Peter Sellers movie quotes

View Quote Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room! Note: ranked #64 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote Muffley: General Turgidson, it is the avowed policy of our nation never to strike first with nuclear weapons.
Turgidson: Well, sir, I would say that General Ripper has already invalidated that policy!
Muffley: That was not an act of national policy and there are still alternatives left open to us.

View Quote [on the phone, after having been told that the Russian Premiere is drunk] Hello? Uh, hello? Hello, Dmitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? [pause] Oh, that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then, as you say we're both coming through fine. Good. Well, it's good that you're fine, and - and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. [Laughs] Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. [pause] The BOMB, Dmitri! The hydrogen bomb! Well now, what happened is, uh, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well, he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little...funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes...to attack your country. Well, let me finish, Dmitri. Let me finish, Dmitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? [sounding hurt] Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello! Not now, but any time, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly,...you probably wouldn't have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. [pause] I'm sorry too, Dmitri. I'm very sorry. All right! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are Dmitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, all right? All right.

View Quote Now you listen to me, Colonel Bat Guano, if that is your real name!

View Quote [to Ripper] Do I look all rancid and clotted? You look at me, Jack. Eh? Look, eh? And I drink a lot of water, you know. I'm what you might call a water man, Jack - that's what I am. And I can swear to you, my boy, swear to you, that there's nothing wrong with my bodily fluids. Not a thing, Jackie.

View Quote Jack, I am afraid I am going to have to ask you for the key to the door and the recall code, please.

View Quote Greenhouses can keep plant life, animals can be bred and slaughtered.

View Quote A moment please, Mr. President.

View Quote The technology required is easily within the means of even the smallest nuclear power. It requires only the will to do so.

View Quote I arrest you, Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious pink Lytton.

View Quote You fool! You raving Oriental idiot! There is a time and a place for everything, Cato! ...and this is it!!

View Quote [after inadvertently destroying much of the hotel he is in]: I must leave. Zis Hotel is deteriorating rapidly.

View Quote Special delivery: a beumb. Were you expecting one? A BEUMB!?

View Quote I am not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill transvestite!

View Quote Ohhhh...Sixteen chests on a dead man's rum/Yo-ho-ho in the bottle of the chest/Drink to the devils and done for the rums/Hoooooooooooooooo!

View Quote Stop! Stop! Cut! Cut! Shame on you, Sevalio! You are a disgrace to your village and to the motion picture industry!

View Quote Where is he? Where is my Tony!? Where is my beautiful Tony? Look at that skin--like a baby. Whatsa matter, you never get old like the rest of us, eh? I love him, I LOVE him!

View Quote Fabrizi: No matter how fast you run, you cannot run away from yourself.
Tony: Brilliant!

View Quote Arrgh...If only I could steal enough to become an honest man!

View Quote The wrong man escaped????

View Quote Gina: Ooh, he's a good kisser.
Aldo: You know how many good kissers are starving in Italy?

View Quote I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one.

View Quote Well, Cato, I'm back on the case. Ah-ha! [hits him] Now to set the trap, catch the killer and prove to the world that Maria Gambrelli is innocent... of murder. We must accelerate out training program. You must learn to attack me whenever and wherever I least expect it. And you, you must give no quarter.

View Quote Facts, Hercule, facts! Nothing matters but the facts. Without them the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game.

View Quote Repeated lines, initially referring simply to his lifelong habit of watching television.

View Quote Stepping out of an elevator.

View Quote I like to watch.

View Quote Wisdom is the province of the aged, but the heart of a child is pure.

View Quote Thirty days have September, October, June and February, all the rest have 29, except my brother who got six months.

View Quote Howdy partiner

View Quote A beekeeper who has lost his voice, a cook who thinks he's a gardener, and a witness to a murder. Oh, yes. It is obvious to my trained eye that there is much more going on here than meets the ear.

View Quote Most ingenious. The old closet ploy. I really must congratulate you; if there's one thing I enjoy, it's a good closet ploy.

View Quote For me, the greater the odds, the greater the shal-ahnje. And as always, I accept the shal-ahnje.

View Quote Humbert: Quilty, Quilty.
Quilty: Wha? Wha? What's that?
Humbert: Are you Quilty?
Quilty: No, I'm Spartacus. Have you come to free the slaves or somethin'?
Humbert: Are you Quilty?
Quilty: Yeah, I am Quilty. Yes, sure.
Humbert: Shall we have a little chat before we start?

View Quote Charlotte: Oh, hello. Hello, again! Oh, it's certainly been a long time!
Quilty: It certainly has, yes.
Charlotte: Do you know that I've been the local authority on you ever since.
Quilty: Is that so? Well, that's very sweet of you. Thank you so much.
Charlotte: I'll never forget that intellectually stimulating talk that you gave to our club.
Quilty: Yes, a magnificent club. Really magnificent. Tell me one thing - are you a columnist?
Charlotte: No, no. Don't you remember? That afternoon changed my whole life.
Quilty: Oh, well, how about that? [He chuckles]
Charlotte: You remember it. [She whispers in his ear]
Quilty: Did I do that? [She nods] Did I?
Charlotte: And afterwards, you know, I showed you my garden. And I drove you to the airport.
Quilty: Yes, really great fun. Listen, listen, din, din you have a dawda (daughter)? Din you have a dawda with a lovely name? Yeah, a lovely, what was it now, a lovely lyrical lilting name like, uh, uh...
Charlotte: Lo-li-ta.
Quilty: Lo-li-ta, that's right. Lolita. Diminutive of Dolores, the tears and the roses.

View Quote Quilty: Hello, heh-heh, heh-heh. Hello.
Humbert: Oh, you're addressing me?...I thought there was perhaps someone with you.
Quilty: No, I'm not really with someone. I'm with you, heh-heh. I didn't mean that as an insult. What I really meant was that, uh, I'm with the State Police, uh, here, and, uh, when I'm with them, I'm with someone, but right now, I'm on my own. I mean, I'm not with a lot of people, just you. Heh.
Humbert: Well, I wouldn't like to disturb you. I'll leave you alone if you prefer it.
Quilty: No, you don't really have to go at all. I like it, you know, because, uh, I don't know what it is. I sort of get the impression that you want to leave but you don't like to leave because maybe you think I'd think it'd look suspicious, me being a policeman...You don't have to think that, because, uh, I haven't really got a suspicious mind at all. I look suspicious myself. A lot of people think I'm suspicious, especially when I stand around on street corners. One of our own boys picked me up the other week - he thought I was too suspicious standing on a street corner and everything. Tell me something, uhm, I couldn't help noticing when you checked in tonight. It's part of my job - I notice human individuals - and I noticed your face. I said to myself when I saw you - I said, 'That's a guy with the most normal-looking face I ever saw in my life'...It's great to see a normal face, because I'm a normal guy. It would be great for two normal guys like us to get together and talk about world events - you know, in a normal sort of way...May I say one other thing to you? It's really on my mind. I've been thinking about it quite a lot. I noticed when you was checking in, you had a lovely, pretty little girl with you. She was really lovely. As a matter of fact, she wasn't so little, come to think of it. She was fairly tall, what I mean, taller than little, you know what I mean. But, uh, she was really lovely. I wish I had a lovely, pretty tall, lovely little girl like that, I mean...Your daughter? Gee, isn't it great to have a lovely, tall, pretty little, small daughter like that, it's really wonderful. I don't have any children, boys or little tall girls or anything. I'm not even...Heh-heh, may I say something? I thought you was looking a little uneasy at the desk there. Maybe I was thinking that you want to get away from your wife for a little while. I don't blame you. If I was married, I'd take every opportunity to get away from my wife.
Humbert: She had an accident.
Quilty: That's really terrible. I mean, fancy a fella's wife having, a normal guy's wife having an accident like that. What happened to her?
Humbert: She was hit by a car.
Quilty: Gee, no wonder she's not here. Gee, you must feel pretty bad about that. What's happening? Is she coming on later or something?
Humbert: Well, that was the understanding.
Quilty: What? In an ambulance? Heh-heh. Gee, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that. I get sorta carried away, you know, being so normal and everything. Tell me, umm, when you were standing there at the desk checkin' in with the night manager, Mr. George Swine, who I happen to know as a personal friend of mine, umm, I was wondering if, uh, he fixed you up with, uh, sort of good accommodation here...You're quite sure about that, because, I mean, I could really easily have a word with George Swine. Uh, I mean, he's a really nor-normal nice sorta guy and I've only got to have a normal word in his ear and you'd be surprised what things could happen from a thing like that. I mean, he-he'd probably go and turn some of the troopers out so you could have a lovely room - a bridal suite for you and your lovely little girl.
Humbert: No, please, I don't want you to take any trouble on my account. We're perfectly comfortable.
Quilty: But he should do it. It's his job to fix you up with something nice, I mean, you know, he gets paid for doing that thing and when he sees a guy like you coming in, all normal and everything, with a lovely little girl beside him, he should say to himself, 'Gee, I've got to give that guy a lovely sorta comfortable foamy bed to sleep in.' I mean, you know, I just don't like to hear things like that happening because I could go over and really take a swipe at him for not giving you a lovely, comfortable, sleepy, movie-star bed. You know what I mean, heh, I mean, you know, what has he got ya? On the floor or something?
Humbert: Well, the little girl is probably asleep already - in the bed - and, uh... [laughs] I don't know why we're discussing this because...
Quilty: Listen, why don't you let me have a look at the room - at the accommodation that you have, now, and-and-and- really take it in for a second - and then I could come down and have a word with George Swine? It would be so simple.
Humbert: If you'll excuse me.
Quimby: You're going because you maybe think that, uh, me being a policeman and everything, I think you're sorta suspicious. I-I don't think that at all. I think you're really normal and everything. You don't have to go because of that...You have a most interesting face. Goodnight.

View Quote I had no idea that mere domestic power could be so stimulating.

View Quote I shall invent an entirely new torture, against which there is no possible defense.

View Quote Fu Manchu: Nayland Smith again. That is very good news...
Servant: Why is it good news, master?
Fu Manchu: Because I'm in no condition to receive bad news. I shall fine you each 1000 yen.
Servant: But you don't pay us, master.
Fu Manchu: Then I shall start paying you in order to fine you.