Still one of the best movie quotes ... a commentary on our times.

[TahitiNut]

"Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."

('Good Will Hunting')
:rofl: :cry: :rofl:

[WillyT]

1. Sums It Up Quite Nicely, Eh ???

'Bout the size of things for some time now.

:shrug:

[Sydnie]

2. Here's one of my favorites too

Lewis Rothschild: You have a deeper love of this country than any man I've ever known. And I want to know what it says to you that in the past seven weeks, 59% of Americans have begun to question your patriotism.
Andrew Shepherd: Look, if the people want to listen to---
Lewis Rothschild: They don't have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.
Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

(The American President) It inspired me to start a blog named "Drinking the Sand", just my little place to show the difference between the mirage and reality.

[TahitiNut]

4. That's a really viewable movie, for sure.

I particularly like Andy's "press conference." Another quote I like from that one is "how can they claim to love America while they hate Americans?" Telling.

[speedoo]

3. Yeah, I just listened to it.

Painfully on target.

[TahitiNut]

5. Yup. On TNT. Good movie.

Of course, I like Minnie Driver. That helps. :evilgrin:

[Gwerlain]

6. Oldie but a goodie.

Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?
Higgins: Are you crazy?
Turner: Am I?
Higgins: Look, Turner…
Turner: Do we have plans?
Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.
Turner: So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn't he?
Higgins: A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would never authorize it, not with the heat on the company.
Turner: What if there hadn't been any heat? Suppose I hadn't stumbled on their plan?
Higgins: Different ballgame. Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was all right, the plan would've worked.
Turner: Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?
Higgins: No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them.
Higgins: Not now — then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!

[Catch22Dem]

7. I like the "God Complex" quote by Alec Baldwin in Malice

Jed: I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, _Dennis_, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

[Hamlette]

8. and Good Will Hunting was made in 1997....

wish more had listened. . .Tweety ought to get on to that one (he seems obsessed that the girl in Wag the Dog wore a beret (sp?)

[TahitiNut]

11. Damon and Affleck wrote it even longer ago than that.

Prescient!

[EVDebs]

9. Great quote but Damon has now starred in a new movie about the CIA

The Good Shepherd that fails to tell about the bad stuff the company was doing in its heyday and seems based upon psycho James Jesus Angleton. Anyone familiar with the JFK assassination will fill you in on that and Angleton's Mary Meyer connection...but why let the agency look bad, right ?

http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/movies/22shep.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmeyerM.htm

[Blue_Roses]

10. true

excellent writing.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

12. K & R. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

[hfojvt]

13. I just love that movie. It is so biographical for me

A math genius working as a janitor. Obviously I am not a savant like that, nor did I grow up in poverty with an abusive step-dad, but I did score 800 and 790 on the quantitative and analytical parts of the GRE, and I am working as a janitor. I loved the NSA scene too, and reminded me that NSA wanted to interview me after I graduated college.
Still no sign of a Minnie Driver in my life either.

From 1997 too. It's like they predicted Bush and the Gulf war.

But now Matt Damon is singing the praises of the CIA isn't he? What would Bourne think about that?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

14. A few from...

...Catch-22:

- The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with.

- Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.

- Nateley's mother, a descendant of the New England Thorntons, was a Daugther of the American Revolution. His father was a Son of A Bitch.

- "Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If we pay the government everything we owe it, we'll only be encouraging government control and discouraging other individuals from bombing their own men and planes."

- There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.

- "...Let somebody else get killed."
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way."
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?"

- "Weather conditions have improved tremendously over the mainland, so you won't have any trouble at all seeing the target. Of course, we mustn't forget, that means that they won't have any trouble at all seeing you."