The Manchurian Candidate Quotes

Bennett Marco: I've been having this nightmare. A real swinger of a nightmare, too

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Ben Marco: Somebody got into our heads with with with with big steel-toe boots, cable cutters and a chainsaw and they went to town. Neurons got got got exposed and circuits got rewired. Our brain cells got obliterated, Raymond.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Raymond Shaw: 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.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
[a general greets Medal of Honor winner Staff Sgt. Raymond Shaw on his return to the U.S]
General: Congratulations, son. How do you feel?
Raymond Shaw: Like Captain Idiot in Astounding Science comics.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Marco : Intelligence officer. Stupidity officer is more like it. Pentagon wants to open a Stupidity Division, they know who they can get to lead it.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Raymond Shaw : My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups: those that walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn them off. The trouble is that they end up marrying each other.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
[ a general greets Medal of Honor winner Staff Sgt. Raymond Shaw on his return to the U.S ]
General : Congratulations, son. How do you feel?
Raymond Shaw : Like Captain Idiot in Astounding Science comics.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Raymond Shaw : 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.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
[ a nightmare switches between a ladies' garden club and a Soviet/Chinese military hospital ]
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!

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Dr. Yen Lo : His brain has not only been washed, as they say... It has been dry cleaned.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Raymond Shaw : Twelve days of Christmas! One day of Christmas is loathsome enough!

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
[ Shaw has been conditioned to obey when seeing the queen of diamonds; Marco has brought a special deck of all queens of diamonds ]
Raymond Shaw : They can make me do anything, Ben, can't they? Anything.
Bennett Marco : We'll see, kid. We'll see what they can do and we'll see what we can do. So the red queen is our baby. Well, take a look at this, kid... [ fans deck and keeps holding up the cards ]
Bennett Marco : 52 of them! Take a good look at 'em, Raymond, look at 'em, and while you're looking, listen. This is me, Marco, talking. 52 red queens and me are telling you... you know what we're telling you? It's over! The links, the beautifully conditioned links are smashed. They're smashed as of now because we say so, because we say they are to be smashed. We're busting up the joint, we're tearing out all the wires. We're busting it up so good all the queen's horses and all the queen's men will never put old Raymond back together again. You don't work any more! That's an order. Anybody invites you to a game of solitaire, you tell 'em sorry, buster, the ball game is over.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Mrs. Iselin : Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Bennett Marco : Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Yen Lo : Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Dr. Yen Lo : I'm sure you've all heard the old wives' tale that no hypnotized subject may be forced to do that which is repellent to his moral nature, whatever that may be. Nonsense of course.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Raymond Shaw : You couldn't have stopped them, the army couldn't have stopped them. So I had to.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Jocie : Darling. [ pause ]
Raymond Shaw : What?
Jocie : Nothing, Just... Darling.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Mrs. Iselin : It has been decided that you will be dressed as a priest, to help you get away in the pandemonium afterwards. Chunjin will give you a two-piece Soviet Army 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 Eighth 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 really hit 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 to 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 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?

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Mrs. Iselin : [ to her husband ] 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.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Marco : It's not that Raymond Shaw is hard to like. He's IMPOSSIBLE to like!

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Mrs. Iselin : 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. [ Puts her hands on Raymond's face ]
Mrs. Iselin : 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 underestimating me. [ Kisses Raymond on the forehead, then his cheek, then on his lips ]

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
[ last lines ]
Bennett Marco : Poor Raymond. Poor friendless, friendless Raymond. He was wearing his medal when he died. [ reads from a book of U.S Army citations ]
Bennett Marco : You should read some of the citations sometime. Just read them. 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 the book down ]
Bennett Marco : 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.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Mrs. Iselin : Oh, Raymond, what is the matter with you? You look as if your head were going to come to a point in the next thirteen seconds.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Col. Milt : [ gesturing towards a pile of books ] You read them all?
Marco : Yeah, they also make great insulation against an enemy attack! But the, uh, truth of the matter is that I'm just interested, you know, in, uh, Principles of Modern Banking and, History of Piracy. [ picking up books ]
Marco : Paintings of Orozco. Modern French Theater. The... Jurisprudential Factor of Mafia Administration. Diseases of Horses and novels of Joyce Cary and... Ethnic Choices of the Arabs. Things like that.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Dr. Yen Lo : Attractive plant you have here.
Zilkov : Thank you, doctor. It's actually a rest home for wealthy alcoholics. We were able to purchase it three years ago. Except for this floor and the floor above it, which is sealed off for security purposes, the rest functions quite normally. In fact it's one of the few Soviet operations in America that actually showed a profit at the end of the last fiscal year.
Dr. Yen Lo : Profit? Fiscal year? Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Beware, my dear Zilkov. The virus of capitalism is highly infectious. Soon you'll be lending money out at interest!

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Psychiatrist : Human fish, swimming at the bottom of the great ocean of atmosphere, develop psychic injuries as they collide with one another. Most mortal of all are those gotten from the parent fish.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Maryland is a beautiful state.
Bennett Marco : This is Delaware.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : I know, I was one of the orginal Chinese workmen who laid the track on this straight.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : But, em... nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : So is Ohio for that matter.
Bennett Marco : I guess so, Columbus is a tremendous football town.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Bennett Marco : You in the railroad business?
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Not anymore. However if you will permit me to point out, when you ask that question, you really should say: Are you in the railroad line?

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate
Bennett Marco : What's your name?
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Eugenie.
Bennett Marco : Pardon?
Eugenie Rose Chaney : No kidding, I really meant it. Crazy French pronounciation and all.
Bennett Marco : It's pretty.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Thank you.
Bennett Marco : I guess your friends call you Ginny.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Not yet they haven't, for which I am deeply gratefull... but you may call me Ginny
Bennett Marco : What do your friends call you?
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Rosie.
Bennett Marco : Why?
Eugenie Rose Chaney : My full name is Eugenie Rose. Of the two names I've always favored Rose, 'cause it smells of brown soap and beer. Eugenie is somehow more fragile.
Bennett Marco : Still, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Eugenie.
Eugenie Rose Chaney : Quite possible I was feeling more or less fragile at that instant.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate