Burt Lancaster movie quotes

View Quote Well, hurry it up. We're working on a locomotive, not a pocketwatch.

View Quote You crazy bastard.

View Quote There were over a hundred involved in stopping that train. Switchmen, brakemen, yard gangs, stationmasters. God knows how many will be shot, like Jacques. You know what's on that train? Paintings. That's right, paintings. Art. The national heritage. The pride of France. Crazy, isn't it?

View Quote Sin. Sin, Sin. You're all sinners. You're all doomed to perdition. You're all goin' to the painful, stinkin', scaldin', everlastin' tortures of a fiery hell, created by God for sinners, unless, unless, unless you repent.

View Quote As long as I got a foot, I'll kick booze. And, as long as I got a fist, I'll punch it. And, as long as I got a tooth, I'll bite it. And, when I'm old and gray and toothless and bootless, I'll gum it till I go to heaven and booze goes to hell.

View Quote I have here in my pocket - and thank heaven you can't see them - lewd, dirty, obscene, and I'm ashamed to say this: French postcards. They were sold to me in front of your own innocent high school by a man with a black beard... a foreigner.

View Quote Swede: Swell idea you guys had. Leave me holdin' the bag at the half-way house while you split up the dough, huh?...
Colfax: The half-way house burnt down last night. That's why we came here.
Swede: Somebody ought to have let me know.
Colfax: You were told, you're here.
Swede: Next time, play it straight.

View Quote Swede: You know what harps mean?
Charleston: Angels play 'em.
Swede: They mean Ireland. That's why they call them Mick's harps. Kitty's Irish. She give me this.

View Quote Kitty: I'm taking my life in my hands coming to you like this, but I just couldn't stand by, not after what you did for me that time in Philly.
Swede: Forget that. Why are you here now?
Kitty: Colfax thinks I'm on my way to New York. He's meeting me there tomorrow. But I just had to come to you, Swede, and tell you.
Swede: Tell me what?
Kitty: They're planning to double-cross you.
Swede: Who is?
Kitty: Colfax and the others. They don't intend for you ever to get a smell of the money from tomorrow's job.
Swede: How do you know that?
Kitty: Colfax sprung it tonight on Dum Dum and Blinky right after you left. First, he called you names and said dirty things about you. And then he sprung it. What if they were not to go to the half-way house after the robbery? You'd go there, but they'd be someplace else, and so would the money.
Swede: What did Blinky and Dum Dum say?
Kitty: They fell right in with the idea.
Swede: Where are they gonna meet?
Kitty: The farmhouse north of town on Polk Road, eleven miles out on the turnpike. Colfax hates you, Swede, so much so that Blinky and Dum Dum have caught it from him and they hate you too.
Swede: Thanks for putting me wise, Kitty.
Kitty: What are you gonna do? Swede - what are you gonna do?
Swede: I'm gonna do them like they mean to do me.
Kitty: Promise me one thing. You won't give me away. If Colfax ever found out what I did...
Swede: Don't you worry.
Kitty: You know why Colfax hates you? Because of me. He's no fool. He sees what's happened.
Swede: Why did you ever go back to him, Kitty?
Kitty: Maybe because I hate him. I'm poison, Swede, to myself and everybody around me. I'd be afraid to go with anyone I love for the harm I'd do them. I don't care harming him.
Swede: [He pulls Kitty into his arms] You're not meetin' him tomorrow.
Kitty: All right, Swede. [They embrace and kiss passionately]

View Quote Don't touch the suit.

View Quote Sally: Teach me stuff.
Lou: Like what?
Sally: What you know.
Lou: You want information or wisdom?
Sally: Both.

View Quote Sally: Why are you doing this for me?
Lou: Hey, it's nothing, Sinatra gives wings to hospitals. We all do what we can.

View Quote A man eats an apple. He gets a piece of the core stuck between his teeth. He tries to work it out with some cellophane from a cigarette pack. What happens? The cellophane gets stuck in there too. Anna? What was the use. I knew that somehow I'd wind up seeing her that night.

View Quote I am different. I never wanted the money - I just wanted you.

View Quote Steve Thompson: She's all right, she's just young.
Mrs. Thompson of Anna: Huh! Some ways, she knows more than Einstein.

View Quote Ernst Janning: Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, you must believe it!
Judge Dan Haywood: Herr Janning, it "came to that" the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.

View Quote There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.' It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies, and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said 'go ahead, take it, take it! Take Sudetenland, take the Rhineland — remilitarize it — take all of Austria, take it! And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual began in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life. Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do it — he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the 16-year-old girl, after all. Once more it is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it... whatever the pain and humiliation.

View Quote We have fallen on happy times, Herr Hahn. In old times it would have made your day if I'd deigned to say good morning to you. Now that we are here in this place together... you feel obliged to tell me what to do with my life... Listen to me, Herr Hahn, there have been terrible things that have happened to me in my life. But the worst thing that has ever happened... is to find myself in the company of men like you.

View Quote There hasn't been a single piece of paper written in the history of mankind that could serve as a deterrent to a Pearl Harbor. I sometimes wonder why we haven't learned that lesson by now. Every 20 years or so we have to pick ourselves up off the floor bleeding and pay for that mistake. Those mistakes are delivered to us C.O.D. by peace loving men. And bought and paid for with the lives of other men. Men in uniform.

View Quote I think the signing of a nuclear disarmament pact with the Soviet Union is at best an act of naivete, and at worst an unsupportable negligence. We've stayed alive because we've built up an arsenal, and we've kept the peace because we've dealt with an enemy who knew we would use that arsenal. And now we're asked to believe that a piece of paper will take the place of missile sites and Polaris submarines, and that an enemy who hasn't honored one solemn treaty in the history of its existence will now, for our convenience, do precisely that. I have strong doubts, gentlemen.

View Quote General James Mattoon Scott: And if you want to talk about your oath of office, I'm here to tell you face to face, President Lyman, that you violated that oath when you stripped this country of its muscles - when you deliberately played upon the fear and fatigue of the people and told them they could remove that fear by the stroke of a pen. And then when this nation rejected you, lost faith in you, and began militantly to oppose you, you violated that oath by not resigning from office and turning the country over to someone who could represent the people of the United States.
President Jordan Lyman: And that would be General James Mattoon Scott, would it? I don't know whether to laugh at that kind of megalomania, or simply cry.
General James Mattoon Scott: James Mattoon Scott, as you put it, hasn't the slightest interest in his own glorification. But he does have an abiding interest in the survival of this country.
President Jordan Lyman: Then, by God, run for office. You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country - why in the name of God don't you have any faith in the system of government you're so hell-bent to protect?