The Manchurian Candidate quotes

View Quote I have here a list of the names of 207 persons who are known by the Secretary of Defense as being members of the Communist Party... I demand an answer, Mr. Secretary. There will be no covering up, sir, no covering up. You are not going to get your hands on this list. And I deeply regret having to say...

View Quote Chairlady: You will notice that I have told them they may smoke. I've allowed my people to have a little fun in the selection of bizarre tobacco substitutes... Are you enjoying your cigarette, Ed?
Ed Movole: Yes ma'am.
Dr. Yen Lo: Yak dung!... hope tastes good - like a cigarette should!

View Quote [Last lines] Poor Raymond. Poor friendless, friendless Raymond. He was wearing his medal when he died. You should read some of the citations sometime. Just read them. [Reading from U.S. Army book of Medal of Honor citations] Taken, eight prisoners, killing four enemy in the process while one leg and one arm was shattered and he could only crawl because the other leg had been blown off - Edwards. Wounded five times, dragged himself across the direct fire of three enemy machine guns to pull two of his wounded men to safety amid sixty-nine dead and two hundred and three casualties - Holderman. [Puts book down] Made to commit acts too unspeakable to be cited here by an enemy who had captured his mind and his soul, he freed himself at last and in the end, heroically and unhesitatingly gave his life to save his country. Raymond Shaw... Hell... Hell. [Thunder claps].

View Quote I despise John Iselin and everything that Iselin-ism has come to stand for. I think if John Iselin were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do more to harm this country than he's doing now.

View Quote I tell ya, there's something phony going on. There's something phony about me, about Raymond Shaw, about the whole Medal of Honor business... I said: 'Raymond Shaw is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life, and even now I feel that way - this minute. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, something tells me it's not true. It's just not true. It isn't as if Raymond's hard to like. He's impossible to like. In fact, he's probably one of the most repulsive human beings I've ever known in my whole - all of my life.

View Quote I am sure you've all heard the old wives' tale that no hypnotized subject may be forced to do that which is repellant to his moral nature, whatever that may be. Nonsense, of course.

View Quote We flew to Maryland last night. We got married. We just got back...There we were, the Queen of Diamonds and me looking like, I don't know, like Gaucho Marx... Ben, I just made a joke. Not a very good joke, I admit, but a joke. Ben, in all the years that you've known me, have you ever heard me make a joke? Well, I just made one. Gaucho Marx! Me! Ha! Big day! Mark that down in your book. Raymond Shaw got married and he made a joke. Gaucho Marx.

View Quote I know you will never entirely comprehend this, Raymond, but you must believe I did not know it would be you. I served them. I fought for them. I'm on the point of winning for them the greatest foothold they would ever have in this country. And they paid me back by taking your soul away from you. I told them to build me an assassin. I wanted a killer from a world filled with killers and they chose you because they thought it would bind me closer to them. [She places the sides of his face in her outstretched hands.] But now, we have come almost to the end. One last step. And then when I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously under-estimating me.

View Quote Raymond, if we were at war, and you were suddenly to become infatuated with the daughter of a Russian agent, wouldn't you expect me to come to you and object, and beg you to stop the entire thing before it was too late? Well we are at war. It's a Cold War, but it will get worse and worse until every man, woman, and child in this country will have to stand up and be counted, to say whether they are on the side of right and freedom or on the side of the Thomas Jordans of this country. I will go with you to Washington, tomorrow if you like, and I will show you do****ented proof that this man stands for evil, that he is evil, and that his whole life is devoted to undermining everything that you and I and Johnny, and every freedom-minded American--

View Quote I can see that Chinese cat standin' there smiling like Fu Manchu.

View Quote [To Sen. Iselin] I keep telling you not to think. You're very, very good at a great many things, but thinking, hon', just simply isn't one of them. You just keep shouting "Point of Order, Point of Order" into the television cameras and I will handle the rest.

View Quote My mother, Ben, is a terrible woman. A terrible, terrible woman... You know, Ben, it's a terrible thing to hate your mother. But I didn't always hate her. When I was a child, I only kind of disliked her. But after what she did to Jocie and me, that's when I began to hate her... Jocie Jordan - Senator Jordan's daughter... Thomas Jordan's daughter and Johnny Iselin's step-son... Years later, I realized, Ben, that I am not very loveable... Some people are loveable and some people are not loveable. I am not loveable. Oh, but I was very loveable with Jocie. Ben, you can't believe how loveable I was.

View Quote Allow me to introduce our American visitors. I must ask you to forgive their somewhat lackadaisical manners, but I have conditioned them - or brain-washed them, which I understand is the new American word. They believe that they are waiting out a storm in the lobby of a small hotel in New Jersey where a meeting of the ladies' garden club is in progress.

View Quote [To Raymond] It's been decided that you will be dressed as a priest to get away in the pandemonium afterwards. Chunjin will give you a two-piece Soviet Army's sniper's rifle that fits nicely into a special bag. There's a spotlight booth that won't be in use. It's up under the roof on the 8th Avenue side of the Garden. You will have absolutely clear, protected shooting. You are to shoot the Presidential nominee through the head. And Johnny will rise gallantly to his feet and lift Ben Arthur's body in his arms, stand in front of the microphones and begin to speak. The speech is short, but it's the most rousing speech I've ever read. It's been worked on here and in Russia on and off for over eight years. I shall force someone to take the body away from him. And Johnny will leave those microphones and those cameras with blood all over him, fighting off anyone who tries to help him, defending America even if it means his own death, rallying a nation of television-viewers into hysteria to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy. Now this is very important. I want the nominee to be dead about two minutes after he begins his acceptance speech, depending on his reading time under pressure. You are to hit him right at the point that he finishes the phrase, "nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself - my life before my liberty." Is that absolutely clear?

View Quote [To Raymond] Do you realize, Comrade, the implications of the weapon that has been placed at your disposal?... A normally-conditioned American, who has been trained to kill and then to have no memory of having killed. Without memory of his deed, he cannot possibly feel guilt. Nobody, of course, has any reason to fear being caught. Having been relieved of those uniquely American symptoms, guilt and fear, he cannot possibly give himself away. Ah, now Raymond will remain an outwardly-normal, productive, sober, and respected member of the community. And I should say, if properly used, entirely police-proof.