West Side Story quotes

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 Riff: Now we fought hard for this turf and we ain't just gonna give it up...The Emeralds claimed it. We shut 'em out. The Hawks, remember, they tried to take it away, and we knocked 'em down to the cellar.
Jets: Yeah, but these PRs are different. They multiply. They keep comin'. Like ****roaches. Close the windows. Shut the doors. They're eatin' our food. They're breathin' all the air. The end to free enterprise...
Riff: Hey, you heard what that Lieutenant Schrank said, eh? We gotta make nice with 'em Puerto Ricans or else. We gotta let 'em move in right under our noses and take it all away from us, or else.
Jets: No!
Riff: You're damned right NO. So what are we gonna do buddy-boys? I'll tell ya what we're gonna do. We're gonna speed fast. We're gonna move like lightnin'. And we're gonna clean them Sharks up once and for all so they ain't never gonna set foot on our turf again. And we're gonna do it in one, all-out fight...The Sharks want a piece of this world too. And they're real down boys. They might ask for blades, zip guns...I say this turf is small, but it's all we got, huh? Now I want to hold it like we always held it, with skin. But if they say blades, I say blades. If they say guns, I say guns. I say I want that just to be the number one - to sail, to hold the sky...OK cats, we rumble. Now, protocality calls for a war council between us and the Sharks, to set the whole thing up. So I would personally give the bad news to Bernardo.

View Quote How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you, and you? All of you. You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets and guns - with hate. Well, I can kill too because now I have hate! How many can I kill, Chino? How many and still have one bullet left for me?

View Quote Tony: Every single night for the last month, I wake up. And I'm reachin' out.
Riff: For what?
Tony: I don't know.
Riff: A dame?
Tony: It's right outside the door. Just around the corner. But it's comin'.
Riff: What is?
Tony: I don't know. It's like the kick I used to get from bein' a Jet, you know?
Riff: Oh, well now you're talkin'. Oh man, without a gang, you're an orphan. With a gang, you walk in twos, threes, fours. And when your crew is the best, when you're a Jet, you're out in the sun, buddy-boy. You're home free home.
Tony: Riff, I've had it.
Riff: Tony, Tony, look at me, will ya? Come on, look at me...Now, I never asked the time of day from a clock, did I? I never asked nothin' from nobody. But I'm askin' you: 'Come to the dance tonight.'
Tony: I promised Doc I'd clean up the store tonight.
Riff: Then do it after the dance. Tony, I already told the guys you'd be there. If you don't show up, I'll be marked lousy.
Tony: What time'd ya tell 'em?
Riff: Ten. For me Tony, for Riff!
Tony: Ten it is.
Riff: Womb to tomb!
Tony: Birth to Earth. And I'll live to regret this.
Riff: Who knows? Maybe what you're waitin' for will be twitchin' at the dance tonight?

View Quote Anita: Bernardo was right. If one of you was lying in the street bleeding, I'd walk by and spit on you.
Action: Go on and go. Don't tell Chino that Tony's hidin' in the cellar.
Anita: Don't you touch me! I got a message for your American buddy. You tell that murderer that Maria's never going to meet him. You tell him that Chino found out about them and shot her. She's dead.
Doc: When do you kids stop? You make this world lousy.
Action: We didn't make it, Doc.
Doc: Get out of here.

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

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 '[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 Tony: I'm thinkin' I'm someone else.
Maria: I know you are not.
Tony: Have we met before?
Maria: I know we have not.
Tony: I felt - I knew something never before was gonna happen, had to happen. But this is so much more.
Maria: My hands are cold. Yours too. [She touches his cheek] So warm.
Tony: [He touches her face] So beautiful.
Maria: Beautiful.
Tony: So much to believe. You're not makin' a joke.
Maria: I have not yet learned how to joke that way. I think now I never will.

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 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 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 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.