The Choice

Mor. Let’s see once more this saying grav’d in gold:
Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.Why, that’s the lady: all the world desires her;
[...]
But here an angel in a golden bed
Lies all within. Deliver me the key:
Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!


Por. There, take it, prince; and if my form lie there,
Then I am yours. [He unlocks the golden casket.

Mor. O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll. I’ll read the writing.
All that glisters is not gold; 
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll’d:
Fare you well; your suit is cold.

Cold, indeed; and labour lost:
Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!
Portia, adieu. I have too griev’d a heart
To take a tedious leave: thus losers part. [Exit with his Train. Flourish of Cornets.

The Merchant of Venice (1600)
William Shakespeare



ELSA chooses a cup—a solid gold, emerald encrusted goblet. DONOVAN instantly takes it from her.  

DONOVAN

Oh, yes. It's more beautiful than I'd ever imagined. This certainly is the cup of the King of Kings.

[...]

His skin turns brown and leathery and stretches across his bones until it splits. His skeletal hands reach for ELSA's throat, choking her. INDY rushes forward and pushes DONOVAN away. As he falls he BODY BREAKS INTO FLAMES, then SHATTERS AGAINST THE WALL. 

KNIGHT
He chose...poorly.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
written by Jeffrey Boam, Tom Stoppard, George Lucas, & Menno Meyjes

"He would stand in the kitchen door and look out across the dusk and see, perhaps with foreboding and premonition, the savage and lonely street which he had chosen of his own will, waiting for him, thinking This is not my life. I don’t belong here

[...]

He was doomed to conceal always something from the women who surrounded him."

Light in August (1932)

William Faulkner

The Poor Decision

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse
My sister was 32, lovely, and loose
"Sister" Dirty Mind (1980)
Prince

Your oldest brother was away at a home
and you didn’t meet him til you was nineteen years old
Old enough to know better, old enough to know better 
"The Deeper In" Decoration Day (2003)
The Drive-By Truckers

selections from Prince's shocking 2 minute song about incest and Drive-By Trucker's shocking 2 minute song about incest.

The King

"Come at the king, you best not miss."
The Wire "Lessons" (2002)
written by David Simon & Ed Burns

"You take a shot at the king, make sure you kill him, son."
Line of Duty unknown episode (2012)
created by Jed Mercurio


I try not to editorialize, but it takes brass to grab the most recognizable line from a show that nobody ever shuts up about.

The Trustworthy Pants

"But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders."

Ace in the Hole (1951)

written by Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, & Billy Wilder

"How can you trust a man who wears a belt and suspenders? Man can't even trust his own pants."

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

written by Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Donati, & Dario Argento

from Dr. Puppykicker. Check out those writers on OUATITW

The Bureaucracy

“And the worst part of it is that he was killed, and no one knows who killed him. Yet he was killed. He was forwarded, like the others, at the order of Maslenikoff. Maslenikoff probably signed the usual order with his foolish flourish, on a printed letter-head, and, of course, does not consider himself guilty. The prison physician, who inspected the convicts, has still less reason for considering himself guilty. He carefully fulfilled his duties, separated the weak ones, and could not possibly foresee either the terrible heat, or that they would be taken away so late and in such a crowd. The inspector? But the inspector only carried out the order that on such a day so many men and women prisoners should be sent away. No more guilty was the officer of the convoy, whose duty consisted in receiving so many people at such a place and delivering them at another place. He led the party in the usual way, according to instructions, and could not possibly foresee that such strong men, like the two whom Nekhludoff had seen, would succumb and die. No one was guilty, and yet the men were killed by these very people who were innocent of their death.

“All this happened,” thought Nekhludoff, “because all those people—­the governor, inspector and the other officers—­saw before them, not human beings and their duties toward them, but the service and its requirements. Therein lies the difficulty.”

Resurrection (1899)

Leo Tolstoy

"I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with bailing wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down — I'll be in the window with a rifle. You even come to close and I'll pot you like a rabbit."

"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look — suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but long before your hung there will be another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy."

"That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to kill."

"You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told them: "Clear those people out or it's your job."

"Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a Board of Directors. I'll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank."

The driver said: "Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The orders were: "Make the land show profit or we'll close you up."

"But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don't aim to starve to death before I kill the man that's starving me."

"I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn't man at all. Maybe, like you said, the property's doing it. Anyway I told you my orders."

The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

John Steinbeck

The Shave

"Setting down his basin, the Negro searched among the razors, as for the sharpest, and having found it, gave it an additional edge by expertly stropping it on the firm, smooth, oily skin of his open palm; he then made a gesture as if to begin, but midway stood suspended for an instant, one hand elevating the razor, the other professionally dabbling among the bubbling suds on the Spaniard’s lank neck. Not unaffected by the close sight of the gleaming steel, Don Benito nervously shuddered, his usual ghastliness was heightened by the lather, which lather, again, was intensified in its hue by the sootiness of the Negro’s body. Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist the vagary, that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white, a man at the block. But this was one of those antic conceits, appearing and vanishing in a breath, from which, perhaps, the best regulated mind is not free."
Benito Cereno (1855)
Herman Melville

"I spent my whole life here, right here in Candieland, surrounded by black faces. Now seein' 'em every day, day in and day out, I only had one question: why don't they kill us? Now right out there on that porch, three times a week for fifty years, old Ben here would shave my daddy with a straight razor. Now, if I was old Ben, I woulda cut my daddy's goddamn throat, an' it wouldn't-a taken me no fifty years of doin' neither. But he never did. Why not?"
Django Unchained (2012)
Quentin Tarantino

from trixrabbi

The Faulknerian Sense of Time (2)

Time’s not such a bad thing after all. Use it right, and you can stretch anything out, like a rubberband, until it busts somewhere, and there you are, with all tragedy and despair in two little knots between thumb and finger of each hand.

Sanctuary (1931)
written by William Faulker

Calendars wont do for measuring time. They ought to be made of elastic, to shrink or stretch according to how much or how little goes in them. Nine days can be half a lifetime.

Follow Me Down (1950)

written by Shelby Foote

The Mean and Strong

It was a difficult delivery, now it’s growing up mean and strong 
Decoration Day "Heathens" (2003)

written by Patterson Hood for Drive-By Truckers


Mean and strong like liquor. Mean and strong like fear.

The Dirty South "Never Gonna Change" (2004)

written by Patterson Hood for Drive-By Truckers

The Power of Nature

Mielwis's parting word was to the effect that Nature, profligate though she may be, generator of transcendent and complicated blunders, holds one single principle above all others, and that is continuity. "And she will bring that about," he said, "even when she must pass a miracle to do it."
Mielwis explaining the existence of a planet without gender in
Venus Plus X (1960)
written by Theodore Sturgeon


"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is." 
"You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... breed?"
"No, I'm, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way."
Dr. Ian Malcolm explaining how a race of females will breed in
Jurassic Park (1993)
written by Michael Crichton & David Koepp

The Address

How long ago is it? Eighty odd years since, upon the Fourth day of July, for the first time in the world, a union body of representatives was assembled to declare as a self-evident truth that all men were created equal.

[...]
Another of our Presidents, five years afterwards, was called from this stage of existence on the same day of the month, and now on this Fourth of July just past, when a gigantic rebellion has risen in the land, precisely at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow that principle "that all men are created equal," we have a surrender of one of their most powerful positions and powerful armies forced upon them on that very day. 

[...]
Gentlemen, this is a glorious theme and a glorious occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the theme and worthy of the occasion. I would like to speak in all praise that is due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the Union and liberties of this country from the beginning of this war, not on occasions of success, but upon the more trying occasions of the want of success.

Independence Day Address of July 7, 1863

Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)

Abraham Lincoln

The Ring in the Nose

"You put a ring through dad's nose and…"

Blood of Dracula (1957)

written by Ralph Thornton

"You can't just put a ring in his nose and lead him around."

Black Zoo (1963)

written by Aben Kandel & Herman Cohen

Both pictures were produced by Herman Cohen, so I'm wondering if he snuck this specific insult into Blood of Dracula, too.

The Octopus

"It's your own fault anyway, drinking all that free wine and turning into an octopus with hands."
"You misunderstood. You flatter yourself. I was only trying to be friendly."
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

written by Henri Rochard, Charles Lederer, Leonard Spigelgass, Hagar Wilde

"Well, you had moments of kind of making like an octopus. I never saw so many hands in all my life."
"All right. All right. Look, my only excuse is that I liked you."

The Thing from Another World (1951)

written by Charles Lederer, Howard Hawks, Ben Hecht

The Faulknerian Sense of Time

It was Grandfather's [watch] and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire [...] I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
written by William Faulkner


If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time.
As I Lay Dying (1930)
written by William Faulker


Time’s not such a bad thing after all. Use it right, and you can stretch anything out, like a rubberband, until it busts somewhere, and there you are, with all tragedy and despair in two little knots between thumb and finger of each hand.
Sanctuary (1931)
written by William Faulker

The Colors of the Wind

Did you ever see a she-gator protect her young 
Or a fish in a river swimming free? 
Did you ever see the beauty of the hills of Carolina 
Or the sweetness of the grass in Tennessee?
[...]
Do you like to see a mountain stream a-flowin'? 
Do you like to see a youngin' with his dog?
Did you ever stop to think about, well, the air you're breathin'?
"All I Can Do is Write About It" Gimme Back My Bullets (1976)
written by Ronnie Van Zant & Allen Collins


Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon 
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned? 
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains? 
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? 
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
"The Colors of the Wind" Pocahontas (1995)
written by Stephen Schwartz

The Job Description

"You're the butler, aren't you? Well, buttle!"
My Son, the Hero (1943)
written by Doris Malloy & Sam Newfield


"I'm merely a humble butler." 
"What exactly do you do?" 
"I buttle, sir."
Clue (1985)
written by John Landis & Jonathan Lynn

The Walrus

"I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other."
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
Ernest Hemingway




"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."
"I Am the Walrus" Magical Mysery Tour (1967)
The Beatles

The Wedding

"I now pronounce you man and wife. That'll be two dollars."
Arrowsmith (1931)
written by Sinclair Lewis and Sidney Howard


"I now pronounce you man and wife. That'll be two dollars."
Damaged Lives (1933)
written by Eugène Brieux, Donald Davis, and Edgar G. Ulmer

The Royal We

"I thought we'd drop in on young Richard for a bit."
"We?"
"Uh, 'we' in the sense of visiting royalty. […] I am referring to the editorial we."  

The Invisible Woman (1940)
written by Curt Siodmak, Joe May, Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo & Gertrude Purcell  


"We dropped off the damn money."
"We?"
"I! The Royal 'we'! You know, the editorial..."


The Big Lebowski (1998)
written by Joel and Ethan Coen

The Blasphemy

"Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!"


Frankenstein (1931)
written by John L. Balderston, Francis Edward Faragoh, & Garrett Fort




"Mr. Parker, do you know what it means to feel like God?"


Island of Lost Souls (1932)
written by H.G. Wells & Waldemar Young