Virgil Tibbs Now listen, hear me good, Mama. Please. Don't make me have to send you to jail... There's white time in jail and there's colored time in jail. The worst kind of time you can do is colored time.
Most-quoted role: Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night (1967), 7 quotes
Movies Virgil Tibbs Tibbs I'm going home, man.
They're your people!
Tibbs Not mine! Yours! You made this scene.
Look, you want me to beg you, is that it?
Tibbs Look, I've had your town- up to here!
Boy, it would give me a world of satisfaction to horse whip you, Virgil.
Tibbs [laughing]
My father used to say that. He even did a couple of times.
Yeah, well, not enough to suit me! Now you listen to me. Just for once in my life I'm gonna hold my temper. I'm tellin' you you're gonna stay here. You're gonna stay here if I have to go inside and call your chief of police and have him remind you of what he told you to do. But I don't think I have to do that, you see? No. Because you're so damn smart. You're smarter than any white man. You're just gonna stay here and show us all. You've got such a big head that you could never live with yourself unless you could put us all to shame! You wanna know somethin', Virgil? I don't think that you could let an opportunity like that pass by.
Got a name, boy?
Tibbs Virgil Tibbs.
Virgil? [Laughing] Well, I don't think we're going to have any trouble, are we, Virgil?
Tibbs No trouble at all.
You can go now, Sam. [Deputy Sam Wood leaves the room] Whatcha hit him with?
Tibbs Hit whom?
"Whom"? "Whom"? Well, you a Northern boy? What's a Northern boy like you doing all the way down here?
Tibbs I was waiting for the train.
There ain't no trains this time in the morning.
Tibbs Tuesdays only 4:05 to Memphis.
You say. [train horn blowing] Well, alright. You say right. Now, look. I try to run a nice, clean, safe town here. A town where a man can sneeze and not get his brains beat out. You follow me?
Tibbs Yes.
Why don't you tell me how you killed Mr. Colbert, and I promise you you're gonna feel a whole lot better.
A man like this doesn't make mistakes.
No? They always make one somewhere. Isn't that how you were caught?
Carter Preston Ouch.
Preston, what about letting me have a gun?
Carter Preston Are you kidding? If the right people knew I was letting you walk around without cuffs, I'd get forced retirement!
Carter Preston This is a manhunt, not your cause. Don't make it personal.
What do you **** know?
Carter Preston All right! I'll tell you what I know. I know the Jackal set you up in that arms deal in Libya. I know that Isabella was wounded when you walked into the trap. I also know that it was the life you had chosen for...
'Declan Mulqueen: Did you also know that Isabella was pregnant when she got shot... That our child didn't survive? Don't tell me this isn't personal, Mr. Preston!
Carter Preston I can't risk letting you jeopardize us in a vendetta!
There's no vendetta. All I hope for now is a fresh start.
Carter Preston [to himself]
Maybe it will happen.
John Prentice After all, a lot of people are going to think we are a shocking pair.
John Prentice [to his father]
You've said what you had to say. You listen to me. You say you don't want to tell me how to live my life? So what do you think you've been doing? You tell me what rights I've got or haven't got, and what I owe to you for what you've done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you were supposed to do because you brought me into this world, and from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me, like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don't own me! You can't tell me when or where I'm out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules. You don't even know what I am, Dad. You don't know who I am. You don't know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life, you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the deadweight of you be off our backs! You understand? You've got to get off my back! Dad. Dad. You're my father. I'm your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. Hmm? Now, I've got a decision to make, hmm? And I've got to make it alone. And I gotta make it in a hurry. So, would you go out there and see after my mother?