Jaws quotes

View Quote Brody: This is a Great White, Larry, a big one. And any shark expert in the world'll tell ya it's a killer. It's a man-eater.
Hooper: Look, the situation is that apparently, a Great White Shark has staked a claim in the waters off Amity Island, and he's going to continue to feed here as long as there is food in the water.
Brody: And there's no limit to what he's gonna do. I mean, we've already had three incidents. Two people killed inside of a week, and it's gonna happen again. It happened before. The Jersey beach. [He points at Hooper]...1916 - there were five people chewed up in the surf -
Hooper: - in one week.
Brody: Tell him about the swimmers.
Hooper: A shark is attracted to the exact kind of splashing and activity that occurs whenever human beings go in swimming. You cannot avoid it.
Brody: You open the beaches on the 4th of July, it's like ringing the dinner bell for Christ's sakes.
Hooper: Look, Mr. Vaughn. Mr. Vaughn, I pulled a tooth the size of a shot glass out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there, and it was the tooth of a Great White.
Brody: It was Ben Gardner's boat. It was all chewed up. I helped tow it in. You should have seen it.
Vaughn: Where, where is that tooth? Did you see it, Brody?...[To Hooper] And what did you say the name of this shark is?
Hooper: Carcaradon carcharias. A Great White.
Vaughn: But you don't have the tooth. Look, we depend on the summer people here for our very lives.
Hooper: You are not going to have a summer unless you deal with this problem.
Vaughn: And if you close those beaches, we're finished.
Brody: We're not only gonna have to close the beach, we're gonna have to hire somebody to kill the shark...
Vaughn: I don't think either one of you are familiar with our problems.
Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass...There are two ways to deal with this problem: you're either going to kill this animal or you're gonna cut off its food supply.
Brody: Larry, we have to close the beaches!
Vaughn: [Pointing at graffiti showing a dialogue balloon with the words "Help!! SHARK" coming from the mouth of the swimmer on a surfboard] Look at that. Sick vandalism! This is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message. Now I want those little paint-happy bas**** caught and hung up by their Buster Browns!
Hooper: I'm not gonna waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch...Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine - uh, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all! Now why don't you take a long, close look at this sign. Those proportions are correct.
Vaughn: Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name into the National Geographic.
[Hooper walks away chuckling]
Brody: Larry, we can re-open the beaches in August.
Vaughn: August! Tomorrow is the 4th of July, and we are going to open for business. It's going to be our best summer in years. If you're so concerned about the beaches, you two, you do whatever you have to to keep them safe, but with you or without you, those beaches will be open for this weekend.

View Quote Quint: [seeing Hooper's equipment] What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut? [examining the shark cage] Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there - a portable shower or a monkey cage?
Hooper: Anti-shark cage.
Quint: Anti-shark cage. You go inside the cage? Cage goes in the water? You go in the water? Shark's in the water? Our shark? [singing] Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we've received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again.

View Quote Hooper: [trying to get the fishing line secure] It may be a marlin or a tuna... but it's definitely a game fish.
[Hooper pulls as the lines snaps and he crashes his head into the wall]
Quint: [picking up the line] Gamin' fish eh? Marlin? Stingray? Bit through this piano wire? Don't you tell me my business again! Now you get up on the bridge...
Hooper: Quint, that doesn't prove a damn thing!
Quint: Well it proves one thing Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong.
[Quint enters the cabin as Hooper makes faces at him]
Brody: [following Quint inside the boat] What's the point? Hooks and lines...
Quint: [slams on the roof at Hooper] Hooper! 12 minutes south south east now, full throttle!
Hooper: [Mocking Pirate Voice] Aye, aye, sir! AYE JIMBOY ARAGHHH!
Quint: [to Brody] See what I do Chief is I trick 'em up to the surface. And jab at 'em. I ain't gonna haul 'em up like a lot of catfish.
[slams on the roof]
Quint: Hooper, full throttle!
Hooper: [Pirate voice] I don't have to take this abuse much longer!

View Quote Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish! Not like going down to the pond and chasing bluegills and tommycod. This shark, swallow ya whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back the tourists, that'll put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant! I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

View Quote Brody: [pointing at Quint's tattoo scar] What's that one?
Quint: Oh, that's a tattoo. I got that removed.
Hooper: Let me guess. Mother! [laughs]
Quint: Hooper, that's the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
[Hooper's face drops]
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

View Quote [While being interviewed on TV] I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have in fact caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But as you can see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are opened, and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means friendship.

View Quote Quint: I'm not talkin' about pleasure boatin' or day sailin'. I'm talkin' about workin' for a livin'. I'm talkin' about sharkin'.
Hooper: Well I'm not talkin' about hookin' some poor dog fish or sand shark. I'm talkin' about findin' a Great White.
Quint: You've got city boy hands, Hooper. You been countin' money all your life.
Hooper: I don't need this working-class-hero crap.
Quint: Maybe I should go alone.

View Quote Ellen: My husband tells me you're in sharks.
Hooper: Yeah, I love them, I love them. When I was twelve years old, my father got me this boat and I went fishing off of Cape Cod. And I hooked a scup. And as I was reeling it in, I hooked a four and a half-foot baby thresher shark who proceeded to eat my boat. Ha, ha. He ate my oar, hooks, and uh, my seat cushions, he turned an inboard into an outboard. Scared me to death. And I swam back to shore. And when I was on the beach, I turned around and I actually saw my boat being taken apart. And ever since then, why yes, I have been studying sharks. I plan to go to the Institute tomorrow and tell them that you still have a shark problem here.
Brody: Why would have to tell them that?
Hooper: Sorry.
Ellen: Excuse me, but what are you talking about? Didn't they catch the shark this afternoon? It was on the Cape station news.
Hooper: They caught a shark, not the shark. Not the shark that killed Chrissie Watkins and probably not the shark that killed the little boy, which I wanted to prove today by cutting the shark open -- but you, you may want to let that breath for... nothing, nothing. You know uh, you're going to be the only rational man left on this island after I leave tomorrow.
Ellen: Where are you going?
Hooper: I'm going on the Aurora.
Ellen: The Aurora? What is that?
Hooper: It's a floating asylum for uh, shark uh, pure research. Eighteen months at sea.
Ellen: Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin - Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland. I guess it's a childhood thing. It's a - there's a clinical name for it, isn't there?
Brody: Drowning! Isn't it true that most people are attacked by sharks in three feet of water and about ten feet from the beach.
Hooper: Yes, that's true.
Brody: Now this shark that, that swims alone...
Hooper: A rogue.
Brody: Rogue, yeah, now this guy, he - he keeps swimming around in a place where the feeding is good until the food supply is gone, right?
Hooper: That's the theory...A theory I happen to believe.
Brody: Then why don't we have one more drink and go down and cut that shark open.
Ellen: Martin? Can you do that?
Brody: I can do anything. I'm the chief of police.

View Quote I don't think you appreciate the gut reaction people have to these things...Martin, It's all psychological. You yell 'Barracuda,' everybody says 'Huh? What?' You yell 'Shark,' we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

View Quote [points to a scar on chest] Mary Ellen Moffat. She broke my heart.

View Quote Martin, there are all kinds of sharks in the waters, you know. Hammerheads, white tips, blues, makos, and the chances that these bozos got the exact shark...it's a hundred to one...a hundred to one. Now I'm not saying that this is not the shark. It probably is, Martin, it probably is. It's a maneater, it's extremely rare for these waters. But the fact is that the bite radius on this animal is different from the wounds on the victim. I just...I wanna be sure. You wanna be sure. We all want to be sure, OK?

View Quote Ben Gardner: [referring to the out-of-town fishermen, hoping to catch the shark] Wait'll we get them silly bas**** down in that rock pile. There'll be some fun. They'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start takin' their bottoms out and slammin' into them rocks, boy. Get away from there, ya goddamn fool, you! What's the matter with you? You wanna swamp us, ya crazy son of a bitch?

View Quote Look fellas, let's be reasonable, huh? This is not the time or the place to perform some kind of a half-assed autopsy on a fish. And I am not going to stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock.

View Quote He can't go down with three barrels...not with three barrels on he can't.

View Quote Hooper: [motioning to Brody to get closer to the barrels] Come on Martin! Move, move, move!
Brody: I'm not going out there!
Hooper: Beyond the edge of the barrels, go to the end of the barrels! Further out!
Brody: What?
Hooper: Go further out!
Brody: What for?
Hooper: Will you go to the end of the pulpit please? Please just go to the end of the pulpit!
Brody: What for?
Hooper: I need something in the foreground to give it some scale!
Brody: Foreground my ass!