Jaws Quotes

Emily Leighton: I really don't follow politics, Ms. Burns. I haven't the head for it.

Lucy Burns: We're citizens or we're chattle: you don't really need a degree from Harvard to figure that out.

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Lucy Burns: Don't argue with me! You're mama duck, we follow you. If you go down, they'll scatter. Use your head.

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Hooper: I'm not going to waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch.

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Quint: Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down to the pond and chasing bluegills and tommycocks. This shark, swallow you whole. No shakin', no tenderizin', down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

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Quint: This shark, swallow you whole.

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Mayor Vaughn: Fellows, let's be reasonable, huh? This is not the time or the place to perform some kind of a half-assed autopsy on a fish... And I'm not going to stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock.

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Mayor Vaughn: Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, Huh? What? You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

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Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?

Brody: What happened?

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named The Battle of Waterloo and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the

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Hooper: [Hooper attempts to wet his mask before Quint and Brody lower him in the shark cage] I got no spit.

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[Hooper is examining the remains of the first victim - describes the post-mortem into his tape recorder]

Hooper: The height and weight of the victim can only be estimated from the partial remains. The torso has been severed in mid-thorax; there are no major organs remaining...

Hooper: Right arm has been severed above the elbow with massive tissue loss in the upper musculature... partially denuded bone remaining...

Hooper: [to the m.e. and Brody] This was no boat accident!

Hooper: [to Brody] Did you notify the Coast Guard about this?

Brody: No. It was only local jurisdiction.

Hooper: [continues post-mortem] The left arm, head, shoulders, sternum and portions of the rib cage are intact...

Hooper: [to Brody] Do not smoke in here, thank you very much.

Hooper: [lifts up the severed arm] This is what happens. It indicates the non-frenzied feeding of a large squalus - possibly Longimanus or Isurus glauca. Now... the enormous amount of tissue loss prevents any detailed analysis; however the attacking squalus must be considerably larger than any normal squalus found in these waters. Didn't you get on a boat and check out these waters?

Brody: No.

Hooper: Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn't any propeller; and it wasn't any coral reef; and it wasn't Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.

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Brody: Is it true that most people get attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from the beach?

Hooper: Yeah.

Brody: And that... and that before people started to swim for recreation - I mean before sharks knew what they were missing - that a lot of these attacks weren't reported?

Hooper: That's right.

Brody: Now this shark that... that... that swims alone...

Hooper: Rogue.

Brody: What's it called?

Hooper, Brody: [together] Rogue.

Brody: Rogue, yeah. Now this guy, he... he keeps swimmin' around in a place where the feeding is good until the food supply is gone, right?

Hooper: It's called territoriality. It's just a theory that I happen to... agree with.

Brody: Then why don't we have one more drink and go down and cut that shark open?

Ellen Brody: Martin? Can you do that?

Brody: I can do anything; I'm the chief of police.

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Ben Gardner: When we get them silly bastards down in that rock pile, it'll be some fun, they'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers. When they start takin' their bottoms out and slamming into them rocks, boy! Get away from there, ya goddamn fool, you! What's the matter with you? You wanna swamp us, ya crazy son of a *****?

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Hooper: Hello.

Ben Gardner: Hello back... young feller. How are ya? Say I hope you not going out with those nuts, are ya?

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Christine 'Chrissie' Watkins: Come on into the water!

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[first lines]

Tom Cassidy: What's your name again?

Christine 'Chrissie' Watkins: Chrissie.

Tom Cassidy: Where are we going?

Christine 'Chrissie' Watkins: Swimming

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Ellen Brody: [to Chief Brody] You told me the shark was caught. And I, I heard it on the news... I heard it on the Cape station.

Hooper: They caught A shark, not THE shark. Big difference. Not the shark that killed Chrissie Watkins... and probably not the shark that killed the little boy... which I wanted to prove today, by cutting the shark open...
[sees the Chief pouring the wine he brought]

Hooper: you know, you oughta let that breathe a little
[sees the massive glass the Chief has poured]

Hooper: - nothing, nothing!

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[last lines]

Brody: What day is this?

Hooper: It's Wednesday... eh, it's Tuesday, I think.

Brody: Think the tide's with us?

Hooper: Keep kicking.

Brody: I used to hate the water...

Hooper: I can't imagine why.

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Quint: [before leaving dock] Break it up will ya', Chief! Daylight's wastin'.

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Quint: [trying to hurry Brody into the boat] Come on Chief, this isn't no boy scout picnic. See ya' got ya' rubbers!
[Quint laughs wildly]

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Quint: [talking Brody through making knots] Little brown eel comes out of the cave... Swims into the hole... Comes out of the hole... Goes back into the cave again... It's not too good is it Chief?
[Refering to Brody's messed up knot]

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Hooper: He ate the light.

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Hooper: Ha, ha - they're all gonna die.

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Hooper: That's a twenty footer.

Quint: Twenty-five. Three tons of him.

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Hooper: This was no boat accident.

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Quint: You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life.

Hooper: All right, all right. Hey, I don't need this... I don't need this working-class-hero crap.

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Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat.

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Brody: It doesn't make any sense when you pay a guy like you to watch sharks.

Hooper: Well, uh, it doesn't make much sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island either.

Brody: It's only an island if you look at it from the water.

Hooper: That makes a lot of sense.

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Ellen Brody: [upon meeting Matt Hooper] My husband tells me you're in sharks.

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Mayor Vaughn: I don't think either of one you are familiar with our problems.

Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!

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Brody: Smile you son of a *****.

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