West Side Story quotes

View Quote '[singing] Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset.
We never had the love that every child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents, we're misunderstood;
Deep down inside us there is good.

View Quote Snowboy: [singing] When you're a Jet, you're a top cat in town
You're a gold medal kid with the heavyweight crown!

View Quote Ice: [singing] When you're a Jet, you're the swingin'est thing
Little boy, you're a man, little man, you're a king.

View Quote Glad Hand: I want you to form two circles...boys on the outside and girls on the inside...When the music stops, each boy dances with whichever girl is opposite.

View Quote Doc: Fightin' over a little piece of street is so important?

View Quote Anita: [singing] A boy like that who'd kill your brother;
Forget that boy and find another.
One of your own kind, stick to your own kind.
A boy like that will give you sorrow;
You'll meet another boy tomorrow.

View Quote Riff: Now I know Tony like I know me and I guarantee you can count him in.
Action: In, out, let's get crackin'.
Gee-Tar: Where you gonna find Bernardo?
Baby John: It ain't safe to go in P.R. territory.
Riff: He'll be at the dance tonight at the gym.
A-rab: Yeah, but the gym's neutral territory.
Riff: A-rab. I'm gonna make nice with him! I'm only gonna challenge him.
Ice: Great, Daddy-o!
Riff: So listen, everybody dress up sweet and sharp. Meet Tony and me at the dance at ten. And walk tall!
A-rab: We always walk tall!
Baby John: We're Jets!
Another member: The greatest!

View Quote Maria: When I look at Chino, nothing happens.
Anita: Well, what do you expect to happen?
Maria: I don't know. Something. What happens when you look at Bernardo?
Anita: It's when I don't look that it happens.

View Quote Maria: My brother is a silly watchdog.
Bernardo: Ah, my sister is a precious jewel.
Anita: What am I, cut glass?

View Quote Bernardo: Get your hands off, American...Stay away from my sister.
Tony: Sister?
Bernardo: Couldn't you see he's one of them?
Maria: No. I saw only him.
Bernardo: There's only one thing they want from a Puerto Rican girl.
Tony: That's a lie!
Riff: Later, Tony.
Chino: Get away.
Tony: Stay out of this, Chino. [To Maria] Don't listen.
Bernardo: She will listen to her brother before she listens to you.

View Quote Bernardo: Now I will not say these things to spoil your evening or to hear myself talk. I am here longer than you, Maria...Someday, when you're an old married woman with five children, then you can tell me what to do. Right now, it's the other way around. Now go to bed.
Anita: [To Maria] He's the old married woman. [To Bernardo] You know, she has a mother. Also a father.
Bernardo: They do not know this country any better than she does.
Anita: And you do not know it at all. Girls here are free to have fun. She is in America now.
Bernardo: Puerto Rico is in America now.
Anita: Sometimes I don't know which is thicker. Your skull or your accent.

View Quote Anita: I mind your nose and your head broken...Sure. They used Maria as an excuse to start World War III.
Bernardo: It is more than that.
Anita: More than what? She was only dancing.
Bernardo: With an American. He was really a Pollack.
Anita: Says the Spic.
Bernardo: You are not so cute.
Rosalia: That Tony is.
Consuelo: And he works.
Chino: As a delivery boy.
Anita: And what are you?
Chino: An assistant.
Bernardo: Si. And Chino makes half of what the Pollack makes.
Anita: Oh, here comes the whole commercial. 'Your mother's a Pole. Your father's a Swede. But you were born here. That's all that you need. You are an American.' When I think of how I thought it would be for us here, we came like children, believing, trusting.

View Quote Girls: [singing] I like to be in America, OK by me in America, Everything free in America
Bernardo: For a small fee in America.
Anita: Buying on credit is so nice.
Bernardo: One look at us and they charge twice.
Rosalia: I'll have my own washing machine.
Indio: What will you have, though, to keep clean?

View Quote Girl: [singing] Industry boom in America.
Boys: Twelve in a room in America.
Anita: Lots of new housing with more space.
Bernardo: Lots of doors slamming in our face.
Anita: I'll get the terrace apartment.
Bernardo: Better get rid of your accent.
Anita: Life can be bright in America.
Boys: If you can fight in America.
Girls: Life is all right in America.
Boys: If you're all white in America.
Girls: Here you are free and you have pride.
Boys: Long as you stay on your own side.
Girls: Free to be anything you choose.
Boys: Free to wait tables and shine shoes.

View Quote Maria: [singing] Tonight, tonight, it all began tonight, I saw you and the world went away.
Tonight, tonight, there's only you tonight, what you are, what you do, what you say.
Tony: Today, all day I had the feeling a miracle would happen, I know now I was right.
Tony and Maria: For here you are and what was just a world is a star tonight.