The Hustler quotes

View Quote Charlie: [after they've played all night] The pool game is over.
Eddie: The pool game is over when Fats says it's over...I came after him and I'm gonna get him. I'm goin' with him all the way. The pool game is not over until Minnesota Fats says it's over. Is it over, Fats?
[Fats turns to Gordon for the answer.]
Eddie: [to Gordon] I'm gonna beat him, Mister. I beat him all night and I'm gonna beat him all day. I'm, I'm the best you ever seen, Fats. I'm the best there is. Now even if you beat me, I'm still the best.
Gordon: [to Fats] Stay with this kid. He's a loser.
Eddie: [to Charlie] What did he say?

View Quote Minnesota Fats: [After playing for 25 straight hours] Fast Eddie, let's play some pool.
Eddie: [unsteadily] You look beautiful, Fats, just like a baby, all pink and powdered up.
Charlie: What are ya tryin' to do Eddie? Beat him? You beat him bad. Do you want to kill yourself?
Eddie: What are ya, chicken, Charlie?
Charlie: Yeah, maybe that's it, I'm chicken.

View Quote Sarah: Where do you live?
Eddie: Around.
Sarah: I know where you live. In a locker in the bus station. What's it like living in a locker?
Eddie: Cramped. Do you always drink like this so early in the morning?

View Quote Eddie: The name's Eddie.
Sarah: The name should be Eddie. What should my name be?
Eddie: I don't know. Whatever you'd like it to be?
Sarah: I'd like it to be what it is, Sarah. That's a Biblical name. You wanna know it's meaning?

View Quote Sarah: How did you know my name is Sarah?
Eddie: You told me last night.
Sarah: I always lie when I drink.
Eddie: Okay, so what is your name today?
Sarah: Sarah.

View Quote Charlie Burns: [to Sarah] This boy is the greatest pool hustler you ever saw, a real high-class con-man. He can charm anybody into anything. Did he ever tell you how well we've been doing on the road. We had everything. We ate good, we slept late, we had money to burn. Whiskey, dames, excuse me. I'll tell you what, take her along. I'll tell you what else, you don't want to start right away, we won't start it right away. We'll get in the car and drive to Miami, get all this crud out of your system. Have a few laughs, lie in the sun for a couple of weeks.
Eddie: With what?
Charlie: Don't worry about it. I'll raise the money.
Eddie: Oh yeah, where?
Charlie: What's the difference where? I'll raise it.

View Quote Sarah: What else have we got? We never talk about anything. We stay in this room and we drink and make love. We're strangers. What happens when the liquor and the money run out, Eddie? You told Charlie to lay down and die. Will you say that to me too? What happens, Eddie?
Eddie: Just buy yourself another rich old lover.
Sarah: That's right, and I'm sure you'll help me.
[Eddie viciously slaps her across the face.]
Sarah: You waiting for me to cry? You bum. You pool-room bum.

View Quote Gordon: I don't think there's a pool player alive who shoots better pool than I saw you shoot the other night at Ames. You got talent.
Eddie: So I got talent? So what beat me?
Gordon: Character.
Eddie: Sure, sure.
Gordon: You're damn right I'm sure. Everybody's got talent, I got talent. You think you can play big-money straight pool or poker for forty straight hours on nothing but talent? You think they call Minnesota Fats the best in the country just cause he got talent? Nah, Minnesota Fats's got more character in one finger than you got in your whole skinny body.
Eddie: I got drunk.
Gordon: He drank as much whiskey as you do.
Eddie: Maybe he knows how to drink.
Gordon: You bet he knows how. You think that's a talent too, huh, knowin' how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowin' how to drink?
Eddie: OK, OK, what do I do now? Lie down on the floor and, uh, bow from the ankles? What do I do, go home?
Gordon: That's your problem.
Eddie: So I stay. I stay until I hustle up enough to play Fats again. And maybe by that time, I'll develop myself some character.
Gordon: [chuckling] Maybe by that time you'll die of old age. How much do you think you'll, uh, need?
Eddie: A thousand.
Gordon: Naw, three thousand at least. He'll start you off at five hundred a game, he'll beat the pants off ya. That's the way he plays when he comes up against a man who knows the way the game is. He'll beat you flat four or five times, maybe more, depending on how, uh, steady your nerves are. Then he might, just might be a little scared of ya, and that could change things, but I wouldn't count on it.
Eddie: How do you know, huh, when nobody knows that much?
Gordon: You see that big car parked out by the fireplug on your way in? Well, that's mine. I like that car. But I get a new one every year, because I make it my business to know what guys like you and Minnesota Fats are gonna do. I made enough off you the other night to pay for it twice over.

View Quote Gordon: Eddie, you're a born loser.
Eddie: What's that supposed to mean?
Gordon: First time in ten years I ever saw Minnesota Fats hooked, really hooked. But you let him off.
Eddie: I told you, I got drunk.
Gordon: Sure you got drunk, the best excuse in the world for losin'. No trouble losin' when you got a good excuse. And winning - that can be heavy on your back too, like a monkey. Drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. That's one of the best indoor sports, feelin' sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all - especially the born loser.

View Quote Eddie: [After Gordon has offered to front him the money, for a 75-25 split of the winnings] That's a pretty big slice. Who do you think you are, General Motors?
Gordon: How much you think you're worth these days? I'm puttin' up the money, I'm puttin' up the time. For that, I get seventy-five percent return on my money - if you win.
Eddie: Do you think I can lose?
Gordon: I never saw you do anything else.
Eddie: You saw me beat Minnesota Fats for eighteen thousand dollars.
Gordon: Look, you want to hustle pool, don't ya? This game isn't like football. Nobody pays you for yardage. When you hustle, you keep score real simple. At the end of the game, you count up your money. That's how you find out who's best. It's the only way.
Eddie: Why back me, then, huh? Why don't you go back yourself? Go find yourself a big fat poker game and get rich. You know all the angles.
Gordon: I'm already rich. But I like action. That's one thing I think you're good for - is action. Besides, like I say, you got talent.
Eddie: Yeah, you already told me that. You cut that slice down to bite size, maybe we could talk.
Gordon: No, we don't talk. I don't make bad bets. Seventy-five, twenty-five, that's it.
Eddie: Kiss off!
Gordon: Hey wait! What are you gonna do about the money?
Eddie: There are places. I'll scuffle around.
Gordon: The word's out on you, Eddie. You walk in the wrong kind of place, they'll eat ya alive.
Eddie: And when did you adopt me?
Gordon: I don't know when it was.

View Quote Eddie: Sarah, do you think I'm a loser?
Sarah: A loser?
Eddie: Yeah. I met this guy, Gordon, Bert Gordon. He said I was a born loser.
Sarah: Would he know?
Eddie: He knows a lot.
Sarah: Why did he tell you?
Eddie: I don't know, I'm not sure. He said there are people who, uh, who want to lose, who are always lookin' for an excuse to lose.
Sarah: What does he do, this Bert Gordon?
Eddie: He's a gambler.
Sarah: Is he a winner?
Eddie: He owns things.
Sarah: Is that what makes a winner?
Eddie: What else does?
Sarah: Does it bother you what he said?
Eddie: Yeah. Yeah, it bothers me a lot. Cause you see twice, Sarah, once at Ames with Minnesota Fats, and then again at Arthurs, you know, in that cheap, crummy pool room. Now why did I do it Sarah, why did I do it? I could've beat that guy, I could've beat him cold. He never would have known. But I just had to show him. Just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it's great, when it's really great. You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great. I don't care - brick-laying can be great if a guy knows. If he knows what he's doin' and why and if he can make it come off.

View Quote Eddie: When I'm goin', when I'm really goin', I feel like a, like a jockey must feel when he's sittin' on his horse, he's got all that speed and that power underneath him, he's coming into the stretch, the pressure's on him - and he knows. He just feels, when to let it go and how much. 'Cause he's got everything workin' for him - timing, touch. It's a great feeling, boy - it's a real great feeling - when you're right and you know you're right. Like all of a sudden, I got oil in my arm. Pool cue's part of me. You know, it's a - pool cue, it's got nerves in it. It's a piece of wood; it's got nerves in it. You can feel the roll of those balls. You don't have to look. You just know. You make shots that nobody's ever made before. And you play that game the way nobody's ever played it before.
Sarah: You're not a loser, Eddie. You're a winner. Some men never get to feel that way about anything. I love you, Eddie.

View Quote Eddie: You know, someday Sarah, you're gonna settle down. You're gonna marry a college professor. You're gonna write a great book - maybe about me, huh? Fast Eddie Felson, Hustler.
Sarah: I love you.
Eddie: Do you need the words?
Sarah: Yes, I need them very much. If you ever say them, I'll never let you take them back.

View Quote Eddie: A big creep broke my thumbs.
Gordon: A man named Turk Baker?
Eddie: You know everybody, don't ya?
Gordon: Everybody who can hurt me. Everybody who can help me pays.
Eddie: Maybe you ought to give me lessons.
Gordon: Sign up.
Eddie: Where do I sign?

View Quote Sarah: Leave now.
Eddie: Grow up.
Sarah: Why should I?
Eddie: Sarah, I'm going to Kentucky to play pool with a guy by the name of Findlay. Now I need the action and I need the money. I told ya I'd be back.
Sarah: If you were going to come back, you wouldn't have taken me out tonight, you wouldn't have bought this dress. You're hustling me, Eddie. You've never stopped hustling me.
Eddie: No, I never hustled you, even when I thought I was, and you know it.
Sarah: What do you want me to do, just sit here and wait, your faithful looking Sarah. Pull all the shades down and sit. When you feel like coming back, you'll come back and you'll love me, and then you'll go away again. Is that your idea of love?
Eddie: I got no idea of love. Neither of you, I mean, neither one of us would know what it was if we saw it comin' down the street.
Sarah: I'd know it, Eddie. I'd know it. For God's sakes, what are you trying to do to me? I love you.
Eddie: Well, what's your idea of love - chains?
Sarah: I made you up, didn't I, Eddie? You weren't real. I made you up, like everything else. There was no car crash, Eddie. When I was five, I had polio. I was never an actress. The 'rich old man' is my father. He walked out on us when I was seven. He sends me a check every month. That's how he buys his way out of my life. The men I've known - after they've left, I'd say they weren't real. I made them up. But you, Eddie, I wanted you to be real. I'm so scared. I'm scared.