinks at the bus terminal] I'm not drunk. I'm lame.

View Quote [to Eddie] ...you start drinking whiskey gambling - it gives you an excuse for losing. That's something you don't need, an excuse for losing.

View Quote [to Eddie] James Findlay is a very rich man. His grandfather left him twenty-five percent of his tobacco company...He's a gentleman. Gentlemen gamble. He gets his kicks playin' a hustler. He's got an old Southern mansion with a pool table in the basement, drinks eight year-old bourbon, smokes a hawk-tipped cigarette...I never saw him play. They say he's one of the best...I've got confidence in Findlay...That means I've got confidence that he's a loser, all the way a loser. You happen to be about only one-half loser, the other half winner.

View Quote It will be a lot of laughs. Findlay's parties are famous. He invites everybody from top to bottom. From high society to every town hustler and tramp in town. It's another way he has of getting his kicks. It excites him to be around what he calls the criminal type. Some men are like that. Some women too.

View Quote I didn't ask him, 'Can he beat ya?' I already know he can beat ya. I asked him, 'Will he?' To Eddie, that's two different things.

View Quote [to Eddie, about Sarah] She come in here Eddie and asked me for a drink. I give her one. We had a few more. Eddie, she came in here.

View Quote Big John: [to Charlie Burns] Take your boy and go home. Fats don't need your money. There's no way you can beat him. Nobody's beat him in fifteen years. He's the best in the country.

View Quote Charlie Burns: [to Eddie] We were partners. We were more than partners.

View Quote James Findlay: [to Bert Gordon, referring to a statue of the devil] This fellow here bears a striking resemblance to you. It seems as though you might have modeled for the artist.

View Quote Charlie: It's quiet.
Eddie: Yeah, like a church. Church of the Good Hustler.
Charlie: It looks more like a morgue to me. Those tables are the slabs they lay the stiffs on.
Eddie: I'll be alive when I get out, Charlie.

View Quote Eddie: What, no bar?
Cashier: No bar, no pinball machines, no bowling alleys, just pool... nothing else. This is Ames mister.

View Quote Minnesota Fats: You shoot a good stick.
Eddie: They say Minnesota Fats is the best in the country out where I come from...They say that old Fats just shoots the eyes right off them balls.
Minnesota Fats: Big John? Do you think this boy is a hustler? [to Eddie] Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?
Eddie: Fats, let's you and I shoot a game of straight pool.
Minnesota Fats: A hundred dollars.
Eddie: Well, you shoot big-time pool, Fats. I mean, that's what everybody says, 'You shoot big-time pool.' Let's make it two hundred dollars a game.
Minnesota Fats: Now I know why they call you 'Fast' Eddie. Eddie, you talk my kind of talk.

View Quote Eddie: Didn't leave you much.
Minnesota Fats: You left enough.

View Quote Charlie: Quit, he's too good.
Eddie: Charlie, I'm gonna take him.

View Quote Eddie: Well, you don't leave much when you miss, do ya Fat Man?
Minnesota Fats: That's what the game's all about.