North by Northwest quotes

View Quote [to The Professor] Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

View Quote Roger: And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Vandamm: Games, must we?
Roger: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theatre this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of unreasonable about things like that.
Vandamm: With such expert play-acting, you make this very room a theatre. My secretary is a great admirer of your methods, Mr. Kaplan. Elusiveness, however misguided ...
Roger: (interrupting) My name is Thornhill, Roger Thornhill! It's never been anything else ... So obviously, your friends picked up the wrong package when they bundled me out here in the car.

View Quote Eve: I'm a big girl.
Roger: Yeah, and in all the right places too. [They share a lingering kiss.]
Eve: You know, this is ridiculous, you know that don't you?
Roger: Yesss.
Eve: I mean, we've hardly met.
Roger: That's right.
Eve: How do I know you aren't a murderer?
Roger: You don't.
Eve: Maybe you're planning to murder me right here tonight?
Roger: Shall I?
Eve: Please do. [Another long kiss.]
Roger: Beats flying, doesn't it?
Eve: We should stop.
Roger: Immediately.
Eve: I want to know more about you.
Roger: What more could you know?
Eve: You're an advertising man, that's all I know.
Roger: That's right. [They shift positions.] The train's a little unsteady.
Eve: Who isn't?
Roger: What else do you know?
Eve: You've got taste in clothes, taste in food...
Roger: ...and taste in women. I like your flavor.
Eve: You're very clever with words. You can probably make them do anything for you. Sell people things they don't need. Make women who don't know you fall in love with you.
Roger: I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid.
...
Roger: Now where were we?
Eve: Here. [They kiss again passionately.]
Roger: Yes. Nice of you to have opened the bed.
Eve: Yes.
Roger: Only one bed.
Eve: Yes.
Roger: That's a good omen, don't you think?
Eve: Wonderful.
Roger: You know what that means?
Eve: Hmmm.
Roger: What? Tell me.
Eve: It means you're going to sleep on the floor.

View Quote Leonard: You surely would have suspected. Why else would you have decided not to tell Miss Kendall why our little treasure here has a belly full of microfilm?
Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Vandamm: Truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my woman's intuition, if you will, but I've never trusted neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning.
Vandamm: She shot him in a moment of fear and anger. You were there yourself. You saw it. You know what I think? I think you're jealous. No, I mean it. I'm very touched, very.
[Leonard pushes Vandamm and fires Eve's gun at him...that is loaded with blanks]
Leonard: It's an old Gestapo trick. Shoot one of your own people to show that you're not one of them. They've just freshened it up a bit with blank cartridges.
...
Leonard: You're not taking her on the plane with you?
Vandamm: Of course I am. Like our friends, I too believe in neatness, Leonard.This matter is best disposed of from a great height - over water.

View Quote [sending candy to his ex-wife] Oh well, put 'Something for your sweet tooth, baby, and all your other sweet parts.'

View Quote Ah, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only the expedient exaggeration. You ought to know that.

View Quote Mother, this is your son, Roger Thornhill...No, no, Mother. I have not been drinking. No, no. These two men, they poured a whole bottle of bourbon into me. No, they didn't give me a chaser.

View Quote The train, it's safer...Well, because there's no place to hide on a plane if anyone should recognize me...oh, you want me to jump off a moving plane?

View Quote [to Eve] You're the smartest girl I ever spent the night with on the train.

View Quote [to Vandamm] I didn't realize you were an art collector. I thought you just collected corpses...I'll bet you paid plenty for this little piece of sculpture...She's worth every dollar of it, take it from me. She puts her heart into her work. In fact, her whole body.

View Quote [to Vandamm] I want the girl to get what's coming to her. You turn her over to me and I'll see there's enough pinned on her to keep her uncomfortable for the rest of her life. You do that and I'll look the other way tonight.

View Quote I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.

View Quote I think I'd like to meet these killers.

View Quote You gentlemen aren't really trying to kill my son, are you?

View Quote Newspaper article: A photograph has been tentatively identified as that of Roger Thornhill, a Manhattan advertising executive, indicating that the name of George Kaplan which he gave to an attendant at the General Assembly Building was false - a possible motive for the slaying suggested by the discovery. And earlier today Thornhill had appeared at a Glen Cove Long Island police court and charged with drunk driving with a stolen car. In his defense, he charged that the murder victim, Mr. Townsend had tried to kill him the night before.