North by Northwest Quotes

A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

Roger Thornhill: Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

Eve Kendall: [Hanging by their fingers from Mount Rushmore] What happened with your first two marriages?
Roger Thornhill: My wives divorced me.
Eve Kendall: Why?
Roger Thornhill: They said I led too dull a life.

Clara Thornhill: You gentlemen aren't REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?

Roger Thornhill: In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.

Eve Kendall: I'm a big girl.
Roger Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.

[Thornhill is wearing sunglasses to hide his identity]
Ticket Seller: Something wrong with your eyes?
Roger Thornhill: Yes, they're sensitive to questions.

Phillip Vandamm: That wasn't very sporting, using real bullets.

Phillip Vandamm: Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan?

Phillip Vandamm: Mr. Kaplan, you are quite the performer. First you're the outraged Madison Avenue advertising executive who claims that he has been mistaken for someone else. Next, you play the fugitive from justice supposedly trying to clear himself of a crime he knows he didn't commit. And now, you're the jealous lover spurned by love and betrayal.
Roger Thornhill: Apparently the only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.
Phillip Vandamm: Your very next role, and you'll be quite convincing, I assure you.

Roger Thornhill: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.
Eve Kendall: What makes you think you have to conceal it?
Roger Thornhill: She might find the idea objectionable.
Eve Kendall: Then again, she might not.

Man at Prairie Crossing: That's funny, that plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops.

Clara Thornhill: Roger... Pay the two dollars.

Eve Kendall: It's going to be a long night.
Roger Thornhill: True.
Eve Kendall: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.
Roger Thornhill: Ah.
Eve Kendall: You know what I mean?
Roger Thornhill: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Roger Thornhill: You're police, aren't you? Or is it FBI?
The Professor: FBI, CIA, ONI... we're all in the same alphabet soup.

Eve Kendall: Roger O. Thornhill. What does the O stand for?
Roger Thornhill: Nothing.

Bureaucrat: So horribly sad. How is it I feel like laughing?

Roger Thornhill: What's wrong with men like me?
Eve Kendall: They don't believe in marriage.
Roger Thornhill: I've been married twice.
Eve Kendall: See what I mean?

Eve Kendall: I tipped the steward five dollars to seat you here if you should come in.
Roger Thornhill: Is that a proposition?
Eve Kendall: I never discuss love on an empty stomach.
Roger Thornhill: You've already eaten!
Eve Kendall: But you haven't.

Phillip Vandamm: What possessed you to come blundering in here like this? Could it be an overpowering interest in art?
Roger Thornhill: Yes, the art of survival.
Eve Kendall: He followed me here from the hotel.
Leonard: He was in your room?
Roger Thornhill: Sure. Isn't everybody?

Roger Thornhill: I don't like the games you play, Professor.
The Professor: War is hell, Mr. Thornhill. Even when it's a cold one.
Roger Thornhill: If you fellows can't lick the VanDamm's of this world without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back, perhaps you ought to start learning how to lose a few cold wars.
The Professor: I'm afraid we're already doing that.

Roger Thornhill: No. No, Mother, I have not been drinking. No. No. These two men, they poured a whole bottle of bourbon into me. No, they didn't give me a chaser.

The Professor: War is hell, Mr. Thornhill, even when it's a cold one.

Leonard: You must have had some doubts about her yourself. You still do.
Phillip Vandamm: Rubbish.
Leonard: Why else would you have decided not to tell her that our little treasure here has a belly full of microfilm?
Phillip Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Phillip Vandamm: The truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my woman's intuition, if you will. But I've never trusted neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning.

Roger Thornhill: Then, then your name isn't Kaplan?
Man at Prairie Crossing: Can't say it is, 'cause it ain't.

Roger Thornhill: Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes? Couldn't he have taken an hour?
Eve Kendall: You could always take a cold shower.

[Escaping captivity, Roger Thornhill slips in through the window of a darkened hospital room. Immediately the light is snapped on. A woman patient sits up in the bed, reaching for her glasses]
Hospital Patient: STOP!
Roger Thornhill: [stops] Oh. Excuse me.
[resumes moving towards the door]
Roger Thornhill: [She has put on her glasses and gets a good look at him]
Hospital Patient: [plaintively] Stop.
[Thornhill pauses, turns briefly to warn her off with a raised finger, then rushes out the door]

Roger Thornhill: I didn't realize you were an art collector. I thought you just collected corpses.

Roger Thornhill: When we get out of this, you can ride the train with me again.
Eve Kendall: Is that a proposition?
Roger Thornhill: It's a proposal, sweetie!

Eve Kendall: How do I know you aren't a murderer?
Roger Thornhill: You don't.
Eve Kendall: Maybe you're planning to murder me right here, tonight.
Roger Thornhill: Shall I?
Eve Kendall: Please do.

Roger Thornhill: And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Phillip Vandamm: Games? Must we?
Roger Thornhill: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of *unreasonable* about things like that.
Phillip Vandamm: With such expert playacting, you make this very room a theater.

The Professor: If I thought there was any chance of changing your mind, I'd talk about Miss Kendall, of whom you so obviously disapprove.
Roger Thornhill: Yes, for using sex like some people use a flyswatter.

Roger Thornhill: How do we know it's not a fake? It looks like a fake.
Bidder: Well, one thing we know. You're no fake. You are a genuine idiot.

Eve Kendall: While I'm calling, you can change your clothes.
Roger Thornhill: Where do you propose I do that? In Marshall Fields' window?
Eve Kendall: I sort of had the men's room in mind.
Roger Thornhill: Did you, now? You're the smartest girl I ever spent the night with on a train.

Roger Thornhill: Well, didn't you hear what I said? I want to be taken to police headquarters. I'm a dangerous assassin, I'm a mad killer on the loose!
Sergeant Flamm - Chicago Policeman: You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Roger Thornhill: I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.

Leonard: You're not taking her on the plane with you?
Phillip Vandamm: Of course I am. Like our friends, I too believe in neatness, Leonard. This matter is best disposed of from a great height, over water.

Roger Thornhill: I don't think I caught your name.
The Professor: I don't think I pitched it.

Roger Thornhill: When I was a little boy, I wouldn't even let my mother undress me.
Eve Kendall: Well, you're a big boy now.

Roger Thornhill: How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?
Eve Kendall: Lucky, I guess.

Eve Kendall: I want you to do a favor for me. A big, big favor.
Roger Thornhill: Name it.
Eve Kendall: I want you to leave right now, stay far away from me, and don't come near me again. We're not going to get involved. Last night was last night, and it's all there was, and it's all there is. There isn't going to be anything more between us. So please. Goodbye, good luck, no conversation, just leave.

Eve Kendall: You've got taste in clothes, taste in food.
Roger Thornhill: [necks Eve] Hmm, And taste in women. I like your flavor.

Roger Thornhill: [to Eve] Who are you kidding? You have no feelings to hurt.

Larry Wade: [Referring to the drinks] We've gotten a head start here, Mr. Thornhill.
Roger Thornhill: That won't last long.

Roger Thornhill: Jack Philips, manager for Kingby Electronics.
Eve Kendall: No, you're not, you're Roger Thornhill of Madison Avenue, and you're wanted for murder on every front page in America. Don't be modest.

Phillip Vandamm: Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the F.B.I. and a little more from the Actor's Studio.

Roger Thornhill: We'll get them. We'll throw the book at them. Assault and kidnapping. Assault with a gun and a bourbon and a sports car. We'll get them.

Roger Thornhill: [a drunk Thornhill looks over the side of the car and sees the rear wheel is dangling over the side of a cliff] Whewwwwww!

Roger Thornhill: I'm being followed. Can you do something about that?
Taxi Driver #2: Yes I can.
Roger Thornhill: Do it.

Charley - Chicago Policeman: Where are we goin'?
Sergeant Flamm - Chicago Policeman: Airport.
Charley - Chicago Policeman: For what?
Sergeant Flamm - Chicago Policeman: Orders.

Roger Thornhill: Say, do I look heavyish to you?

Roger Thornhill: [... ] it's something about my face.
Eve Kendall: It's a nice face.
Roger Thornhill: You think so?
Eve Kendall: I wouldn't say it if I didn't.
Roger Thornhill: Oh, you're that type.
Eve Kendall: What type?
Roger Thornhill: Honest.

Roger Thornhill: Tell me, why are you so good to me?
Eve Kendall: Shall I climb up and tell you why?

The Professor: We ahh... we do nothing.

Clara Thornhill: Roger, I think we should go.
Roger Thornhill: Don't be nervous.
Clara Thornhill: I'm not nervous, I'll be late for the bridge club.

Roger Thornhill: I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

Roger Thornhill: Seven parking tickets.

Roger Thornhill: Handle with care, fellas. I'm valuable property.

Roger Thornhill: Who are you?
Valerian: Mere errand boys carrying concealed weapons. His is pointed at your heart, so, please, no errors of judgment, I beg of you.
Roger Thornhill: What is this? A joke or something?
Licht: Yes, a joke. We'll laugh in the car.

Judge Anson B. Flynn: How long have you known your client?
Victor Larrabee: Seven years, Your Honor.
Judge Anson B. Flynn: Do you know him to be a reasonable man?
Victor Larrabee: Absolutely.
Clara Thornhill: Ha!
Roger Thornhill: Mother.
Judge Anson B. Flynn: And you believe there is some...

Roger Thornhill: [singing] I've grown accustomed to my bourbon.

Eve Kendall: Patience is a virtue.
Roger Thornhill: So is breathing.

Roger Thornhill: Sorry love, I'm sentimental.

Roger Thornhill: [as the police carry Thornhill out of the Art Auction Room, Roger says to the thug who tried to kill Roger twice before in the picture] I'm sorry old man. Too bad. Keep trying.

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North by Northwest Quotes

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