Also by James Scheibli
Movie Quotes for All Occasions
Coral Gables
Copyright © 2020 James Scheibli.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions: Toasts and Tributes for Weddings,
Graduations, Birthdays and All of Life's Special Moments
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2019944215
ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-076-9, (ebook) 978-1-64250-077-6
BISAC category code BIASC: PER004040—PERFORMING ARTS / Film /
Reference
Printed in the United States of America
For Audrey and Luke:
You’re already smarter than I am… and that’s just not fair.
(And just in case he’s reading)
For Tom Hanks:
Let’s do lunch, maybe an A’s game. East Bay
repping East Bay.
“There’s nothing more exciting and daunting than
the blank page. Oh, that’s good. Maybe I’ll do a
book of quotes.”
—Principal Brown (Jason Sudeikis),
Booksmart (2019)
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Birthdays
2 Motivation & Well Wishes
3 Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
11
15
43
83
4 Parenting & Newborns
103
6 Back to School
159
5 The Holidays
7 Retirement
8 In Memoriam
Epilogue: Thanks
Acknowledgments
About the Author
127
175
195
213
219
221
Introduction
Introduction
The last time I sat down to put something like this
together, I thought I’d really make an event of it. In a
bit of arrogance that truly escaped me at the time, I
decided to propose to my wife in the dedication for
my first published work. How perfect, right? A book of
quotes to be used for weddings (and other events), and
here I was starting down the road to my own wedding
ceremony. Luckily, she said yes. I’m keenly aware of how
different the tone of this introduction would have been
had she not…

As we told people of our engagement, most noted that I
had a leg up on my speech because I’d literally written
the book on it. How wrong they were. Seeing my wife
in her wedding dress for the first time taught me that.
My witty, beautiful vows were erased in a single instant.
Gone was the proud, cocksure, partially-balding man in a
snazzy suit. In his place was a humble, grateful, partiallybalding man in a snazzy suit. I wrote down my vows,
but to this day I haven’t looked back at what I wrote.
Instead, I live in that moment as it was.
You see, nothing ever truly prepares us for the defining
moments of our lives. Every single moment presents
an infinite amount of possibilities for things to go
wrong. Or right. One decision could lead to a myriad of
alternative actions and reactions. One false step could
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

12
lead to laughter, while another could give rise to tears.
No matter how much we prepare and rehearse and
memorize, we never really know what will happen
when it’s time to speak up. For me, it was the realization
that nothing I had written or planned to say could ever
match what I felt at that moment. I’d like to think that
every now and then we truly nail what we mean to say.
My wife nailed her vows. And she did so because for all
the quotes I’d thrown at her over the years, for all the
movies I made her watch for the outstanding dialogue,
for all the emphasis I put on other people’s words, it was
her truth that spoke most to me.
So when it came time to write the sequel, I took a
different approach. In this book, you’ll certainly find a
large variety of funny, moving, and inspiring lines from
movies you’ve seen a million times as well as some
you’ve never even heard of. The quotes selected for
this volume will guide you to what you truly wish to
say for moments in your life that require you to speak
up. You might not use them word-for-word. Hell, you
might forget them altogether the moment you open
your mouth. But hopefully they’ll lead you to a truth
much more interesting than a Harold Ramis one-liner.
Movies offer us not a series of images and words to
steal or use as references, but rather the opportunity to
engage in a shared human connection through art. Each
time we sit down in a dimmed theater, we are secretly
connecting with the people around us. Not only that, but
each of us is secretly forming a massive community of

Introduction
other humans that have shared that same experience,
sometimes millions of miles away. As you read over the
quotes in this book, allow your emotions, reactions, and,
most importantly, memories to gather together in the
net of your soul for you to pick over at your leisure. Toss
the small fish back, but keep the big ones—the ones you
were looking for (if you find them, of course).
To kick us off, a gem about life, the movies, and why we
love both…
Pangzi: Life is a mixture of happy and sad things.
Movies are so lifelike… that’s why we love them.
Ting-Ting: Then who needs movies? Just stay
home and live life.
Pangzi: My uncle says we live three times as long
since man invented movies.
Ting-Ting: How can that be?
Pangzi: It means movies give us twice what we
get from daily life.
—Pangzi (Pang Chang Yu) & Ting-Ting
(Kelly Lee), Yi Yi (2000)
13
Birthdays
Birthdays
1

Birthdays really are the most perplexing celebration
for both young and old. We spend our youth eagerly
looking forward to each milestone that moves us closer
to adulthood (i.e., independence). When we turn ten,
it’s the double-digit milestone. Then a few years later,
we celebrate the ascension into society proper, whether
that be in the form of a Bar or Bat mitzvah, Quinceañera,
or Sweet Sixteen party. At eighteen, you are legally
allowed to vote, smoke, and buy a gun on your own
(how is this not the traditional “party” milestone?).
Twenty-one brings about your access to booze. And
then following what seems like an eternity of waiting,
at twenty-five you can finally rent a car. It’s at this very
moment, at the twenty-fifth birthday party held in
the lobby waiting area of a Hertz Rent-A-Car, that you
realize it’s all downhill.
The Avett Brothers have a delightfully upbeat little ditty
about the follies of adulthood in which they proclaim,
“For every year of knowledge gained is a negative
year I’ve earned.” We spend two decades growing and
growing and growing only to discover that we’ll spend
the next sixty shrinking—if we’re lucky.
15
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

16
Films about birthdays usually are about how they
go terribly wrong. Birthday wishes go astray, family
members forget our birthday, or sometimes we just
hate the fact that we’re growing older. It seems that the
universal narrative about celebrating a birthday is that
it’s just a reminder that you’re one year closer to death.
This might all sound bleak, but take a close enough
look and you’ll see the truth. While knowledge helps us
understand how limited our time is, wisdom comes from
embracing the finite. I encourage you to celebrate every
birthday like a teen counting down the days to their
inevitable independence. Celebrate like someone who
just turned old enough to legally have a drink. Celebrate
like somebody who gets to start collecting social security
this year. Just celebrate. Life is too short, dammit!
Not a Kid Anymore: Symbolic Milestones
Birthdays
Storytellers have always been fascinated with the
journey into adulthood. The Bildungsroman is a staple
of popular storytelling. It appears in every medium,
every literary era, and every culture on the planet.
From Truffaut to Spielberg to Ray to Majidi, comingof-age stories appeal to us all. Why? Because we never
remember exactly how we became adults, but we love
to put a narrative around it. Sometimes, we tie those
narratives to birthdays. Quinceañeras, Sweet Sixteens,
Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and even debutante balls are all
supposed to represent the transition into adulthood.

So, what do you say to someone who is supposed to go
from childhood to adulthood in a single day? Sure, it’s
symbolic, and more than likely, the young women and
men will never remember a single thing you say that
day. On the off chance that they do, though, you’d better
have something good up your sleeve that won’t make
them roll their eyes and completely disregard your
advice for the next sixteen years, just like they did the
first sixteen.
17
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Value this time in your life, kids, because this
is the time in your life when you still have your
choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you’re a
teenager, you think you can do anything—and
you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties,
you raise your family, you make a little money
and you think to yourself, ‘What happened to
my twenties?’ Your forties, you grow a little
potbelly, you grow another chin. The music starts
to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends
from high school becomes a grandmother. Your
fifties, you have a minor surgery. You’ll call it a
procedure, but it’s a surgery. Your sixties, you
have a major surgery. The music is still loud,
but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it
anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to
Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two,
lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And
you spend most of your time wandering around
malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and
muttering, ‘How come the kids don’t call?' By
your eighties, you’ve had a major stroke, and you
end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who
your wife can’t stand but who you call ‘Mama.’
Any questions?”
—Mitch Robinson (Billy Crystal),
City Slickers (1991)
18
Birthdays
“I bet you have
big plans. I mean,
your twenties are great.
They are, but then your
thirties come around the
corner like a garbage
truck at 5:00 a.m.”

—Marlo Moreau (Charlize Theron),
Tully (2018)
“Life can be difficult sometimes. It gets bumpy,
what with family and kids and things not going
exactly like you planned. But that’s what makes
it interesting. In life, the first act is always
exciting. The second act… that is where the depth
comes in.”
­—Gloria Noonan-Hillard (Joyce Van Patten),
Grown Ups (2010)
19
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I hope for your
sake, God has a
sense of humor.”
“Oh, I have
sixteen years’ worth
of anecdotal proof that
He does.”
—Marianne Bryant (Amanda Bynes) & Olive
Penderghast (Emma Stone), Easy A (2010)
“That summer I turned
seventeen…and started
planning my escape.”
20
—Ann August (Natalie Portman),
Anywhere But Here (1999)

Birthdays
“You are who you are.
Not your parents.”
—Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb),
Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
“We’re all told at some point in time that
we can no longer play the children’s game, we
just don’t know when that’s gonna be. Some of us
are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty,
but we’re all told.”
—Scout Barry (Barry Moss), Moneyball (2011)
Casting Couch: Most of the scouts and coaches
in Moneyball are in fact former MLB scouts
and coaches.
“Don’t expect much from yourself in the
beginning. I couldn’t do everything at
first, either.”
—Donald “Sully” Sullivan (Paul Newman),
Nobody’s Fool (1994)
21
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“There’s a lot of ugly
things in this world, son.
I wish I could keep ’em
all away from you. That’s
never possible.”
—Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck),
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
“It’s 12:01[.] It’s my birthday. Do you feel alone
in the world? I just wish they understood! I just
wish they knew what it felt like to have a terrible
horrible no good very bad day.”
­—Alexander Cooper (Ed Oxenbould),
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day (2014)
22
Birthdays
“You’re 18, you don’t
know what you want. And
you won’t know what you
want ’til you’re forty-five,
and even if you get it,
you’ll be too old to use it.”

—Walter Stratford (Larry Miller),
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
“All of you people, there is a big world out there…
bigger than prom, bigger than high school, and
it won’t matter if you were the prom queen, the
quarterback of the football team, or the biggest
nerd in school. Find out who you are and try not
to be afraid of it.”
—Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore),
Never Been Kissed (1999)
23
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar
item. You see, when you’re young, you’re a kid,
you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw
away a couple of years, a couple of years there…
it doesn’t matter. You know. The older you get,
[the more] you say, ‘Jesus, how much I got? I got
thirty-five summers left.’ Think about it. Thirtyfive summers.”
—Benny (Tom Waits), Rumble Fish (1983)
Fun Fact: While filming his adaptation of S.E.
Hinton’s The Outsiders (1983), director Francis
Ford Coppola decided to save time, money, and
resources by filming an adaptation of Hinton’s similarlythemed Rumble Fish using the same crew, sets,
and actors.
“I learned to give love and get love
unconditionally. You just have to accept people
for what they are, and I learned the greatest gift
of all: The saddest thing in life is wasted talent,
and the choices that you make will shape your
life forever.”
—Calogero ‘C’ Anello (Lillo Brancato, Jr.),
A Bronx Tale (1993)
24
Birthdays
“Grandpa, if you had
a chance to go back
and do it all differently,
what would you have
changed?”

“Well, I would have taken
better care of
my teeth.”
­—Peggy Sue Bodell (Kathleen Turner) &
Barney Alvorg (Leon Ames),
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Fun Fact: Nic Cage’s nasally voice in Peggy Sue
Got Married drew the ire of studio execs to the
point that he was almost fired. Director Francis
Ford Coppola, despite also hating the voice, defended his
nephew Cage’s choice. They never worked together again.
25
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I saw then that my father’s only fear was that his
son would follow the same road.”
—Michael Sullivan, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin),
Road to Perdition (2002)
“Life’s funny. To a kid,
time always drags.
Suddenly you’re fifty.
All that’s left of your
childhood…fits in a rusty
little box.”
—Dominique Bretodeau (Maurice Bénichou),
Amélie (2001)
“Why is youth so terribly unmerciful? And who
has given it permission to be that way?”
—Mrs. Armfeldt (Naima Wifstrand),
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
26
Birthdays
“Is it too much to ask
to see this boy turn
eighteen?!”

—Momma (Darlene Cates), What’s Eating
Gilbert Grape? (1993)
Old AF: Aging Gracefully
“I’m too old for this shit.”
—Sgt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover),
Lethal Weapon (1987)
…And on the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the
ever-encroaching threat of mortality. The older we get,
the less we want a party and the more our friends insist
upon throwing one. Nothing quite says, “You’re a day
closer to death” than thirty people jumping out of a dark
room to scream, “Surprise!” in your unsuspecting face.
In reality, it’s a celebration for them. Unlike the birthday
girl or guy, everyone else at the party is having a great
time enjoying the fact that they haven’t just turned
27
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

28
the page on another year of life. Your birthday = your
friends’ unbirthday.
But birthdays truly are a cause for celebration. Life,
to put it mildly, is tough. Each year we spend on this
earth provides each of us a litany of challenges. Some
we succeed at quite easily, others we fail miserably;
which makes birthdays a celebration not just of the
advancement of time, but an acknowledgment that its
progression is challenging, tiring, and mostly thankless.
But for one day a year, the celebration centers around
one single person as their loved ones thank them for
hanging in there and making their own lives meaningful.
So the next time you head to somebody’s birthday, make
sure you really rub it in. With love, of course.
Birthdays
“The only way to stay
out of trouble is to
grow old, so I guess I’ll
concentrate on that.”

—Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles),
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
“I found out a long, long
time ago that I wanted
to be my own true age
and try and keep a young
mind.”
—Mr. Bloom (Scatman Crothers),
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
29
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I can’t afford to hate people. I don’t have that
kind of time.”
—Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura),
Ikiru (1952)
“I truly believe
that happiness is
possible. Even when
you’re thirty-three and
have a bottom the size of
two bowling balls.”
—Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger),
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
30
Birthdays
“I’d say, like twelve. I
mean, maybe a little
older, probably old
enough to drink…and
bone. Maybe eighteen.
Eighteen and a half.
Almost out of the house.
Don’t have my own car
yet…but I have a bike.”

—Val (Paula Pel) discussing the age of her soul,
Wine Country (2019)
31
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“The decisions you make now, bud, can’t be
changed but with years and years of hard work
to redo it… and in those years, you become
something different. Everybody does as the time
passes. You get married, you get into debt… but
you’re never gonna be the same person you are
right now.”
—Professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford),
Lions for Lambs (2007)
“The older I get,
the more things I
gotta leave behind,
that’s life.”
—Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone),
Rocky Balboa (2006)
“The worst part of being old is remembering
when you was young.”
—Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth),
The Straight Story (1999)
32
Birthdays
“I’m old enough to know
when life is coming at me
with its pants down.”

—Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell),
Krampus (2016)
“As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just
believe. It’s not that we don’t want to, but too
much has happened and we can’t.”
—Samantha Albertson (Demi Moore),
Now and Then (1995)
“The day we stop playing
is the day we start
getting old.”
—Mr. Bloom (Scatman Crothers),
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
33
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Things is moving too fast in my life. Always have.
I mean, one day I was this little girl, the next day I
was married. Next, I was having babies. Next day,
I was out here singing for you all. Patsy’s always
saying, ‘Little girl, you got to run your own life.’
But my life’s running me.”
—Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek),
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
“I was having this
awful nightmare that I
was thirty-two. And then
I woke up and I was
twenty-three. So relieved.
And then I woke up
for real, and I was
thirty-two.”
—Celine (Julie Delpy),
Before Sunset (2004)
34

Birthdays
“Boy, time passes. Before you know it, a little
hair falls out, a little noise becomes bothersome.
I guess we’re just—we change. We become
different people.”
—Ariel (Mia Farrow),
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
“Honey, time marches
on, and eventually you
realize it is marchin’
across your face.”
—Truvy Jones (Dolly Parton),
Steel Magnolias (1989)
“You can’t beat
the clock.”
—Capt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover),
Lethal Weapon 4
35
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Years, lovers, and
glasses of wine: these
are things that should
never be counted.”
—Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman),
The Age of Adaline (2015)
“There is no past that
we can bring back by
longing for it, only a
present that builds and
creates itself as the past
withdraws.”
—Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench),
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
36
Birthdays
“Get old, you can’t even
cuss someone and have
it bother ’em. Everything
you do is either
worthless or
sadly amusing.”

—Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell),
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
Behind the Scenes: Despite being about an
aging Elvis, no Elvis songs are featured in Bubba
Ho-Tep. To license a single Elvis song would’ve
cost the production $500,000. The total budget for the
film was $1 million.
“Your hair got whiter, your ears got bigger,
your nose got longer, but you still retain that
unique, elusive pain in the ass quality that drives
me berserk.”
—Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau),
The Odd Couple II (1998)
37
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Every age is the
same. It’s only love
that makes any of
them bearable.”
—H.G. Wells (Malcom McDowell),
Time After Time (1979)
“The last thing to
age on somebody is their
heart.”
—Marie (Geraldine Hughes),
Rocky Balboa (2006)
38
10 Fantastic Flicks: Birthdays
•
•
•
The Game (1997): Nothing says “Over the Hill”
like your brother giving you a gift certificate to a
LARP adventure that is literally designed to scare
you, rob you, and then kill you. Or is it? David
Fincher’s underappreciated hamfest is delightfully
too serious, which makes it all the more fun!
Birthdays
•

Happy Death Day (2017): What if you could have
your birthday every single day, but never grow
older? Sweet! Oh, I forgot to mention at the end
of each day you’ll die a painful death at the hands
of a masked assailant and your insides will slowly
start to deteriorate with each death. IDK, still
kind of sweet?
City Slickers (1991): Billy Crystal, Jack Palance,
Daniel Stern, and Bruno Kirby star in a comedywestern about big city wannabes taking a midlife
crisis birthday trip to participate in a cattle drive.
Palance won an Oscar as Curly, and Crystal got to
rant about all of the horrible things that happen to
you in each decade of your life.
Logan’s Run (1976): There’s an entire episode of
Friends about the horror of Rachel turning thirty.
Well, Rachel has nothing on Logan. You probably
know why. In Logan’s Run, your thirtieth birthday
is your last. Unless you want to make a run for it…
39
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
•
40
Old School (2001): I know what you’re thinking.
Frank the Tank? You’re my boy, Blue? That’s a
college/frat boy comedy. Oh, how wrong you are.
Old School features not one, not two, but three
birthdays in just ninety-three minutes. That’s a
birthday every thirty-one minutes. Marvel at the
hilarity of Frank the Tank ruining his friends’
son’s fifth birthday by shooting himself in the neck
with a trank gun. Gasp at the wildness of Blue’s
eighty-sixth birthday party/frat party. And see if
you can’t spot the third birthday, which you might
just forget…
Liar Liar (1997): This Jim Carrey film is often
remembered for his outrageous courtroom antics,
but do you remember why he can’t lie? Yep—a
birthday wish. His son wished that for one day, his
father couldn’t lie. Powerful stuff in the movies.
Birthday wishes can do anything. But only if you
mean them.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993): This
early ’90s gem features a restrained Johnny
Depp as introverted Gilbert, who is responsible
for providing for his siblings, including his
intellectually disabled brother Arnie (Oscarnominated Leonardo DiCaprio). The film follows
Gilbert as he becomes enamored with a temporary
resident of his sleepy town while his family plans
Arnie’s eighteenth birthday party.
•
•
Wine Country (2019): Napa on your fiftieth
birthday surrounded by your closest girlfriends;
peaceful, right? Sure, until someone busts out the
MDMA and all hell breaks loose. Wine Country
is Sex in the City by way of Bridesmaids. Despite
its anti-millennial sentiments, it’s a pretty
charming film.

Birthdays
•
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958): You know a
birthday party is going to be lit if Tennessee
Williams stages it to take place in Act III. This
searing bedroom drama takes its time building up
to the Big Daddy’s sixty-fifth birthday bash. And
boy, is it a doozy.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good,
Very Bad Day (2014): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where’s
Sixteen Candles? First of all, everybody knows that
one. Second of all, try not to cringe on rewatch at
the Asian stereotypes that run amok in that one.
Instead, I’ll choose the other movie about family
members forgetting about a family member’s
birthday. This cute flick demonstrates once again
the power of a scorned child’s birthday wish.
41
Motivation & Well Wishes
In my previous book, I had a section on motivational
quotes for sports. How limiting that was. I apologize.
I, having been a ten-time multiplication “Around-theWorld” champion in fourth grade, know better than
anyone that not all motivation revolves around sports.
There are mathletes, trivia teams, hitchhikers, sailors,
aeronauts, thespians, and graduates who need pep talks
just as much as the jocks. Challenges, adventures, and
transitions all require motivation, and whether we like
to admit it or not, luck.
Motivation & Well Wishes
2

In this section, you’ll find what can only be described
as a hodgepodge of life events that require a little
extra oomph to complete (or even to get started).
Competitions, opening nights, graduations, and
extraordinary travels may be the subsections for this
silly group, but please take these as merely suggestions.
Many of the quotes and films here can be just as useful
to the extroverts on a mission as they can to someone
simply looking for a little extra push to get them out of
bed in the morning. We’re all heroes in our own way.
43
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

Bring It On: Competition
My niece started cheating at Candyland when she was
four years old. I don’t mean she would move her token
to spaces she wasn’t supposed to or take turns that
weren’t hers. No, my niece would stack the deck or bend
the cards so she knew which one to pick. It might sound
like I’m trying to use my niece to make a point about the
inherent, irrational competitive instinct that humans
carry in their DNA, but I assure you it’s not. The proof
that we just can’t help but compete is the fact that by
the third time my niece beat me by cheating, I was really
starting to get pissed.
Competition brings out both the best and the worst
in us. There’s always the danger that we’ll become
obsessed with competition for the sake of engorging our
own egos—that we will become so power-hungry for
the glory of a win that we lose sight of everything truly
important in our lives. It’s a lesson I learned the hard
way when I was stuck in the Licorice Forest while my
niece did laps around me with a giant smile on her face.
44
Movies, however, show us everything great that
competition can pull out of us. Iron sharpens iron on
celluloid. We watch our heroes begin their journey of
doubt, self-discovery, and perseverance as they develop
their skills and take on intimidating opponents. Even
when they fail, they wear their growth with pride. The
seeds of their transformation on the way to this ultimate
“There are unknown forces that don’t want us
to realize what we are truly capable of. They
don’t want us to know the things we suspect are
extraordinary about ourselves are real. I believe
that if everyone sees what just a few people
become when they wholly embrace their gifts,
others will awaken. Belief in oneself is contagious.
We give each other permission to be superheroes.”

Motivation & Well Wishes
goal of self-fulfillment can be traced to the motivation
and encouragement they receive from their mentors,
family, and friends. From three-sport athletes to thirtyyear-old Candyland players, there’s more than enough
motivation in these quotes to bring out the best in you.
­—Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), Glass (2019)
“You make your
own luck.”
­—Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal),
The Dark Knight (2008)
45
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“A real loser is
someone who’s so
afraid of not winning he
doesn’t even try.”
­ Grandpa (Alan Arkin),
—
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
“Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out
there. It’s not about winning. It’s about you and
your relationship with yourself, your family, and
your friends. Being perfect is about being able to
look your friends in the eye and know that you
didn’t let them down because you told them the
truth. And that truth is you did everything you
could. There wasn’t one more thing you could’ve
done. Can you live in that moment as best you
can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with
joy in your heart? If you can do that, gentlemen…
you’re perfect.”
—Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton),
Friday Night Lights (2004)
46
“Well ya know, for me, the action is the juice.”
“What? Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is
over until we decide it is! Was it over when the
Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it
ain’t over now. ’Cause when the goin’ gets tough,
the tough get goin’! Who’s with me? Let’s go!”
Motivation & Well Wishes
—Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore),
Heat (1995)

—Bluto (John Belushi),
National Lampoon’s Animal House
“When a defining moment
comes along, you define
the moment or the
moment defines you.”
—Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner),
Tin Cup (1996)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“The boys are all here
for ya, we’ll back you up,
we’ll be there, because
we don’t stink right now.
We’re the best team in
baseball right now, right
this minute, because of
you. You’re the reason.
We’re not gonna screw
that up, we’re gonna be
awesome for you right
now. Just throw.”
—Gus Sinski (John C. Reilly),
For Love of the Game (1999)
48
“You said we’re a team.
One person struggles,
we all struggle. One
person triumphs, we all
triumph.”

Motivation & Well Wishes
Director’s Chair: For Love of the Game, a
romantic baseball drama, was directed by noted
horror director Sam Raimi, whose previous
films included The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2: Dead by
Dawn (1987), Army of Darkness (1992), and
Darkman (1990).
—Jason Lyle (Channing Tatum),
Coach Carter (2005)
“I want you guys to take a good look at yourselves
and feel proud. We made it here. We’re here.
What I’ve learned from you is that really one of
the most important things in life is showing up.”
—Conor O’Neill (Keanu Reeves),
Hardball (2001)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“But don’t worry about
being the next me. Be the
first you.”
—The Rock (Dwayne Johnson),
Fighting with My Family (2019)
“No one can stop a ticking clock.
But the great ones… the great ones always
find a way to slow it down.”
—Sonny Weaver, Jr. (Kevin Costner),
Draft Day (2014)
“He doesn’t know he’s
little. He thinks he’s the
biggest horse out there.”
—Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges),
Seabiscuit (2003)
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Motivation & Well Wishes
“The world meets
nobody halfway. When
you want something, you
gotta take it.”

—Lincoln Hawke (Sylvester Stallone),
Over the Top (1987)
5 Fantastic Flicks: Competition
•
•
Strictly Ballroom (1992): Before Moulin Rouge
(2001), Baz Luhrman broke out in the splashiest
way possible. A wild, heartful rom-com about the
son of two competition dancers (Paul Mercurio)
who partners with a novice student (Tara Morice)
in hopes of breaking away from his family’s
stifling commitment to tradition. Sparks fly, skirts
flap, and everyone gets a happy ending.
Whip It! (2009): In Drew Barrymore’s directorial
debut, Ellen Page stars as a disaffected youth
in Texas who escapes the dreary prospects of
debutante balls in order to play for a women’s
roller derby team. Featuring Kristen Wiig, Juliette
Lewis, Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern and a
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
•
52
bearded, creepy Jimmy Fallon, it’s an uplifting,
feminist powerhouse with a killer soundtrack.
Puzzle (2018): This quiet gem about competitive
jigsaw puzzle solvers explores the effects of
competition on self-confidence and independence.
Kelly MacDonald and Irrfan Khan star as a newlyformed puzzling team who find themselves drawn
to each other despite their clashing lifestyles.
Warrior (2011): Nick Nolte was nominated for
an Oscar for his turn as the recovering alcoholic
father of two brothers (Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton)
who find themselves unexpectedly squaring off in
an MMA Grand Prix tournament. A heavyweight
emotional drama in the vein of Rocky (1976).
Whiplash (2014): The dark side of competition
and power comes to the forefront in this chilling
parable from writer-director Damien Chazelle.
J.K. Simmons won an Oscar for his portrayal of
a sadistic, psychotic instructor at a prestigious
music conservatory who takes an increasingly
unnerving interest in a promising percussionist
(Miles Turner).
Break a Leg: Opening Night & Big
“When it comes to huge
openings, a lot of people
think of me.”
Motivation & Well Wishes
Performances

—Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell),
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
You’ll have to bear with me on this topic, as the closest
I’ve come to an opening night is when I played Pete
Van Horn in my Yolo Middle School adaptation of The
Twilight Zone episode entitled “The Monsters Are Due
on Maple Street.” I had two lines and then came back in
Act II to get shot offstage, my prone body carried in from
the makeshift wings of the stage we created in a portable
classroom next to the gym. It was glorious.
Performing for a live audience is a true act of bravery.
You must literally put your skills on display and open
yourself equally to praise and ridicule. What’s more,
your art is a living, breathing entity that changes
from scene to scene, song to song, performance to
performance. Each and every night, actors and actresses
must dig deep into their bag of tricks to find the
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

motivation to create a worthwhile performance for their
audience. The least we can do is lend them a hand.
Films often celebrate actors and the creative process
while at the same time poking fun at themselves.
Humility, it would seem, is a calling card for the onscreen actor (usually after having their own sense of
self-worth deflated). While that works for commentary
on actors, writers, or directors, it isn’t exactly the most
motivating approach for big performances. With that in
mind, I’ve found a good quantity of fitting platitudes for
the big night. As they say, the show must go on…
“It’s bad luck to say, ‘Good luck’ on opening night
Once it’s said, you are dead
You will get the worst reviews
You’ve ever read!”
—Carmen Ghia (Roger Bart),
The Producers (2005)
54

Motivation & Well Wishes
“If you don’t dig deep into your fuckin’ soul you
won’t have legs. I’m just telling you that. If you
don’t tell the truth out there you’re fucked. All
you got is you and what you have to say to people
and they are listening right now and they are not
going to be listening forever. Trust me. So you
gotta grab it and you don’t apologize or worry
about why they’re listening or how long they’re
gonna be listening for. You just tell them what you
want to say.”
—Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper),
A Star is Born (2018)
“This is the dream!
It’s conflict and it’s
compromise, and it’s
very, very exciting!”
—Sebastian Wilder (Ryan Gosling),
La La Land (2016)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“You’re scared, right?
The way it works is,
you do the thing you’re
scared shitless of, and
you get the courage
after you do it, not before
you do it.”
—Archie Gates (George Clooney),
Three Kings (1999)
On-Set Action: Following a strenuous and
conflict-filled production, writer-director David
O’Russell and George Clooney got into a physical
fight while filming the climactic scenes of Three Kings.
“Greatness courts failure. That’s why most people,
in their whole lives, never ever reach for the brass
ring, never know when to dig deep and try for the
impossible shot.”
56
—Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner), Tin Cup (1994)
Motivation & Well Wishes
“That’s all any of us
are: amateurs. We don’t
live long enough to be
anything else.”

—Calvero (Charlie Chaplin),
Limelight (1952)
“God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick
ass. We are your humble servants. Please give us
the power to blow people’s minds with our high
voltage rock. In your name we pray; Amen.”
—Dewey Finn (Jack Black),
School of Rock (2003)
“You can never do
anything by half. Do you
understand that?”
—Raphina (Lucy Boynton), Sing Street (2016)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that
most frightens us. Your playing small does not
serve the world. There is nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people won’t feel
insecure around you. We are all meant to shine
as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in
everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do
the same. As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.”
—Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez),
Coach Carter (2005)
“We are what we believe
we are.”
—The Beast (James McAvoy), Split (2016)
58
Razzle-Dazzle ’em,
Give ’em a show that’s so
splendiferous,
Motivation & Well Wishes
“Give ’em the ol’ RazzleDazzle,

Row after row will grow
vociferous!”
—Billy Flynn (Richard Gere),
Chicago (2002)
“Fame is a four-letter
word. What matters is
what we do with it.”
—Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), A Beautiful Day
in the Neighborhood (2019)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

5 Fantastic Flicks: Opening Nights & Big
Performances
•
•
60
Once (2007): John Carney’s beautifully
heartbreaking ode to brushes with fame and
love won an Oscar for Best Original Song. Glen
Hansard and Markéta Irglová star as Dublin street
performers who spend a few short weeks putting
together a demo and falling in love. Hansard was
only slated to write the songs for the film but was
forced to step in for Cillian Murphy after Murphy
dropped out. During filming, Hansard and Irglová
fell in love and became a couple for a short time.
Their chemistry is absolutely lovely.
Waiting for Guffman (1996): Christopher
Guest’s directorial debut follows a group of
artists and performers who are staging an
amateur production for the 150th anniversary
of the founding of a small town in Missouri.
The production becomes chaos when they are
informed that a prominent Broadway producer
will be in attendance. This film was the first in
a series that starred most of the same actors
(Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey,
and Bob Baliban) in a mockumentary-style
comedy. The other films were Best in Show (2000)
and A Mighty Wind (2003).
•
•
Grand Piano (2013): Damien Chazelle penned
this silly and highly entertaining thriller that stars
Elijah Wood as a former pianist prodigy who is
returning to public performance for the first time
since having had a meltdown on stage during a
particularly challenging piece. Shortly before he
goes on, an assassin (John Cusack, having a blast)
informs him that he will be shot if he misplays a
single note. The ludicrous premise is elevated by
tight dialogue and stellar editing.

Motivation & Well Wishes
•
Don’t Think Twice (2016): A popular improv
group is torn apart when two of their members
(Keegan Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs) are invited to
audition for a prominent SNL-type variety show.
A funny, sincere look at the intersection of art
and commerce.
Sing Street (2016): John Carney again sneaks
back into the list with a musical that’s equal parts
School of Rock (2003) and Say Anything (1989).
Sing Street is a delightful, poignant romp about
young Irish students discovering different types of
musical genres as they attempt to figure out who
they want to be.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

62
Get Out of My House!: Graduation
We’re going to talk about becoming parents a little
later, but first, let’s skip to the end. The day your kids
dream about is the day you dread. Or maybe it’s the
day you dream about, too! Regardless of how much or
how little they are prepared for it, the fact is that your
kids are eventually going to leave you. Sure, now you
get to watch those reruns of Just Shoot Me! that your
kids hate, but that doesn’t mean you won’t miss and
worry about your offspring. And while your empty nest
awaits you as a parent, their journey out into the world
is just beginning. You know firsthand the moments of
uncertainty and fear that lie ahead out in the world. You
can’t spare your kids from the worst moments in life, but
you can prepare them and give them hope.
Graduation is a rite of passage—a signal to the world
that your children are moving on into the great
unknown of adulthood. Many, many films utilize
this symbolic event in their narratives. Why not? It’s
grandiose, there are speeches, and everyone is in
costume. Films about graduation are fascinating because
they can only be perceived through the prism of time.
When we are young, we view graduation films with a
sense of wonder and awe: something to look forward to.
When we are about to graduate, they are companions
on our journey: something we can relate to. When we
are older, they are time capsules for a moment we long
The following quotes contain ideas, sentiments,
warnings, and well-wishes for departing grads, their
friends, their parents, and their loved ones. Not all
words listed below are necessarily wise; some are silly
or ironic. But all of them reflect a moment in time that
you will never get back. These are time capsule quotes
for a time capsule moment.

Motivation & Well Wishes
ago left behind: something we can reflect on. It truly is a
unique category to review.
“I know that we have a lot more to learn, because
this part’s over, and that’s so sad. But it was
great, wasn’t it? Things are never going to be
the same, but it was perfect. And I may not have
before, but I see you now. And you’re all pretty
great. Don’t let college fuck it up.”
—Molly Davidson (Beanie Feldstein),
Booksmart (2019)
“You always believe in other people, but that’s
easy. Sooner or later, you gotta believe in yourself,
too, because that’s what growing up is. It’s
becoming who you want to be. You have to try.”
—Gary (Jason Segel), The Muppets (2011)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“We never lose our
demons, Mordo. We only
learn to live above them.”
—The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton),
Doctor Strange (2016)
“As we look around here today at all of the people
who helped make us who we are, I know it feels
like we’re saying goodbye, but we will carry a
piece of each other into everything that we do
next to remind us of who we are and of who we’re
meant to be.”
—Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone),
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
“You will have your own challenges, and I’ll bet
you’ll meet them splendidly.”
­ Nigel Thornberry (Tim Curry),
—
The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)
64
­—Mike Cobb (Vincent D’Onofrio) to his
graduating son, Thumbsucker (2005)
Motivation & Well Wishes
“I was just getting
used to you.”

“When will I know
I’m ready?”
“You won’t. It’s a leap
of faith. That’s all it is,
Miles. A leap of faith.”
—Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) &
Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson),
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and
a straight tree. And they grew next to each other.
And every day, the straight tree would look at the
crooked tree and he would say, ‘You’re crooked.
You’ve always been crooked and you’ll continue to
be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!’ said the
straight tree. He said, ‘I’m tall and I’m straight.’
And then one day the lumberjacks came into the
forest and looked around, and the manager in
charge said, ‘Cut all the straight trees.’ And that
crooked tree is still there to this day, growing
strong and growing strange.”
—Kneller (Tom Waits),
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
“Worrying is like a
rocking chair: It gives
you something to do but
gets you nowhere.”
—Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds),
Van Wilder (2002)
66
­—Mark Day (Josh Hamilton),
Eighth Grade (2018)
Director’s Chair: Eighth Grade is the feature film
debut for Bo Burnham, who both wrote and
directed the film. Burnham gained fame as a
comedian and YouTuber. Eighth Grade currently holds a
rating of 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the
highest scores ever for a feature film debut.

Motivation & Well Wishes
“If you could just see yourself the way I see you,
the way you really are, then, I swear to God, you
wouldn’t be scared either.”
“If there is pain, nurse it. And if there is a flame,
don’t snuff it out. Don’t be brutal with it. We rip
out so much of ourselves to be cured of things
faster, that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty
and have less to offer each time we start with
someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing
so as not to feel anything… what a waste.”
—Sami Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg),
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“We’re all traveling through time together, every
day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to
relish this remarkable ride.”
­—Tim Lake (Domhall Gleeson),
About Time (2013)
“Nobody thinks it will work, do they?”
“No. You just described every great success story.”
—Diane Court (Ione Skye) & Lloyd Dobler
(John Cusack), Say Anything… (1989)
“It’s fine to just live in
the now, but the best
part about now is there’s
another one tomorrow.
And I’m gonna start
making them count.”
68
­—Sutter Keely (Miles Teller),
The Spectacular Now (2013)
—John Silver (Brian Murray),
Treasure Planet (2002)

Motivation & Well Wishes
“You got the makings of greatness in you, but you
got to take the helm and chart your own course.
Stick to it, no matter the squalls! And when the
time comes you get the chance to really test the
cut of your sails, and show what you’re made of…
well, I hope I’m there, catching some of the light
coming off you that day.”
5 Fantastic Flicks: Graduation
•
•
Booksmart (2019): Seeing as how I kicked
off the book with a quote from this amazing
comedy directed by Olivia Wilde, I guess it
only makes sense that I should include it as a
recommendation. Two best friends (Beanie
Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever) realize that their
time spent studying instead of partying was
wasted when they discover that several of their
party-going peers have gotten into Ivy League
schools. As a way to make up for their lost time,
they decide to pull an all-night party session just
before graduation.
Lady Bird (2017): Written and directed by Greta
Gerwig, this coming-of-age tale (set and shot in
Sacramento, CA) follows the trials and tribulations
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
•
70
of a rebellious high school senior (Saoirse Ronan)
and her overbearing mother (Laurie Metcalf). A
fantastic look at self-expression and alienation.
The Spectacular Now (2013): James Ponsoldt’s
drama stars Miles Teller as a popular high school
senior with a serious drinking problem who
winds up falling for an extremely bright and shy
young woman (Shailene Woodley) just before
graduation. A bittersweet, moving examination of
neglect and recovery.
Anywhere But Here (1999): The lives of a
spontaneous and immature mother (Susan
Sarandon) and her exasperated daughter (Natalie
Portman) are charted from freshman year to
graduation in Wayne Wang’s comedy-drama.
Thumbsucker (2005): After his new age dentist
(a delightful Keanu Reeves) cures him of his
thumb-sucking habit through hypnosis, a high
school senior (Lou Taylor Pucci) finds himself
filling the void with prescription medications,
weed, and sexual experimentation. Mike Mills’
irreverent feature is surprisingly sweet, despite
the more outlandish concept.
Adventure Is Out There: Journeys
—Peter Banning (Robin Williams),
Hook (1991)
The scariest thing in the world you can do is go on a
journey that has no guaranteed destination. As silly
as it sounds, the very first quote of this book from the
hilarious and incredibly accurate Booksmart (2019) is
exactly what I did back in 2017. I took a year off from
my lucrative career pushing social media ads for couch
manufacturers and online universities in order to try my
hand at some writing opportunities. To supplement my
income, I drove rideshare early mornings and weekend
nights. I would usually wake up at 3:30 a.m. and drive
until just before noon. I’d spend the next couple of
hours writing, wringing the words one by one out of the
frayed, withered sponge that was my brain running on
four hours of sleep. It was exhausting and terrifying and
frustrating. But in the end, I had a published book to flip
through a year later. It was small and short, but it was
mine. I mean…it was filled with other people’s words,
but it was still mine.
Motivation & Well Wishes
“To live…would be an
awfully big adventure.”

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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

It’s not easy to go on a journey. It requires strength,
patience, and an absurd amount of your choice of
arrogance or naiveté. We should encourage journeys,
both literal and figurative. Encourage others to start
their own journeys. And if nobody will encourage you,
then do it yourself with the quotes in this section. I
promise you, even if you end up driving a Lyft and telling
people about the book of quotes you’re working on,
you’ll be happy you gave it a shot.
Lloyd: What the hell are we doing here, Harry?
We gotta get out of this town!
Harry: Oh yeah, and go where? Where are
we gonna go?
Lloyd: I’ll tell you where: Someplace warm. A
place where the beer flows like wine. Where
beautiful women instinctively flock like the
salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little
place called Aspen.
Harry: Oh, I don’t know, Lloyd. The French
are assholes.
­—Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) & Harry
Dunne (Jeff Daniels), Dumb & Dumber (1994)
72
—John Diaz (Frank Grillo),
The Grey (2011)
Motivation & Well Wishes
“I don’t walk through
this world with fear in
my heart.”

“The journey is what brings us happiness, not
the destination.”
—Dan Millman (Scott Mechlowicz),
Peaceful Warrior (2006)
“Life doesn’t care about
your vision. You just gotta
roll with it.”
—Ben’s Dad (Harold Ramis),
Knocked Up (2009)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I always get to where I’m going by walking away
from where I’ve been.”
­—Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings),
Christopher Robin (2018)
“My old scoutmaster
used to say, ‘If the
shortcut was a shortcut,
it wouldn’t be called a
shortcut, it would be
called a route.’”
—Dom (Sam Troughton),
The Ritual (2017)
“What do we leave behind when we cross each
frontier? Each moment seems split in two;
melancholy for what was left behind and the
excitement of entering a new land.”
74
—Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (Gael García
Bernal), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
—Bev Marsh (Sophia Lillis), It (2017)
“Fifty years from now, when you’re looking back
at your life, don’t you want to be able to say you
had the guts to get in the car?”
Motivation & Well Wishes
“I want to run towards
something, not away.”

—Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf),
Transformers (2007)
“Come on. Let’s go reclaim the life you’ve wasted.”
—The Novelist (Yûnosuke Itô), Ikiru (1952)
“The future’s not set.
There’s no fate but what
we make for ourselves.”
—John Connor (Edward Furlong),
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I have often dreamed of a far-off place
Where a great, warm welcome will be
waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer when they
see my face
And a voice keeps saying, this is where I’m
meant to be!
I will find my way, I can go the distance
I’ll be there someday, if I can be strong
I know every mile will be worth my while
I would go most anywhere to feel like I belong!”
—Hercules (Roger Bart), Hercules (1997)
“You cannot find peace
by avoiding life.”
—Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman),
The Hours (2002)
76
—Deborah (Lily James), Baby Driver (2018)
“We’re on the brink of
an adventure, children.
Don’t spoil it with too
many questions.”

Motivation & Well Wishes
“Sometimes all I want is to head west on 20 in a
car I can’t afford, with a plan I don’t have, just
me, my music, and the road.”
—Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt),
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
“There are those who say fate is something
beyond our command, that destiny is not our
own; but I know better. Our fate lives within us,
you only have to be brave enough to see it.”
—Merida (Kelly Macdonald), Brave (2012)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“You take the blue pill
and the story ends. You
wake in your bed and
believe whatever you
want to believe. You take
the red pill, and you
stay in Wonderland and
I show you how deep the
rabbit hole goes.”
—Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne),
The Matrix (1999)
Casting Couch: The role of Morpheus was
originally offered to Val Kilmer, while the role of
Neo was written for Will Smith.
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—Arthur Mendelson (Harold Gould),
Patch Adams (1996)
“Nothing’s ever gonna
happen here. You gotta
go where things happen.”

Motivation & Well Wishes
“See what no one else sees. See what everyone
chooses not to see… out of fear, conformity, or
laziness. See the whole world anew each day!”
—Dave Hooch (Eddie Jones),
A League of Their Own (1992)
“The world is made for
people who aren’t cursed
with self-awareness.”
—Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon),
Bull Durham (1988)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

5 Fantastic Flicks: Journeys
•
•
•
80
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004): Before he was
Che, Ernesto Guevara traveled across South
America by way of motorcycle, chronicling his
adventure along the way. Walter Salles’ film is
light on grandstanding and high on diving into
the experience that shaped one of the most wellknown radical political activists of all-time. Gael
García Bernal stars.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006): What
happens when you die? Well according to this
irreverent film, that depends on how you died. If
you killed yourself, then you end up in an afterlife
that’s very much like our own…only duller. When
Zia (Patrick Fugit), a resident of the suicidal
afterlife, discovers that his former girlfriend has
also taken her life, he sets out on a road trip to
find her wandering soul. Along the way he learns
to truly live and maybe even how to fall in love…
This is a sweet love tale with a lot of humor about
“the end.”
The Straight Story (1999): Walt Disney Pictures
presents…a David Lynch Film??? It happened. And
it was beautiful. Lynch’s sweet, ruminative tale
features an amazing performance from Richard
Farnsworth as an elderly man determined to
•
Sullivan’s Travels (1941): Preston Sturges’
satirical romp depicts a comedy director (Joel
McCrea) who poses as a homeless man in a
misguided and pretentious attempt to research
material for a prestigious social-drama film called
O, Brother Where Art Thou? (Borrowed with a
wink by the Coen Brothers six years later). Along
the way, he teams up with a failed starlet who
he hopes can help him navigate life on the road.
Hilarious, poignant, and insanely witty.

Motivation & Well Wishes
•
make peace with his estranged brother by driving
his open-air tractor across the country.
Y Tu Mamá También (2001): Alfonso Cuarón’s
erotic coming-of-age road trip movie is a
wondrous, realistic exploration of life, death,
sex, and friendship. Maribel Verdú stars as a
mysterious woman who sets out on a road trip
with two best friends (played by Gael García
Bernal and Diego Luna) who promise to take
her to a beautiful, secluded beach. Along the
way, hidden passions, secrets, and confessions
are revealed.
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Getting Hitched:
Engagement & Marriage
“Well, it must have been one hell of a
night we’re about to have.”
—Celine (Julie Delpy), Before Midnight (2013)
Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
3

It seems to me that the road to love and the road to
war inherently have one thing in common: timing
is everything. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong
time, for example, could lead to your doom. Each of us
develops expectations about what should be said during
courtship to make it “perfect.” Deep down, we want to
see or experience specific words or actions from our
significant others. It can create a crippling sense of
anxiety about not wanting to screw up one of the biggest
components of adult life.
Up until now, we’ve been playing a bit fast and loose
with our topics, and probably including more sass and
cynicism than you expected from the happy blue cover
with the cute movie designs on it. Given that my first
anniversary is just months away and my wife is surely
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

going to be the first person to read this, you would
think that I would need to tread lightly with this topic.
There are some marriage zingers that will pop up in this
section, but truth be told, there should be no need to
tread lightly with your spouse. If you really listen and
learn from the person you choose to be with, you should
be able to speak your mind or tell a joke with your
loved one.
Which is why I’m here to tell you that marriage
is a sham.
(Kidding, of course.)
In all seriousness, here’s the deal with the road
to marriage:
1.
2.
3.
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Your courtship will likely feel simultaneously long
and extremely short when you look back on it.
Your engagement will kick off a whirlwind of joy
and envy. Friends become enemies. Enemies stay
enemies. Your animals become enemies. Carbs
become the enemy.
If you choose anything other than elopement, you
will inevitably become overwhelmed by stress.
Might not even happen until the night before your
wedding, but when it comes it will knock you
on your ass.
5.
Your wedding day will seem faster than a dialogue
competition between Amy-Sherman Palladino and
Aaron Sorkin. Try to take in as much as you can.
You’ll miss it when it’s over.
The moment you see your spouse in their
wedding dress or suit, any negative effects of
numbers 1 through 4 will become meaningless.
Only that moment will matter.
Life moves far too quickly to worry too much about
saying the wrong thing. However, should you need help
or guidance or simply a reassuring thought about the
present or the future, or should you be looking to give
some advice yourself, the quotes in this section will
remind you why we get hitched in the first place, how
we can be better spouses in the long run, and of ways in
which we can declare our love when we ourselves can’t
quite find the words.

Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
4.
“You want a good life? It’s not complicated. Tell
the girl you love that you love her. And tell the
truth to everyone whenever you can.”
—John Lennon (Robert Carlyle),
Yesterday (2019)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Maybe it is our imperfections which make us so
perfect for one another.”
—George Knightley (Jeremy Northam),
Emma (1996)
“Little things used to
mean so much to Shelly—I
used to think they were
kind of trivial. Believe
me, nothing is trivial.”
—Eric Draven (Brandon Lee),
The Crow (1994)
“Look, I guarantee there’ll be tough times. I
guarantee that at some point, one or both of us
is gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also
guarantee that if I don’t ask you to be mine, I’ll
regret it for the rest of my life, because I know in
my heart you’re the only one for me.”
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—Ike Graham (Richard Gere),
Runaway Bride (1999)
—Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow),
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
“Hey, how about…oh, how
about some coffee or,
you know, drinks,
or dinner, or a movie…
for as long as we both
shall live?”
Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“I love you…beyond
poetry.”

—Joe Fox (Tom Hanks),
You’ve Got Mail (1998)
“I shall remain faithful until the
great yawn do us part.”
—Count Carl-Magnus Malcom (Jarl Kulle),
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I love you without
knowing how, or when,
or from where. I love
you straightforwardly,
without complexities or
pride. I love you because
I know no other way than
this: so close that your
hand on my chest is my
hand—so close that when
you close your eyes, I fall
asleep.”
—Hunter “Patch” Adams (Robin Williams),
Patch Adams (1998)
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—Olaf (Josh Gad), Frozen (2013)
“In my country, when a man gets down on one
knee, it’s because he either wants to get married
or he’s been shot. Sometimes it’s both.”
Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“Love is putting
someone else’s needs
before yours.”

—Ava (Sofia Vergara), New Year’s Eve (2011)
“I propose we not make plans. I propose we give
this thing a chance and let it work out how it
works out. So what do you say, do you wanna not
make plans with me?”
—Anna Brady (Amy Adams), Leap Year (2010)
“I realized love won’t obey our expectations, its
mystery is pure and absolute.”
—Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep),
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Wouldst thou wish to live deliciously?”
—Black Phillip (Daniel Malik),
The Witch (2015)
“I don’t want to sound
foolish, but remember
love is what brought
you here. And if you’ve
trusted love this far,
don’t panic now. Trust it
all the way.”
—Sharon Rivers (Regina King),
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
“True love cannot be found where it does not truly
exist, nor can it be hidden where it truly does.”
—Max Abbitt (David Schwimmer),
Kissing a Fool (1998)
90
—Sam Deed (Vincent D’Onofrio),
Happy Accidents (2000)
“Pa used to say love is kind of like the measles.
You only get it once. The older you are, the
tougher it goes.”
Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“I feel like my whole life
has just been a journey
into your arms.”

—Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel),
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
“It was a million tiny little things that when you
added them all up, they meant we were supposed
to be together… and I knew it. I knew it the very
first time I touched her. It was like coming home…
only to no home I’d ever known. I was just taking
her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It
was like magic.”
­—Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks),
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I wanna marry you because you’re the first
person I wanna look at when I wake up in
the morning, and the only one I wanna kiss
goodnight. Because the first time that I saw these
hands, I couldn’t imagine not being able to hold
them. But mainly, when you love someone as
much as I love you, getting married is the only
thing left to do.”
—Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds),
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
“All these years, all
these memories, there
was you. You pull me
through time.”
—Tom Creo (Hugh Jackman),
The Fountain (2006)
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Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“When he looks at me,
the way he looks at
me… He does not know
what I lack…or how I am
incomplete. He sees me
for what I am, as I am.
He’s happy to see me.
Every time. Every day.”

—Elisa (Sally Hawkins) via Giles (Richard
Jenkins), The Shape of Water (2017)
“It’s a wonderful thing as time goes by to be with
someone who looks into your face when you’ve
gotten old and still sees what you think you
look like.”
—The Priest (James Cromwell),
The Bachelor (1999)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“My love is not fragile.”
—Kristoff (Jonathon Groff), Frozen II (2019)
“I think at worst it’s a hostile political act, a way
for small-minded men to keep women in the
house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise
of tradition and conservative religious nonsense.
At best, it’s a happy delusion—these two people
who truly love each other and have no idea how
truly miserable they’re about to make each other.
But, but, when two people know that, and they
decide with eyes wide open to face each other
and get married anyway, then I don’t think it’s
conservative or delusional. I think it’s radical and
courageous and very romantic.”
—Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd), Frida (2002)
“The first important thing to remember about
marriage is that it requires commitment. The
second important thing to remember about
marriage is that so does insanity.”
—George Barnes (Jim Paddock),
The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
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Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“The past and the future
is a joke to me now. I see
that they’re nothing. I see
they ain’t here. The only
thing that’s here is you
and me.”

—Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage),
Moonstruck (1987)
“I have a love in my life.
It makes me stronger
than anything you can
imagine.”
—Barry Egan (Adam Sandler),
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“When she met you, her heart beat truly
for the first time. Perhaps it was meant to be
with you always.”
—Marty O’Reilly (Carroll O’Connor),
Return to Me (2000)
“I never liked a girl
well enough to give
her twelve sharp knives.”
—Frank Cross (Bill Murray), Scrooged (1988)
“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion
people on the planet… I mean, what does any
one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re
promising to care about everything: the good
things, the bad things, the terrible things, the
mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every
day. You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed
because I will notice it. Your life will not go
unwitnessed because I will be your witness.’”
—Beverly Clark (Susan Sarandon),
Shall We Dance (2004)
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Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
“Love is a perpetual
juggling of three balls,
the names of which
are heart, words, and
loins. How easy it is to
juggle these three balls,
and how easy to drop
one of them.”

—Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck),
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
97
“Say that I’m crazy or call me a fool

Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
But last night it seemed that I dreamed about you
When I opened my mouth
what came out was a song
And you knew every word and we all sang along
To a melody played on the strings of our souls
And a rhythm that rattled us down to the bone
Our love for each other will live on forever
In every beat of my proud corazón.”
—Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez), Coco (2017)
10 Fantastic Flicks: Getting Hitched
•
•
98
The Five-Year Engagement (2012):
Engagements are as stressful as they are
exciting. They often are a mix of cooperation
and frustration. In a way, they are the ultimate
test before marriage. This anxiety-inducing flick
imagines what five years’ worth of anticipation
can do to a couple. Don’t worry, it’s mostly
humorous. Mostly…
Corpse Bride (2005): This stop-motion animated
yarn is a delightful blend of European folklore and
•
•
•
The Birdcage (1996): Robin Williams and Nathan
Lane star as a gay couple who must play it straight
when their son brings home his fiancée and her
ultra-conservative parents, in a comedy of errors
that highlights the highs and lows of relationships
from engagements to lifelong commitments.

Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
•
Tim Burton’s dark circus aesthetic. A man afraid
of commitment finds himself accidentally married
to a beautiful (but very much dead) stranger
who takes him on a journey to a rollicking, freespirited version of the underworld. The Corpse
Bride is a reminder to live life with the one you
love and nothing less.
While You Were Sleeping (1995): Engagements
can be stressful—especially when one-half of the
couple is in a coma and they don’t even know each
other. This screwball comedy takes a ridiculous
premise and turns it into a charming rom-com
about the difference between fantasy and reality.
Moonstruck (1987): Why are engagements so
messy? Cher is engaged to Danny Aiello but falls
in love with his dramatic, romantic, and cynical
brother, played by Nicolas Cage. Can you really
blame her? He’s a passionate baker who loves the
opera and has a wooden hand—woof!
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016):
Sure, it’s an incredibly stupid film about incredibly
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
100
stupid people, but it’s got some real chuckles in it.
When Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Zac Efron)
are told that they must bring appropriate wedding
dates to their sister’s wedding, they decide to hold
interviews for “normal” girls. Unfortunately for
them, two wild women looking for a good time
(played by Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick)
decide to con their way into the wedding.
Hilarity ensues.
I Love You, Man (2009): Here’s an odd wedding
film that doesn’t feature drama between the folks
getting married. In this bromance, Peter (Paul
Rudd) is more than happy to marry his fiancée
Zooey (Rashida Jones). There’s only one problem:
he has no friends to fill out a wedding party, let
alone a best man. In a bit of luck, he befriends the
free-spirited and somewhat immature Sydney
(Jason Segel), and the two struggle to learn what
friendship and maturity mean to grown men who
can’t seem to hang onto a friend.
My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997): I’m sure most
people have seen this film, but have we ever really
thought about it? It’s a rom-com with no actual
romance that follows what would normally be
the villain in a rom-com as she tries to break up a
wedding. That’s pretty wild and ahead of its time.
The next time you watch, keep that in mind.
•
Melancholia (2011): Ok, I admit, this one is a
stretch, but half the movie takes place during
a wedding, so it counts. Lars Von Trier’s ode to
depression follows a bride (Kirsten Dunst) who
finds inner peace when she learns that Earth
will be destroyed by a rogue planet aptly named
Melancholia. And you thought your wedding was a
pain in the ass…
American Wedding (2003): Those horny kids are
getting married (or got married, since this came
out over a decade ago)! Follow along with all the
zany hijinks, including Fred Ward getting whipped
by a dominatrix posing as a police officer. I don’t
get to type a sentence like that very often. Enjoy!

Getting Hitched: Engagement & Marriage
•
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Parenting & Newborns
“Your son is awake.”
“Before sunrise, he’s your son.”
Parenting & Newborns
4

—Sarabi (Madge Sinclair) & Mufasa (James
Earl Jones), The Lion King (1994)
During one of my wife’s first few visits to my sister’s
house, my niece did possibly one of the strangest things
I’ve ever seen anyone (child, adult, or senior citizen)
do. As we sat at the kitchen island, sipping drinks and
setting up board games, my niece, who was three at the
time, bobbed her way into the kitchen and meandered
over to one of the drawers. Making direct eye contact
with my future wife, she slowly reached into the “childproofed” drawer and pulled out a knife as a sharp,
sneering smile spread across her face. When we quickly
warned her to be careful and put it down, she did so
as tears instantly began to well behind her sad, soulful
eyes. She put her head down and quickly ran to her
room. My brother-in-law entered almost immediately
after asking what happened. When we told him about
the incident and the subsequent emotional upheaval, he
simply nodded.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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“That’s her shame for ya.”
It’s one of my favorite memories, if only because it
introduced me to the bizarre realm of childrearing. My
lovely niece went from adorable little girl to potentially
violent sociopath to the newest recipient of Catholic
guilt in a matter of seconds.
Let’s be clear: I don’t have children. Some will say that
immediately disqualifies me from putting together a
section on parental advice. That’s fine, because I’m not
the one giving the advice. The writers of the movies are
the ones here to give you their insights and reflections.
As an uncle, I’m just here to laugh, tell you what I’ve
heard secondhand, and then take off. You’re the parents.
Kids are scary…because they are unknown. They have
many guides, but the most terrifying idea isn’t that they
won’t listen to us, it’s that they will listen to us and we’ll
give them the wrong advice.
Whether you’re about to experience the joy of your first
child or are about to be outnumbered by new additions,
the quotes in this section might be of some use to you.
Maybe they won’t teach you anything you didn’t already
know, but take comfort in the fact that most parents
struggle with the challenges of raising tiny human
beings to be self-sufficient members of society (most of
the time).
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The Golden Child: Firstborns & New Parents
“Like a new mom…
scared shitless.”
Parenting & Newborns
“How do I look?”

—Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) &
Bren MacGuff (Alison Janney), Juno (2007)
There’s nothing like the excitement of your first child;
painting the nursery; picking baby names; reading
parenting books; buying cute maternity clothes; not
going on rides at Disneyland; not drinking. OK, so maybe
those last two suck, but still. The imminent arrival of
your first child is cause for celebration. This section has
been created with two goals in mind:
1.
2.
Remind you what a blessing it is to be not just a
parent, but a good parent.
Assure you that no matter how scary things get,
you’re going to make it.
So just remember the next time it’s four-thirty in the
morning and you’re changing a diaper with tears of
frustration in your eyes that one time you read a quotes
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

book that had a Look Who’s Talking reference that made
you laugh, and everything will be fine.
“The most terrifying day of your life is the day the
first one is born. Your life as you know it… is gone,
never to return. But they learn how to walk, and
they learn how to talk… and you want to be with
them. And they turn out to be the most delightful
people you will ever meet in your life.”
—Bob Harris (Bill Murray),
Lost in Translation (2003)
“No drinking, no drugs,
no kissing, no tattoos,
no piercings, no ritual
animal slaughters of any
kind… Oh God, I’m giving
them ideas.”
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—Larry Miller (Walter Stratford),
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
—Howard Stark (John Slattery),
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Parenting & Newborns
“What is and always will
be my greatest creation…
is you.”

“What’s the point? I mean, I sure as shit don’t
know. Neither does anybody else, okay? We’re all
just winging it, you know?”
—Dad (Ethan Hawke), Boyhood (2014)
“All we can do is give him a place full of love.”
—Victor Vazquez (Cooper Andrews),
Shazam! (2019)
“Having somebody help you doesn’t mean that
you fail, it just means that you’re not in it alone.”
—Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel),
Life as We Know It (2010)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“One thing I know for sure: Don’t do it like me. Do
it like you.”
—Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson),
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
“You always listen to your mother, understand?
Do what she tells you to do. She’s your best friend.
Tell her you love her every day. You’re too young
for girls right now, but there’s gonna come a time,
and when it does, you treat them like princesses,
because that’s what they are. When you say
you’re gonna do something, you do it. Because
your word is your bond, son, that’s all you have.
And money, you make money if you get a chance.
Even if you gotta sell out every once in a while,
you make as much money as you can. Don’t be
stupid like your father—everything is so much
easier with money, son. Don’t smoke. Be kind to
people. If somebody chooses you, you stand up,
you be a man. And you stay away from the bad
things, son. Please, don’t be caught up in the bad
things—there are so many great things out there
for you. I’ll never leave you.”
—John Q. Archibald (Denzel Washington),
John Q. (2002)
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—James Ubriacco (John Travolta),
Look Who’s Talking (1989)
“It costs more to have
someone born than to
have someone killed!”

Parenting & Newborns
“I think being a good father is keeping the mother
happy so she doesn’t drive the kids crazy.”
—Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey),
Baby Mama (2008)
“Miracles. Events with astronomical odds of
occurring, like oxygen turning into gold. I’ve
longed to witness such an event, and yet I neglect
that in human coupling, millions upon millions
of cells compete to create life, for generation
after generation until finally, your mother loves
[a man] she has every reason to hate, and out of
that contradiction, against unfathomable odds,
it’s you—only you—that emerged. To distill
so specific a form from all that chaos, it’s like
turning air into gold: a miracle.”
—Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup),
Watchmen (2006)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“There’s no such thing as ready. You just jump on
a moving train and you try not to die.”
—Vic Mack (Chris Rock),
What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)
“Your mom was probably pretty normal before
she had you. But then you were born. And you
didn’t sleep for six months. So she didn’t sleep for
six months. And you refused to eat. And when you
did eat, you would barf all over her clothes. And
that made your mom a little crazy. And then you
fell off your bike and broke your arm. And then
you got bullied in school, and then you started
dating that weird dude with the stick through
his nose. And all those things? Made your mom a
little more crazy. And then you got married and
bought a house you can’t afford and you raise
kids who never say “please” or “thank you”, shit,
they can’t even read, and all those things made
your mom super duper crazy. And now you come
into my office and go “Dr Karl, why’s my mom so
crazy?” And this answer is: you, motherfucker!
You made your mom crazy! So be nice to your
mom, ’cause you the one who fucked her shit up!”
—Dr. Karl (Wanda Sykes),
A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)
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—Davis Macdonald (Alec Baldwin),
She’s Having a Baby (1988)
Parenting & Newborns
“Yeah, you’ll be happy.
You just won’t know it.”

“Kids give us a chance of being better
than we used to be.”
—Vanessa (Morena Baccarin),
Deadpool 2 (2018)
“You know, we tried to be very careful with Emily.
Tried to plan for everything. She was such a good
girl. But we let our guard down. And why would
I tell you? You may have kids one day. You cannot
blink—not once, not ever.”
—Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner),
Wind River (2017)
“I love being a mother of a two-year-old. It is like
being a movie star in a world without critics.”
—Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker),
I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I just wanted the glow…
the one that they promise
you on the cover of those
magazines. Well, I’m
calling it—pregnancy
sucks. Making a human
being is really hard. I
have no control over my
body or my emotions.”
—Wendy Cooper (Elizabeth Banks),
What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)
“Natural law: Sons are put on this earth to
trouble their fathers.”
—John Rooney (Paul Newman),
Road to Perdition (2002)
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Burt: “Do you promise to let our daughter be fat
or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want
her to be happy, no matter what. Being obsessed
with weight is just too cliché for our daughter.”

Parenting & Newborns
Academy Anecdote: Paul Newman received a
nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the
role of John Rooney in Road to Perdition. This
was the only time he was ever nominated in the
supporting category. He had seven nominations for
lead performance.
Verona: “Yes, I do. Do you promise, when she
talks, you’ll listen? Like, really listen, especially
when she’s scared? And that her fights will be
your fights?”
Burt: “I do. And do you promise that if I die
some embarrassing and boring death that you’re
gonna tell our daughter that her father was killed
by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand
combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850
Chechnyan orphans?”
Verona: “I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do. I do.”
—Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) & Verona
De Tessant (Mya Rudolph), Away We Go (2009)
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
The Brood: New Siblings & Family Expansion
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
There is a different energy for first-time parents. It’s
unknown; scary; exciting. There’s so much to prepare
for before the baby arrives. Practically, you plan for
their arrival as best you can. Impractically, you freak out
about what type of parent you’re going to be. Will you
ever be the same again?
No. I mean come on, you know you won’t. But it’s not
like we can actually tell expecting parents that. Telling
expecting parents how terrifying parenting will be is
like telling somebody the truth when they ask if it “looks
bad” after some kind of accident. Yes, it looks bad, but do
they really need to know that at the time?
You can’t mess with first-timers. But parents with a
whole brood already? Totally fair game! Below you’ll
find some gems that old hats will find so funny they’ll
laugh until they cry. Well, actually they’ll cry because
the truth of some of the statements will ring too close to
home…but they’ll laugh first!
“One…a breeze. Two…brutal. Three…just put a
bullet in my head.”
—Pete (Paul Rudd), This is 40 (2012)
114
—Gil Buckman (Steve Martin),
Parenthood (1989)

Parenting & Newborns
“Well, great! Let’s see how I can screw the fourth
one up! Hey, let’s have five. Let’s have six. Let’s
have a dozen and pretend they’re donuts!”
“When you need me but
do not want me, then I
must stay. When you want
me but no longer need
me, then I have to go.”
—Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson),
Nanny McPhee (2005)
“I guess you could say that when Tom and I left
Midland, we had a mess of theories about how to
raise children. We still have a mess of children,
but no theories.”
—Kate Baker (Bonnie Hunt),
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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“This isn’t funny. This
guy’s got twelve kids.
That’s not funny. That’s
a lot of responsibility to
just be laughing about.
This is sick. This is a sick
movie. I gotta turn this
off. It’s freaking me out.”
—Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) watching Cheaper
by the Dozen in Knocked Up (2007)
“I used to know what’s right, but I’m not sure
anymore. I just… wanna be a good dad.”
“You’re not good… you’re super.”
—Bob (Craig T. Nelson) & Violet Parr
(Sarah Vowell), Incredibles 2 (2018)
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—Edna Mode (Brad Bird), Incredibles 2 (2018)
Casting Couch: The voice of superhero costume
designer (and ad hoc babysitter) Edna Mode is
provided by writer-director Brad Bird, who was
so good at the character during table reads that
Pixar decided not to hire anyone to attempt the voice.

Parenting & Newborns
“Done properly, parenting is a heroic act…
done properly.”
“I am proud of you, my sons. Together, there is
nothing your four minds cannot accomplish. Help
each other, draw upon one another, and always
remember the power that binds you. The same
is what brought me here tonight, that which I
gladly return with my final words: I love you
all, my sons.”
—Splinter (Kevin Clash),
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
“You know fathers don’t like to admit it when
their daughters are capable of running their own
lives. It means we’ve become spectators.”
—Walter Stratford (Larry Miller),
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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“I have five children.
Everything is an
inconvenience. Mind if
I drive real slow on the
way home? I’d like to
pretend it’s a vacation.”
—Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd),
Where the Heart Is (2000)
“Your children don’t need you to be perfect. They
just need you to believe in them.”
—Collette Merchant (Eva Green),
Dumbo (2019)
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Parenting & Newborns
“It’s all those good things you have in you: the
love, the wisdom, the generosity, the selflessness,
the patience—the patience! At 3 a.m. when
everyone’s awake because Ibrahim is sick, and
he can’t find the bathroom, and he’s just puked
all over Katki’s bed. When you blink, when you
blink! And it’s 5:30, and it’s time to get up again,
and you know you’re going to be tired all day, all
week, all your fucking life. And you’re thinking,
what happened to Greece? What happened to
swimming naked off the coast of Greece? And
you have to be willing to make the family out of
whatever you have.”
—Tom Garnett (Chris Messina), Away
We Go (2008)
“You call this a happy
family? Why do we have
to have all these kids?”
—George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart),
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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“My brain is like oatmeal.
I yelled at Kenny today
for coloring outside the
lines! Megan and I are
starting to watch the
same TV shows, and I’m
liking them! I’m losing it!”
—Jack Butler (Michael Keaton),
Mr. Mom (1983)
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
Parenting & Newborns
“We have two kids, Annie and Josh. Annie’s not
much of a violin player, but she tries real hard.
She’s a little precocious, but that’s only because
she says what’s on her mind. And when she
smiles… And Josh, he has your eyes. He doesn’t
say much, but we know he’s smart. He’s always
got his eyes open, he’s always watching us.
Sometimes you can look at him and you just know
he’s learning something new. It’s like witnessing
a miracle.”
—Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage),
The Family Man (2000)
“We are what they
grow beyond.”
—Yoda (Frank Oz),
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Behind the Scenes: In order to keep Master
Yoda’s appearance a secret, Frank Oz was not
put on call sheets, billed in the credits, or
allowed to leave the set while filming. His appearance
was not discovered by the general public until
opening night.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

10 Fantastic Films: Parenting & Newborns
•
•
•
122
Away We Go (2009): Sam Mendes directs an
all-star dramedy led by Mya Rudolph and John
Krasinski as an expecting couple who find
themselves with the unique opportunity to travel
around the US in search of a new home. Along
the way, they encounter a variety of parents who
teach them the do’s and don’ts of parenthood.
Written by Dave Eggers, it features Catherine
O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gafigan,
and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Parenthood (1989): A classic of parental advice
that doesn’t shy away from the unblinking reality
of life as a parent. The film presents the inner
workings of a large extended family and how
the failures of parents past and present shape
their children for better or worse. Steve Martin
created his “exasperated dad” persona with this
film before carrying it over to the Father of the
Bride series.
Blockers (2018): A raucous, coming-of-age sex
comedy about losing your virginity…from the
point of view of the parents! Blockers is a laughtil-you-hurt parable about the transition from
childhood to adulthood and what it means for
parents. Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, and John
Cena star as a trio of parents and lifelong friends
•
•
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): You’re
reading this correctly. The sequel to Marvel’s
surprise hit about loser space-travelers is one
of the best movies about parenting you can
find. The sequel finds Peter Quill (Chris Pratt)
unexpectedly reunited with Ego (Kurt Russell),
the father he never knew. It may sound silly, but
this underappreciated follow-up deals with the
cyclical nature of abuse and how parents must be
the ones to recognize it and put an end to it. “We
will never break the chain…”

Parenting & Newborns
•
who team up to prevent their daughters from
losing their virginity on prom night.
Eighth Grade (2018): Elsie Fisher is a revelation
in Bo Burnham’s achingly sincere and painfully
awkward debut feature about a charming young
woman who attempts to navigate the social
landscape of middle school. A must-see for any
parents with kids about to enter junior high. Not
for those who are squeamish about depictions
of anxiety.
Neighbors (2014): This Seth Rogen vehicle is
often miscategorized as a frat comedy, when in
fact it’s about the transition that adults must
undertake when they have their first child.
Rogen and Rose Byrne are a pair of new parents
who struggle with the notion that their days
of partying and being carefree have seemingly
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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•
•
•
124
slipped away with the arrival of their child.
Making matters worse is the fact that a group of
inconsiderate frat boys live next door, constantly
waking their baby and making their lives a
living hell.
Incredibles 2 (2018): The Incredibles (2004) was
all about a father’s midlife crisis as told through
the superhero genre. Incredibles 2 is all about that
same man’s exploration of the daily life of a parent
and learning that there’s more than one way to be
a hero. Sure, none of us are going to have to deal
with a baby with uncontrollable superpowers…
but it sure will feel like it some days.
The Babadook (2014): This chilling haunted
house tale follows a frustrated and exhausted
mother (Essie Davis) as she simultaneously
deals with her difficult, troubled son and an
otherworldly entity called Mr. Babadook who
may or may not be haunting a pop-up book she
created. An allegory for postpartum depression,
The Babadook is a terrifying look at parental
instinct twisted beyond recognition.
Nobody’s Fool (1994): Sully (Paul Newman) is
a small-town legend who is most known for his
charming hustles and presence as a town rascal.
When his estranged son shows up at his doorstep
with a grandson he’s never met, Sully must
confront his own failings as a man and a father
Captain Fantastic (2016): A former left-wing
radical activist (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife
(Trin Miller) have spent the last two decades
raising their six children. When tragedy strikes,
the group must venture out of their secluded
lifestyle and venture into the “real” world for
the first time. A bittersweet reminder that while
parents may know a lot, they sure as hell don’t
know everything.

Parenting & Newborns
•
and find a way to make genuine connections
with the people he cares about. Newman was
nominated for his performance.
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The Holidays
The Holidays
5

“’T’was a long time ago, longer now than it seems,
in a place perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams.
For the story you’re about to be told began with
the holiday worlds of auld. Now you’ve probably
wondered where holidays come from. If you
haven’t, I’d say it’s time you’ve begun!”
—Narrator (Ed Ivory), The Nightmare Before
Christmas (1993)
I’ve heard that if you can produce just one hit (music, TV,
or film) that’s holiday-themed, you’re set for life. In fact,
that’s the plot for About a Boy (2002) and one of the subplots for Love, Actually (2003). The question becomes…
why is it so hard to produce a worthwhile holiday film?
Perhaps it’s because there is a quality to the holidays
that can’t quite be transferred into a narrative, no matter
how hard we try.
And yet we still try. Year after year, studios try their best
to introduce new holiday classics into the mix. Some
succeed at a level that is completely unforeseen. Some
make an immediate splash; The Santa Clause (1994), for
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

instance, was a box office smash right out of the gate and
pulled in $144 million during its theatrical run. Similarly,
Elf, Bad Santa, and Love, Actually were all released
within a month of each other and were all enormously
successful. Elf in particular was a surprise hit even for
those involved. During an interview on Good Morning
America, Will Ferrell recalled that at the time of filming,
he was unsure if he had made a good decision:
“Running around the streets of New York dressed as an
elf, I thought, ‘This could be my last movie.’ ”
Real classics, however, don’t even have to be hits at
the time of release. A Christmas Story (1983) was
only a modest hit at the time despite being extremely
profitable. In the early days of pay cable TV, channels
like HBO needed cheap content in addition to their
major offerings, leading to A Christmas Story getting the
opportunity to be shown multiple times a week during
the holidays. Even more outrageous was the turnaround
for It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Capra’s bittersweet
holiday film was an outright bomb upon release, barely
making back its budget and receiving mixed reviews
at the time. When the film’s copyright expired due to a
clerical error, television stations began to use the film
as a cheap fill-in during the holidays. It wasn’t until the
early ’80s, nearly four decades after release, that It’s a
Wonderful Life became a perennial favorite.
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g g g
The Holidays
If you’re wondering why most of the introduction to
this chapter is spent referencing Christmas films…
well, you’re right to wonder. While Christmas movies
have caught on over the years due to their long-term
profitability, other holidays have not gotten their share
of content. While there are a handful of very specific
New Year’s films (New Year’s Eve, 200 Cigarettes, When
Harry Met Sally…), Hanukkah has not fared nearly as
well in the representation department. This is something
that will be addressed in each subsection accordingly.
And I may just bend the rules a bit to make sure that we
get some quality content for each of the holidays below,
which are listed in order of appearance during the year
(in case you were wondering).

That being said, I’ve done my best to scour the far
reaches of the cinema-verse in hopes of capturing
as many holiday references as possible. Time to
start celebrating!
New Year’s Eve
Does this holiday count as the end of the year, or the
start of it? Both! For the sake of this tome, I’ve counted
it as the start of the year. Symbolically, it just seems
to make the most sense. You would think that there
would be an abundance of films centered around New
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

Year’s Eve. It’s a holiday with a timer built in, perfect
for dramatic tension. Given that the holiday itself
emphasizes change and growth, it feels like it would be
such a natural fit. Unfortunately, very few films have
taken advantage of the opportunity. Here’s what the
ones that did had to offer.
“Some people swear
there’s no beauty left
in the world, no magic.
Then how do you explain
the entire world coming
together on one night to
celebrate the hope of a
new year?”
—Claire Morgan (Hillary Swank),
New Year’s Eve (2011)
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
The Holidays
“The New Year. The future. Yeah, ole daddy
Earth fixin’ to start one more trip ’round the
sun and everybody hopin’ this ride ’round be a
little more giddy, a little more gay. Yep, all over
town champagne corks is a-poppin’. Over in the
Waldorf, the big shots is dancin’ to the strains of
Guy Lombardo. Down in Times Square, the little
folks is a watchin’ and waitin’ for that big ball to
drop. They all tryin’ to catch hold of one moment
of time—to be able to say, ‘Right now! This is it!
I got it!’ ’Course by then, it’ll be past. But they all
happy, everybody havin’ a good time.”
—Moses, the Clock Man (Bill Cobbs),
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Fun Fact: The Hudsucker Proxy is the only film
directed by the Coen Brothers to be rated PG. All
other films in their portfolio are either
PG-13 or R.
“Can’t we have peace in this house even
on New Year’s Eve?”
“You got it mixed up with Christmas. New Year’s
Eve is when people go back to killing each other.”
—Mrs. Finney (Connie Gilchrist) &
Sadie Dubin (Thelma Ritter), A Letter to
Three Wives (1949)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Everybody’s having fun out here. They drinking,
they fighting, they pissing on the streets.
It’s New Year’s Eve.”
—Disco Cabbie (Dave Chappelle),
200 Cigarettes (1999)
“I love that you get cold when it’s seventy-one
degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and
a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a
little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking
at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the
day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my
clothes. And I love that you are the last person I
want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And
it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because
it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because
when you realize you want to spend the rest of
your life with somebody, you want the rest of your
life to start as soon as possible.”
—Harry Burns (Billy Crystal),
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
132
The Holidays
“Is that midnight LA time,
or, or Eastern Standard
Time, or what? I mean,
what time zone is God in
anyway?”

—Talk Radio Host (Chris Douridas),
Strange Days (1995)
“Sometimes it feels like there are so many things
in this world we can’t control: earthquakes,
floods, reality shows… But it’s important to
remember the things that we can, like forgiveness,
second chances, fresh starts… Because the one
thing that turns the world from the longing place
to a beautiful place…is love, love and any of its
forms. Love gives us hope—hope for the New
Year. That’s what New Year’s Eve is to me: hope
and a great party!”
—Sam Ahern, Jr. (Josh Duhamel),
New Year’s Eve (2011)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Merry New Year!”
—Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy),
Trading Places (1983)
“And as you all can see, the ball has stopped
halfway to its perch. It’s suspended there to
remind us, before we pop the champagne and
celebrate the New Year, to stop and reflect on
the year that has gone by; to remember both our
triumphs and our missteps, our promises made
and broken, the times we opened ourselves up
to great adventures…or closed ourselves down
for fear of getting hurt, because that’s what New
Year’s is all about: getting another chance. A
chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give
more, to love more, and to stop worrying about
‘what if’ and start embracing what will be. So
when that ball drops at midnight—and it will
drop—let’s remember to be nice to each other,
kind to each other, and not just tonight, but all
year long.”
—Claire Morgan (Hillary Swank),
New Year’s Eve (2011)
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Halloween
The Holidays
There’s a pretty healthy debate in my household as
to which is the best holiday for adults: Halloween or
Christmas. I tend to side with All Hallows Eve, myself.
There’s something wonderfully delightful about the
night when the veil between the living and the dead is
at its thinnest. Autumn is in full swing by then, giving
a crispness to the air. It’s spooky, but also comforting
and magical.

Most of the time, we think of “scary movies” as
Halloween movies, but when you really think about it, is
Halloween actually scary? When you think of Halloween
now, you probably think of mischief and fun—thrills.
We’ll get to this more in the recommendations section,
but in my experience, Halloween offers us a chance to
rejoice; to celebrate our lives by dancing with the dead.
“Samhain, also known as All Hallows’ Eve, also
known as Halloween; predating Christianity,
the Celtic holiday was celebrated on the one
night between autumn and winter when the
barrier between the living and the dead was
thinnest and often involved rituals that included
human sacrifice.”
—Rhonda (Samm Todd), Trick ’r Treat (2008)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

Fun Fact: Despite scoring high test scores, Trick
’r Treat went unreleased for two years.
Eventually, Warner Brothers quietly dumped
the film straight to DVD, where it became an instant cult
classic. Warner Brothers has never given a reason why
the film did not receive a theatrical release.
“Sisters, All Hallows’ Eve has become a night
of frolic, where children wear costumes and
run amok!”
—Winnifred Sanderson (Bette Midler),
Hocus Pocus (1993)
“Believe it or not, I was just like you when I was
a kid—till my dad set me straight, that is. See,
my dad taught me tonight is about respecting
the dead because this is the one night that the
dead and all sorts of other things roam free—and
pay us a visit. Sorry. All these traditions, jack-o’lanterns, putting on costumes, handing out treats,
they were started to protect us, but nowadays…
No one really cares.”
—Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker),
Trick ’r Treat (2008)
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The Holidays
“It’s a perfect night for
mystery and horror. The
air itself is filled with
monsters.”

—Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Elsa
Lanchester), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
“There’s a reason we’re supposed to be
afraid of this night.”
—Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton),
Halloween (2018)
“In the real world, Halloween is when kids dress
up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World,
Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can
dress up like a total slut and no other girls can
say anything else about it.”
­—Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan),
Mean Girls (2004)
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“It’s Halloween;
everyone’s entitled to
one good scare.”
—Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers),
Halloween (1978)
Hidden Meaning: Sheriff Brackett was named
after famed screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who
had written director John Carpenter’s favorite
western, Rio Bravo (1959). Brackett was a
pioneer who broke ground for later female
screenwriters. Her other credits include The Big Sleep
(1946), The Long Goodbye (1973), and The Empire
Strikes Back (1980).
“During the spookiest time of the year, there are
a few guidelines all ghosts and goblins should
follow. Always stay on sidewalks. Never go to a
stranger’s house, and never go out alone.”
—Halloween PSA Announcer (unknown),
Trick ’r Treat (2008)
138
—Mr. Moundshroud (Leonard Nimoy),
The Halloween Tree (1993)
The Holidays
“And that, children, is
Halloween! All rolled up
in one. Night and day.
Summer and winter.
Life and death. Four
thousand years ago,
one hundred years, or
this year. One place or
another. The celebrations
are all the same: Dia de
los Muertos; Day of the
Dead; Feast of ghosts; All
Hallows’ Eve. Halloween!”

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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is usually associated with food, football,
and family. It’s that last one that usually does you in—
especially when Thanksgiving shows up in a movie. It’s
a holiday that’s often presented as a time of reflection
and gratitude. But when you joke about Thanksgiving,
what references do you end up making? Anxiety. Stress.
Fighting. Try to remember that when you scroll through
these lines. I didn’t create that perception, I’m just
reinforcing it. Me? I’m thankful that I’m not the only one
who feels this way…
“That was absurd, let’s
eat dead bird!”
—Tommy Larson (Robert Downey, Jr.),
Home for the Holidays (1995)
140

The Holidays
“You have taken the land which is rightfully ours.
Years from now, my people will be forced to live
in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will
wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell
our bracelets by the roadsides; you will play golf
and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have
pain and degradation. Your people will have stick
shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They
have said, ‘Do not trust the Pilgrims, especially
Sarah Miller.’”
—Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci),
Addams Family Values (1993)
“Nobody means what
they say on Thanksgiving,
Mom. You know that.
That’s what the day’s
supposed to be all about,
right? Torture.”
—Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter),
Home for the Holidays (1995)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“It kind of sucks being old, so just enjoy this
time. Time slips away. I promise you. I had a
dinner like this twenty years ago with guys that
just lost touch with each other. I never talk to
them anymore. Some of them are dead. Things
slip away. If you love somebody, don’t let them
slip away. I swear to you, this will be your most
memorable Thanksgiving, the one you’ll want
the rest of your life—the one that you say, man, it
was never as good as that night. So let this night
be great. Rock and roll.”
—George Simmons (Adam Sandler),
Funny People (2009)
“Dear Lord, we realize that lately, everything’s
been changing too damn fast. And all sorts of
things are always the same, even if we hate it—
like shoveling the turkey and stuffing the snow.”
—Henry Larson (Charles Durning),
Home for the Holidays (1995)
“It ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close
to Thanksgiving.”
142
—Even Bigger Black Guy (J.T. Turner),
Trading Places (1983)
The Holidays
“Now if you’ll excuse
me, I’m going to go baste
the turkey and hide the
kitchen knives.”

—Mrs. Pascal (Geneviève Bujold),
The House of Yes (1997)
“I’m giving thanks that we don’t have to go
through this for another year. Except we do,
because those bastards went and put Christmas
right in the middle, just to punish us.”
—Adele Larson (Anne Bancroft),
Home for the Holidays (1995)
Hanukkah
Why aren’t there more Hanukkah movies?! Writing and
researching this section really made me sad. For real, in
the history of cinema, we’ve got one single Hanukkahthemed film—one. And it’s an animated film from Adam
Sandler featuring such smash-hit tunes as…“Technical
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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Foul?” It’s really a shame for such a beautiful holiday to
be so underrepresented in film history. At least we have
some zingers from The Hebrew Hammer (2003) to fall
back on. Seriously, though, folks. We need some more
Hanukkah flicks, ASAP!
“Well, Mom, I did save Hanukkah…”
“I mean… let’s be honest, Mordechai. It isn’t even
one of the High Holidays. Now if you had saved
Yom Kippur… or Passover… you might have what
to brag about.”
—Mordechai Carver/The Hebrew Hammer
(Adam Goldberg) & Mrs. Carver (Nora Dunn),
The Hebrew Hammer (2003)
“Chanukah is that special
time of year between
Christmas and Misgiving
when all the bestest
holiday shows are on TV.”
144
—Anjelica Pickles (Cheryl Chase),
Rugrats, “A Rugrats Chanukah” (1996)
The Holidays
“When Judah was
asked by his
companions, ‘How can
we, few as we are, fight
back against so great
of a multitude?’ Judah
replied, ‘It’s not the size
of our army, it is the
strength of our faith.’ ”

—Rabbi Lewis (R.H. Thomson),
Full-Court Miracle (2003)
“The miracle is, these [latkes] have clogged our
people’s arteries for two thousand years, yet
we survive.”
—Grandpa Boris (Michael Bell),
“A Rugrats Chanukah” (1996)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“You’ve got a dream? What is it?”
“To have someone wish me a Happy Hanukkah
and have it feel as good as when my dad used to.”
—Whitey Duvall & Davey Stone (Adam
Sandler), Eight Crazy Nights (2002)
“Let me guess, you’re
the goy who stole
Hanukkah?”
—Mordechai Carver/The Hebrew Hammer
(Adam Goldberg)
“A menorah is like the nightlight of our people. In
times of darkness, it shines on the whole world
reminding us not to be afraid to be different, but
to be proud of who we are.”
—Shlomo (Fyvush Finkel), Rugrats,
“A Rugrats Chanukah” (1996)
146
Christmas
The Holidays
We’ve already talked about Christmas films above so I’ll
take this time to simply ask again: why aren’t there more
Hanukkah movies?!

“Oh, Christmas isn’t
just a day, it’s a frame
of mind…”
—Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn),
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
“Nick, there’s been one thing that’s been eating
at me since I’ve been here. That Naughty-Nice
List that you got? There’s no naughty kids, Nick.
They’re all good kids. But some of them are
scared. And some of them don’t feel listened to.
Some of them had some pretty tough breaks, too.
But every kid deserves a present on Christmas.”
—Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn), Fred Claus (2007)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“I spend months picking out the perfect present
for everyone. You know the only thing I get in
return? Coupons, free back rubs.”
­—Kiki (Kristen Bell),
A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)
“Christmas is not ‘clothing optional’ this year. We
have a guest.”
—Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton),
The Family Stone (2005)
“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s
leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, oldfashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in
this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm
holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on,
and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest
Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with
Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes
his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s
gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side
of the nuthouse.”
—Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase),
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
148
—Kelly Stone (Craig T. Nelson), The Family
Stone (2005)
The Holidays
“It’s a very good tree.”

Musical Musings: In order to enhance Judy
Garland’s vocal performance of “Have Yourself a
Merry Little Christmas” during the Christmas
Eve montage in The Family Stone, composer
Michael Giacchino had the orchestra rerecord the
original instrumental accompaniment down to the note
and tempo.
“That is my center. It is what I was born with, eyes
that have only seen the wonder in everything!
Eyes that see lights in the trees and magic in the
air. This wonder is what I put into the world and
what I protect in children. It is what makes me a
guardian. It is my center, what is yours?”
—Nicholas St. North (Alec Baldwin),
Rise of the Guardians (2012)
“Blast this Christmas music! It’s joyful
and triumphant.”
—The Grinch (Jim Carrey),
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Ahh, smell those
Christmas trees. You
can keep your ‘Channel’
Number 5, just give
me a whiff of the old
lonesome pine…that
symbol of brotherly love,
that centerpiece that all
mankind gathers around
to share the cranberry
sauce shaped like a can.”
—Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney),
Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
150
The Holidays
“It’s Christmas Eve,
and we are going to go
celebrate being young
and being alive.”

—Miles Dumont (Jack Black),
The Holiday (2006)
“It’s Christmas Eve! It’s the one night of the year
when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little
easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple of
hours out of the whole year, we are the people
that we always hoped we would be. It’s a…
miracle. It’s really a sort of a miracle. Because it
happens every Christmas Eve. And if you waste
that miracle, you’re gonna burn for it, I know
what I am talking about.”
—Frank Cross (Bill Murray), Scrooged (1988)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

10 Fantastic Flicks: Holidays
•
•
•
152
The Family Stone (2005): Equal parts screwball
comedy and tragic melodrama, The Family Stone
is a welcome alternative to the holiday movies
you’ve seen hundreds of times. All hell breaks
loose when the eldest son of an extremely laidback and liberal family brings home his uptight
girlfriend for Christmas. Amid bickering, pranks,
misunderstandings, and partner swaps, the family
must learn to deal with the potential loss of one of
their own. Bring the tissues.
The Hebrew Hammer (2003): Of the few
Hanukkah films I could find, this seemed to be
both the most popular and the most widespread.
A parody of blaxploitation flicks like Dolemite
(1975) and Shaft (1971), The Hebrew Hammer
follows a “certified circumcised private”
um, investigator named Mordechai Jefferson
Carver who diligently fights for Jews under the
eponymous alias. When the kindly, peace-loving
Santa is killed by his own evil son Damien, the
tenuous peace between Christians and Jews is
threatened. Only the Hebrew Hammer can save
Hanukkah, even if that’s not good enough for his
mother (who just wants to see him settle down).
Trick ‘r Treat (2008): Do you honor holidays as
intended? Do you go to temple on Yom Kippur?
Krampus (2016): He sees you when you’re
sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He
knows if you’ve been bad or good. So be good,
for your own life’s sake…writer-director Michael
Dougherty has made quite a name for himself in
the holiday-horror community. His follow-up to
Trick ’r Treat finds Max (Emjay Anthony), a boy
on the verge of adolescence who is struggling to
maintain his faith in Santa Claus and the spirit
of Christmas. When his insensitive cousins
embarrass him on Christmas Eve, Max tears up his
letter to Santa and sends the tearstained pieces
into the night sky. Soon, the family is beset by evil
toys, murderous gingerbread men, and demonic

The Holidays
•
Church on Christmas Day? Light the menorah
every night of Hanukkah? Oh, you do? What
about…Halloween? Do you honor the dead on
Halloween? In this insta-classic, the spirit of
Halloween (aka Samhain, aka All Hallows’ Eve)
takes the childlike form of the costumed sprite
Sam as he scurries around a sleepy Ohio town
that becomes a mecca for all things spooky each
Halloween. A nonlinear narrative anthology (think
Pulp Fiction meets Spirit Halloween Superstore),
this mischievous yarn teaches lessons to its
unsuspecting characters, including: “Never blow
out a jack-o-lantern before midnight;” “Always
wear a costume;” and “Always leave offerings for
the dead.”
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

154
•
elves. It seems that Max’s letter was found by
Krampus, who has come to punish the family for
their selfish ways. A mix of bleak comedy and
horror, Krampus draws its strength from watching
its ensemble cast (Toni Collette, Adam Scott,
David Koechner, Allison Tolman, and Conchata
Ferrell) bond over the bizarre and seemingly
hopeless confrontation that they have brought
upon themselves.
Strange Days (1995): Kathryn Bigelow’s
bizarre, violent thriller was a theatrical bomb
with mixed reviews (at best) when it debuted. It
made only $8 million on a $42 million budget. In
the twenty-five years since its release, however,
its reputation has improved dramatically. The
film follows a fictional former LAPD detective,
Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), who has turned to
selling the ultimate drug: the experiences of other
people. SQUIDs are electrical implants that record
a user’s memories and physical responses into
a device that allows them to be relived. When
a murder is committed, a SQUID detailing the
events, including the identity of the killer, ends
up in Lenny’s possession. Set against the chaotic
last two days of 1999, this conspiracy thriller is a
mix of Blow Out (1980) and Total Recall (1990),
but with far more than thrills on its mind. Race,
privacy, systemic inequality, and drug use are all
•
The Halloween Tree (1993): The best Ray
Bradbury adaptation turned out to be a madefor-TV animated feature produced by HannaBarbera. But believe me when I say that’s not a
slam on other Bradbury adaptations but rather
a testament to the quality of this one. Bradbury
penned the script himself and lends his incredible
voice as the Narrator for this tale about a group
of preteens who must go on a voyage across
time and space with Mr. Moundshroud (an
unrecognizable vocal performance by Leonard
Nimoy) in order to save the soul of their beloved
leader, Pip. As the children learn about the
true origins of Halloween (in a delightfully
straightforward manner), they gain the
confidence and sense of authority that they were
unknowingly displacing onto Pip himself. The
Halloween Tree is a great family film with some
real knowledge to drop.
In Bruges (2008): Thanks to Dickens, many
Christmas movies revolve around redemption.
Can someone be redeemed by the Christmas
spirit? On the surface, In Bruges is not a Christmas
movie. The story of a hit man (Colin Ferrell)
who accidentally kills an innocent child during
an assignment, Martin McDonagh’s black-as-

The Holidays
•
wrapped up in an aptly strange package. When the
ball drops…will we survive?
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

156
•
night comedy is violent, bleak, and depressing.
Secretly, the film relies on our understanding of
Christmas redemption tales and challenges us
to really contemplate the nature of redemption
and forgiveness. Can a man who makes money by
killing others and who has taken innocent lives be
redeemed? Joining Ferrell are Brendan Gleeson
and Ralph Fiennes as his mentor and boss,
respectively.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005): Technically, every
Shane Black movie is a Christmas movie. The
guy loves setting his films at Christmas; no clue
why, but that’s just how it goes. However, Kiss
Kiss, Bang Bang might be his ultimate Christmas
movie. After running away from a botched toy
store robbery two weeks before Christmas,
amateur thief Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey,
Jr.) stumbles into an audition for a big Hollywood
blockbuster and ends up “in talks” to be the lead.
In an attempt to beef up his background, the
studio execs pair him with famous Hollywood
private eye “Gay” Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer).
The two find themselves in dual murder mysteries
that culminate in a Christmas party gone wrong
complete with a damsel-in-distress in a Mrs. Claus
costume. It’s one of the sharpest, funniest scripts
ever committed to film as well as a send-up of the
buddy cop comedies that put Shane Black himself
on the map.
•
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994): As timely as ever,
this collaboration between the Coen Brothers
and the Raimi Brothers is a pitch-perfect sendup of Capra. It focuses on a lowly mail clerk (Tim
Robbins) who is set up as a patsy in a scheme by
a wealthy executive (Paul Newman) seeking to
gain a controlling interest in a publicly-owned
major corporation. I won’t ruin some of the
surprises, but needless to say, the film culminates
in a New Year’s Eve filled with attempted suicide,
maintenance man battles, and guardian angels—a
delightfully whacky way to bring in the New Year!

The Holidays
•
Home for the Holidays (1995): Jodie Foster’s
directorial debut is a love letter to holiday misery.
Holly Hunter stars as a single mother who returns
to her childhood home for Thanksgiving. Having
lost her job and at the end of her rope, she asks
her extroverted brother (Robert Downey, Jr.) to
attend to support her, despite his having been
ostracized from the family for being gay. Charles
Durning and Anne Bancroft co-star as parents
who can barely hold it together amid the anarchy
of their children’s return. Hilarious, weird, and
oddly comforting, this should be your first and last
stop for Thanksgiving movies.
157
Back to School
Back to School
6

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and
ideas can change the world.”
­—John Keating (Robin Williams),
Dead Poets Society (1989)
I’ve felt a great disturbance in the Force…as if millions
of children cried out suddenly in unison, “That’s not
a special occasion!” I’m sorry, children, but the backto-school season is in fact a glorious, magnificent
special occasion. For me, education is an exciting and
celebratory effort that I wish I could take part in more
often. I always loved going back to school. I loved that
I would be reading new books, learning new concepts,
and seeing my teachers again. I know what you’re
thinking (“Nerd!”), but I know for a fact that I am not the
only person who loves this magical time of year. Your
parents love it, too.
Let’s be clear, school isn’t easy. It’s challenging. It’s long.
It requires patience, both with your own capabilities and
outside factors. It takes a lot to get through school. It
takes teachers, friends, family members, and your own
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

160
will. The quotes in this section are a mix of inspirational
comments about education itself, hard truths about the
nature of school, and insights that will help any student
make it through to the other side of the education
system in one piece. Get studying!
“Back to school. Back
to school, to prove to
dad that I’m not a fool.
I got my lunch packed
up, my boots tied tight, I
hope I don’t get in a fight.
Ohhhh, back to school.
Back to school. Back to
school. Well, here goes
nothing.”
—Billy Madison (Adam Sandler),
Billy Madison (1995)
—John Keating (Robin Williams),
Dead Poets Society (1989)

Back to School
“There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for
caution, and a wise man understands which is
called for.”
“Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example,
the sun goes up, and then it goes down. But every
time that happens, what do you get? You get a
new day. You get a new one. When you breathe,
you inhale and you exhale, but every single time
that you do that, you’re a little bit different
than the one before. We’re always changing.
And it’s important to know that there are some
changes you can’t control and that there are
others you can.”
—Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling),
Half Nelson (2006)
“Playing music is supposed to be fun. It’s about
heart, it’s about feelings, moving people, and
something beautiful, and it’s not about notes on
a page. I can teach you notes on a page; I can’t
teach you that other stuff.”
—Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfus),
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Those that can’t do, teach, and those
that can’t teach…teach gym.”
—Dewey Finn (Jack Black),
School of Rock (2003)
“Education in Britain is a nubile Cinderella:
sparsely clad and much interfered with.”
—Headmaster (Peter Jeffrey), If… (1968)
“[Being] a teacher is two
jobs. Fill young minds
with knowledge, yes. But
more important, give
those minds a compass
so that that knowledge
doesn’t go to waste.”
162
—Principal Jacobs (Olympia Dukakis),
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

Back to School
“Did you know that neither the Greeks nor the
Romans were capable of using the concept of
zero? It was your ancestors, the Mayans, who first
contemplated the zero—the absence of value.
True story. You burros have math in your blood.”
—Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos),
Stand and Deliver (1988)
“No thinking—that comes
later. You must write
your first draft with your
heart. You rewrite with
your head. The first key
to writing is to write, not
to think!”
—William Forrester (Sean Connery),
Finding Forrester (2000)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“My life’s work is teaching. And I believed that if
you boys won that science fair, got scholarships,
went off and did something great with your
lives, somehow my life would have counted for
something. You know what? Sometimes you really
can’t listen to what anybody else says. You just
gotta listen inside.”
—Miss Riley (Laura Dern), October Sky (1999)
“Well, I have one
thousand three hundred
and eighty-four days to
go. Just so I say it
to someone, high school
is even worse than
middle school.”
—Charlie Kelmeckis (Logan Lerman),
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
164
Back to School
“The three keys of
coolness in high school,
by Jenko: One, don’t
try hard at anything.
Okay? Two, make fun of
people who do try. Three,
be handsome. Four, if
anyone steps to you on
the first day of school,
you punch them directly
in the face. Five, drive a
kick-ass car.”

—Officer Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum),
21 Jump Street (2012)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Ironically, we were studying The Scarlet Letter,
but isn’t that always the way? The books you read
in class always seem to have a strong connection
with whatever angsty adolescent drama is being
recounted. I consider this. Except for Huckleberry
Finn, because I don’t know any teenage boys
who have ever run away with a big, hulking
black guy.”
—Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone),
Easy A (2010)
“Miss Caroline Krafft seriously needed to pluck
her eyebrows. Her outfit looked like it was picked
out by a blind Sunday school teacher, and she
had some 99-cent lip gloss on her snaggletooth.
And that’s when I realized making fun of Caroline
Krafft wouldn’t stop her from beating me in
this contest… Calling somebody else fat won’t
make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid
doesn’t make you any smarter. And ruining
Regina George’s life definitely didn’t make me any
happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the
problem in front of you.”
—Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan),
Mean Girls (2004)
166

Back to School
Casting Couch: Lindsay Lohan was originally
cast as Regina George in Mean Girls but decided
she wanted to play Cady instead. Amanda
Seyfried, in her film debut, was originally slated
to play Cady but was recast as Karen at the suggestion of
producer Lorne Michaels.
“The only true wisdom
consists in knowing that
you know nothing.”
“That’s us, dude!”
—Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) &
“Ted” Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves),
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Please, try to
understand. I don’t have
the background for this.
I mean, the high school
I went to, they asked a
kid to prove the law of
gravity, he threw the
teacher out the window!”
—Thornton Melton (Rodney Dangerfield),
Back to School (1986)
“Here endeth the lesson.”
—Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery),
The Untouchables (1987)
168

Back to School
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s
cute. We read and write poetry because we are
members of the human race. And the human
race is filled with passion. And medicine, law,
business, engineering, these are noble pursuits
and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty,
romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!…of the
questions of these recurring; of the endless trains
of the faithless…of cities filled with the foolish;
what good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer:
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
that the powerful play goes on and you may
contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes
on and you may contribute a verse. What will
your verse be?”
—John Keating (Robin Williams),
Dead Poets Society (1989)
“Look beyond the paint.
Let us try to open our
minds to a new idea.”
—Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts),
Mona Lisa Smile (2000)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

10 Fantastic Films: Back to School
•
•
•
170
October Sky (1999): During the space race, a
group of high schoolers in a coal mining town who
take an interest in building model rockets soon
become official entrants in the National Science
Fair. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Laura Dern, and
Chris Cooper, October Sky paints a portrait of
working-class people struggling to get by and the
balance between hope and practicality.
Half Nelson (2006): A middle school teacher with
a drug problem (Ryan Gosling) forms a tenuous
friendship with one of his students (Shareeka
Epps) after she discovers his secret. Powerful,
moving, and featuring astounding performances
from the entire cast, Half Nelson is a rewarding
film about teacher-student relationships and the
hardships they both face. Gosling was nominated
for an Oscar for his role.
Matilda (1996): Danny DeVito directed this
Roald Dahl adaptation about a young genius
(Mara Wilson) who develops telekinetic powers
in order to defend herself from the terrible people
in her life. It’s one of the brightest, most positive
depictions of the benefits of learning—a big warm
hug of a film that will have you looking for a new
book to read.
•
•
Children of a Lesser God (1986): A brilliant
linguistic educator of hearing-impaired students
(William Hurt) takes a new job at a school for the
deaf where he begins an unlikely relationship
with the emotionally damaged janitor of the
school (Marlee Matlin). A beautiful film about ego,
education, and trauma, Children of a Lesser God
embraces the notion that in life, we’re all students.
Matlin in particular is fantastic. She became the
only deaf recipient of an Academy Award, and
at the time, she was the youngest Best Actress
winner in Academy history.

Back to School
•
Stand and Deliver (1988): Edward James Olmos
stars as Jaime Escalante, a teacher in East LA
who discovers a group of extremely talented
math students (mostly Latinx) who have been
underserved by their school district. Escalante
implements a program with the goal of having
them ready to take and pass the Advanced
Placement Calculus exam by the time they
graduate high school. Olmos is a revelation of fury
and motivation. The film is noted for its historical
accuracy and its depictions of Latinx students
and teachers.
21 Jump Street (2012): Two bike cops (Jonah Hill
and Channing Tatum) who violate the rights of a
drug dealer are punished by being assigned to go
undercover as high school students and gather
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
172
information on a new drug called HFS (“Holy
Fucking Shit”). Once there, they find high school
isn’t as they remembered. Theater kids rule the
school, jocks hold no power, and caring is cool.
A hilarious send-up of high school culture that is
both ridiculous and stunningly accurate, it was
followed by an equally impressive college send-up
entitled 22 Jump Street (2014).
Easy A (2010): After doing her gay friend a favor
by pretending to have sex with him in a ruse
to help him pass as straight, Olive Penderghast
(Emma Stone) finds herself a pariah after she
becomes the salvation project for the school
religious zealot (Amanda Bynes). Rather than run
from her notoriety, inspired by her recent reading
of The Scarlet Letter, Olive sews a red “A” onto her
most scandalous outfits and sets out to reclaim
her image, and to reclaim female sexuality in the
process. Easy A is a witty, sharp sex comedy in
which not a single soul has sex.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012): Charlie
(Logan Lerman) has recently been released
from a mental health institution, just in time to
start high school. He quickly befriends a group
of outcasts (Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, and Meg
Whitman) who take him under their wing in an
attempt to help him overcome his insecurities
and fears. Unbeknownst to them, Charlie has

Back to School
•
suffered a repressed trauma that is in danger
of resurfacing at any moment. Bittersweet and
lacking authoritative answers, this film hits
too close to home for many. For those who can
stomach it, it’s a worthwhile addition to the high
school film canon.
Billy Madison (1995): Upon learning that he
didn’t actually graduate high school and that his
father is therefore passing him over as head of
his lucrative hotel chain, Billy (Adam Sandler)
arranges a bet: if he can retake and pass all
twelve grades in two weeks each and manages
to successfully graduate from high school, the
company is his. I’ll be straight with you: This
is an idiotic film. But its charming, ridiculously
laid-back attitude and absurdist humor make it a
must-see for the back-to-school season.
173
Retirement
Retirement
7

“Looks like you’ve been missing
a lot of work lately.”
“I wouldn’t say I was missing it, Bob.”
—Bob Porter (Paul Wilson) and Peter Gibbons
(Ron Livingston), Office Space (1999)
According to several studies that I read about on
Twitter, most millennials will never retire. Instead, we
will work until we are unable to perform tasks that our
younger, more eager coworkers will be able to do in an
instant. But we’ll be older and harder to fire legally, so
the joke’s on you, Generation Z!
Retirement is genuinely a major milestone in one’s life.
To be able to end your career in the way you wish is
truly a gift. I implore all retirees to appreciate that gift
and be mindful that some of your coworkers or loved
ones may never reach that goal. While your retirement is
surely a time to celebrate your achievements, be mindful
of the people who supported you and sacrificed for you
throughout your career. Without that support, your
achievement would either not have been possible or
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

would have been much, much more difficult to realize.
We are all in this together.
For those of you lucky enough to retire or who know
somebody who is about to retire, there’s a fine line to
walk between old age jokes and genuine appreciation.
There aren’t many films about retirement, but there are
quite a few about coming out of retirement. In the films
mentioned below, almost every film depicts some kind
of return from retirement. It’s interesting that we have
so few examples of the legacy of work as opposed to
the drive to work. Perhaps it’s just more dramatically
appealing to an audience to watch heroes come back
rather than fade away.
I would like to point out for special consideration
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995), which not only depicts a
life’s work, but also acknowledges that it was both
meaningful, and more importantly, enough. Mr. Holland
is forced into early retirement in a moment of failure…or
so he thinks. The care with which his life and career are
treated is how we should treat every single person who
has put decades into their work without thanks. Sure,
we all need to work, but we should all at least have the
opportunity to finish that work at some point.
176
That being said, for the most part, happily retiring does
not an exciting movie make. So we’ll use what we can.
In this section you’ll find comical and genuine ways
to discuss the end of working life, ways to express
“This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the
beginning of everything!”

Retirement
appreciation for any support given by friends and
coworkers, and previews of just what comes next for the
lucky SOB who gets to call it quits!
—Prince Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster),
The Leopard (1963)
“You know, I used to be in
the music business, but
now I’m what you might
call retired. It’s a refined
name for bum.”
—Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly),
Xanadu (1980)
Academy Anecdote: Xanadu was so poorly
received that it inspired the creation of the
Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies), a parody of
the Oscars that “honors” the worst films of the year.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“A man turns sixty, all of a sudden he’s washed
up and you kick him out of the workplace? That
may have been fine a hundred years ago when
men were dying at the age of fifty. But in this
world, it’s different. The elderly are strong. Their
spirit is strong. And they have a voice. And that
voice is in these two men, and they will be heard.
Respect, bitches!”
—Danny Slate, Jr. (Kevin Hart),
Grudge Match (2013)
“I retire for what, like,
five minutes, and it all
goes to shit?”
—Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremy Renner),
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
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Retirement
“I remember I sat down with him once and I
said, ‘Forrest, surely there’s an easier way for
somebody in your position to make a living.’ And
he looked at me and he said, ‘Brother, I’m not
talking about making a living. I’m just talking
about…living.’ ”
—Stephen Beckley, Jr. Esq. (Robert
Longstreet), The Old Man & The Gun (2018)
“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late, or in my
case, too early to be whoever you want to be.
There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want.
You can change or stay the same, there are no
rules to this thing. We can make the best or the
worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I
hope you see things that startle you. I hope you
feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet
people with a different point of view. I hope you
live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re
not, I hope you have the strength to start all
over again.”
—Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt),
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

Joke: “You’ve never had
a day off, have you?”
“No.”
“Why? Are you
indispensable?”
“No. I don’t want them
to find out they can do
without me.”
—Toyo Odagiri (Miki Odagiri), Ikiru (1952)
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Retirement
“Retirement is an
ongoing, relentless effort
in creativity. You can try
yoga, like to cook, bought
some plants, took classes
in Mandarin. Believe me,
I’ve tried everything. I
just know there’s a hole
in my life and I need to fill
it…soon.”

—Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro),
The Intern (2015)
Fun Fact: Quentin Tarantino was a vocal
supporter of The Intern and stated in multiple
interviews that it deserved major awards
recognition (including for its writing and acting). The
film received no Oscar nominations.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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182
“No amount of money ever bought a
second of time.”
—Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.),
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
“Well…we shot a lot
of people together. It’s
been great. But today
I retire, so if I do any
shooting now, it’ll have to
be within the confines of
my own home; hopefully,
an intruder and not an
in-law, like at my
bachelor party.”
­ Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielson),
—
Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)

Retirement
“I just want to say to you all tonight I’m very
grateful to be here. A lot of people told me that
I’d never wrestle again, and that’s all I do. You
know, if you live hard and play hard and you burn
the candle at both ends, you pay the price for it.
You know, in this life, you can lose everything you
love, everything that loves you. Now I don’t hear
as good as I used to and I forget stuff, and I ain’t
as pretty as I used to be, but goddamnit, I’m still
standing here, and I’m the Ram. As time goes
by—as time goes by, they say, ‘He’s washed up.
He’s finished. He’s a loser. He’s all through.’ You
know what? The only one that’s going to tell me
when I’m through doing my thing is you people
here. You people here are the ones who are worth
bringing it for because you’re my family.”
—Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey
Rourke), The Wrestler (2008)
“You look terrible.”
“No, I look retired.”
—Marcus (Willem Defoe) & John Wick
(Keanu Reeves), John Wick (2014)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“You’re not very good at retiring.”
“I’m working on it.”
—The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) &
John Wick (Keanu Reeves),
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
“Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life
and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling
that he considers a great part of his own life
misspent. Rumor had it he was always working
on this symphony of his. And this was going to
make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr.
Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous, at least
not outside of our little town. So it might be easy
for him to think himself a failure. But he would
be wrong, because I think that he’s achieved a
success far beyond riches and fame. Look around
you. There is not a life in this room that you have
not touched, and each of us is a better person
because of you. We are your symphony, Mr.
Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of
your opus. We are the music of your life.”
—Gertrude Lang (Joanna Gleason),
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)
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Retirement
“We build our legacy
piece by piece, and
maybe the whole world
will remember you or
maybe just a couple of
people, but you do what
you can to make sure
you’re still around after
you’re gone.”

—Prognosticator (William Oldman),
A Ghost Story (2017)
“She wouldn’t let death
get in the way of her job.”
—James Bond (Daniel Craig), Spectre (2015)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“All of life is a coming home: salesmen,
secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword
swallowers, all of us—all the restless hearts
of the world, all trying to find a way home. It’s
hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture
yourself walking for days in the driving snow; you
don’t even know you’re walking in circles. The
heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts
disappearing into the wind. How small you can
feel, and how far away home can be. Home. The
dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and
a goal or destination.”
—Hunter “Patch” Adams (Robin Williams),
Patch Adams (1996)
“A jester unemployed is
nobody’s fool.”
—Hubert Hawkins (Danny Kaye),
The Court Jester (1995)
“This job would be great if it wasn’t for the
fucking customers.”
186
—Randall Graves (Jeff Anderson),
Clerks (1994)
Retirement
“I’ve seen people get old,
retire, and die. Rarely on
the same day.”

—Kaulder (Vin Diesel),
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
“It’s funny how beautiful people look when they’re
walking out the door.”
—Mandy Slade (Toni Collette), Velvet
Goldmine (1998)
“I’m sixty years old,
Gene. What are you
going to do, write me a
recommendation for the
morgue?”
—Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfus), Mr.
Holland’s Opus (1995)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“And you know, Steve, you get the feeling that
Billy Chapel isn’t pitching against left-handers,
he isn’t pitching against pinch hitters, he isn’t
pitching against the Yankees. He’s pitching
against time. He’s pitching against the future,
against age, and even when you think about his
career, against ending. And tonight I think he
might be able to use that aching old arm one
more time to push the sun back up in the sky and
give us one more day of summer.”
—Vin Scully (himself), For Love of the
Game (1999)
188
10 Fantastic Films: Retirement
•
•
High Noon (1952): Aging marshal Will Kane
(Gary Cooper) is set to retire and move out of
town to start a life with his new wife. But first,
he’s got to deal with outlaws from his past who
are hell-bent on making sure he doesn’t make it
out of town alive. When nobody will stand with
him, Will decides to stand alone. An allegory for
the HUAC trials, High Noon also sneakily doubles
as a last day at work film. You know how annoying
it is to try to transition everything toward
completion before you leave a role? Imagine being
confronted by armed criminals on your way out.
Retirement
•

Red (2010): I’m just going to assume that every
retiree has two secret fantasies (we’ll get to
one in just a minute). Red chronicles a group of
retired special ops agents (Bruce Willis, Morgan
Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren)
as they are hunted for unknown reasons by
their replacements. The old hats get into the
spirit of it all and decide to show those young
whippersnappers what’s what.
The Intern (2015): Nancy Meyers has made a
living recently by addressing an underutilized
market: senior citizen rom-coms. While the
demographic is certainly the same, The Intern is
less focused on romance and more focused on
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions
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•
•
190
personal growth and usefulness. Robert De Niro
charms as a retired executive who applies for a
“senior citizen internship” at a start-up run by
a driven female executive (Anne Hathaway). As
the two bond, they learn about life and business
from each other, eventually becoming friends
and confidants in this simple, effective tale of
friendship and compassion in a world exceedingly
driven by data.
Cocoon (1985): As I sit here now thinking
about my day job, I can’t help but think that this
film represents my daydream about retiring. A
group of retirees are approached by a group of
extraterrestrials who give them the opportunity
to travel the galaxy learning about other cultures
while never aging. A sugar-sweet wish fulfillment
narrative about good people who have earned an
eternity of happiness and peace, Cocoon features
an all-star cast including a delightful turn by the
’stache himself, Wilford Brimley.
Quartet (2012): An adorable, sweet film about
a quartet of retired opera singers (Maggie Smith,
Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, and Pauline
Collins) who reunite in order to save a retirement
home for professional musicians. The cast is
excellent, the music wondrous, and the settings
are lush. What more could you ask for from a film
about finding life after work?
•
•
Rocky Balboa (2006): Sure, Rocky (Sylvester
Stallone) retired in Rocky V, but this film is about
what you do with your retirement and proving
you still have life in you. After a computer
simulation predicts that in his prime, Rocky
would’ve beaten current heavyweight Mason
“The Line” Dixon (Antonio Tarver), Dixon, who
is extremely unpopular, decides to offer Rocky
a charity exhibition match to boost his standing
in the boxing community. We know Rocky can’t
win…but can he go the distance? What does he
have left in the tank?

Retirement
•
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995): Throughout the
course of our lives, and by extension our careers,
we always feel that we could’ve done more. We
could’ve learned more, accomplished more,
earned more, left behind more. Mr. Holland’s Opus
is a film about the accomplishments that are so
plentiful that we completely overlook them. A
struggling musician (Richard Dreyfus) reluctantly
takes a teaching job that unbeknownst to him,
will become his entire life’s work. Sometimes, our
passions are more important than our dreams.
The Wrestler (2008): Not every retirement is
glorious. Many aren’t even by choice. Randy “The
Ram” Robinson (played in a revelatory turn by
Mickey Rourke) is a former wrestling superstar
who after having spurned his family and friends
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
192
during his glory days, lives a life of solitude as
a deli clerk. As his life begins to crumble under
the burden of his loneliness and an attempted
comeback, Randy must choose between the
fans who adore him and his own wellbeing. A
devastating portrayal of fame and opportunity
squandered on selfishness.
In Her Shoes (2005): Toni Collette, Cameron
Diaz, and Shirley MacLaine star in this dramedy
about family you just can’t seem to get rid of. After
Maggie (Diaz) makes a drunken advance on the
boyfriend of her sister Rose (Collette), Maggie
decides to live with her estranged grandmother
(MacLaine) at a retirement home in Florida.
More sincere than silly, more about trauma than
bonding, In Her Shoes offers surprising depth for a
fish-out-of-water retirement home film.
Beetlejuice (1988): Beetlejuice? Yep! After
happily-married couple Adam and Barbara
Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) suffer
a tragic death, they find themselves stuck in their
house doing projects and hobbies—forever. If that
isn’t an allegory for retirement, I don’t know what
is. There’s also Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones) who
was forced into early retirement after having a
nervous breakdown. The film makes a good case
for living a simple life with the ones you love,
away from the anarchy and excitement of, say, a

Retirement
freelance bio-exorcist who can cure the dead of
the living…that sort o’ thing.
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In Memoriam
In Memoriam
8

“Part of the journey is the end.”
—Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.),
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Losing the people we love is natural and inevitable. No
matter how well you understand that concept and feel
prepared to deal with its ramifications, the pain that
accompanies it will always carry a hot, sharp sting that
pierces well beyond your heart and buries itself in the
deepest corners of your soul. Being without the people
who made us who we are, the people who have shared
our greatest joys and deepest pains, is unfathomable.
How do we fill the hole they have left? How do we carry
on without them? How can we be our actual selves when
they are gone?
The element of human connection that is most
immeasurable to human consciousness is the ability
to assimilate the best qualities of those closest to us.
Relationships, whether they be romantic, familial, or
platonic, are like a construction site. Long before the
scaffolding goes up, there is some kind of foundation
established. As our relationships progress, the building
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

196
goes vertical. Soon there is scaffolding everywhere.
Columns are poured. Exteriors are installed, then
sealed. Interior partitions are transformed from metal
skeletons to basic drywall to painted walls. And then the
scaffolding comes down overnight and the workers are
gone. Our friends and loved ones build us up and pour
themselves into us, and we do the same in return. If you
do it right, you will have both helped create something
so strong that it remains standing once we’re gone.
More than anything, movies allow us to participate in
events we have never experienced, or perhaps those
that we fear in real life. Cinema offers catharsis for the
audience. The many young readers and viewers of the
Harry Potter series, for example, are taken on a journey
where the ultimate goal is to accept the inevitability of
death and to be brave enough to live with the pain and
fear that knowledge creates. Deep down, this fear is
something we must all overcome, whether it is fear of
our own mortality or the fear of losing our loved ones.
The people who leave us that we cherish most are
those who have helped create the strength inside us
that allows us to carry on without them. And we won’t
even know it until they have gone. The quotes in this
section are meant to be shared, not just at funerals or
memorials, but also with each other while we can. There
are truths in these lines that remind us of the strength
of human connection. Cherish that connection. And
build upon it.
—Prof. Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon),
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
Part II (2011)

In Memoriam
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and
above all, those who live without love.”
“We’re meant to
lose the people we love.
How else would we know
how important they
are to us?”
—Mrs. Maple (Edith Ivey),
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many
other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an
awful hole, doesn’t he?”
—Clarence (Henry Travers),
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Think of all those who ever were, back to the
start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering
out as well into their grey world. Like everything
around me, this solid world itself, which they
reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving.
Snow is falling, falling in that lonely churchyard
where Michael Furey lies buried; falling faintly
through the universe and faintly falling, like the
descent of their last end, upon all the living, and
the dead.”
—Gabriel Conroy (Donal McCann),
The Dead (1987)
Casting Couch: The Dead was legendary
filmmaker John Huston’s last feature film. His
son, Tony, wrote the screenplay, while his
daughter Anjelica played the lead role. It was Tony’s
only screenwriting credit. He received an Academy
Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay
for his work.
“Amazing tradition. They throw a great party for
you on the one day they know you can’t come.”
—Michael Gold (Jeff Goldblum),
The Big Chill (1983)
198
In Memoriam
“I can die in any way
the fates choose, that’s
not up to me. But what
is within my power is
to decide how I live:
courageously or timidly.”

—Robert Gilson (Patrick Gibson),
Tolkien (2019)
“When you come to the end of the line with a
buddy who is more than a brother and a little less
than a wife, getting blind drunk together is really
the only way to say farewell.”
—Narrator (Kurt Russell),
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019)
“Someone has to die in order that the rest of us
should value life more. It’s contrast.”
—Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman),
The Hours (2002)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“No one’s ever really gone.”
—Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill),
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
“Like sunlight, sunset, we
appear, we disappear.
We are so important to
some, but we are just
passing through.”
—Nina (Charlotte Prior),
Before Midnight (2013)
“Does it hurt? Dying?”
“Quicker than falling asleep.”
—Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) &
Sirius Black (Gary Oldman),
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
Part II (2011)
200
In Memoriam
“Life’s hard. It’s
supposed to be. If we
didn’t suffer, we’d never
learn anything.”

—Celine (Julie Delpy), Before Sunset (2004)
“He gets down to the end of his life, and he
looks back and decides that all those years he
suffered, those were the best years of his life,
’cause they made him who he was. All those years
he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn’t
learn a thing.”
—Grandpa (Alan Arkin),
Little Miss Sunshine (2008)
“OK, folks! If you don’t see me again…
it’s ’cause I’m dead!”
—Griff (Jon Bernthal), Baby Driver (2018)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Funny how gentle
people get with you
once you’re dead.”
—Joe Gillis (William Holden),
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
“All right, Mr. Death. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna
do. I’m gonna take and build me a fence around
this yard, see? I’m gonna build me a fence around
what belongs to me. And then I want you to stay
on the other side. You stay over there till you’re
ready for me, then you come on. Bring your army,
bring your sickle, bring your wrestling clothes. I
ain’t gonna fall down on my vigilance this time.
You ain’t gonna sneak up on me no more. When
you ready for me, when the top of your list say
‘Troy Maxson,’ then you come on up and knock on
the front door. Ain’t nobody else got nothing to do
with this. This between you and me, man to man!
You stay on the other side of that fence till you
ready for me!”
—Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington),
Fences (2016)
202
—Calvero (Charlie Chaplin), Limelight (1952)

In Memoriam
“Time is the best author. It always writes the
perfect ending.”
“What’s wrong with
death, sir? What are we
so mortally afraid of?
Why can’t we treat death
with a certain amount of
humanity and dignity, and
decency, and God forbid,
maybe even humor?”
—Hunter “Patch” Adams (Robin Williams),
Patch Adams (1996)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“If the people we love
are stolen from us, the
way to have them live on
is to never stop loving
them. Buildings burn,
people die, but real love
is forever.”
—Sarah (Rochelle Davis), The Crow (1994)
“Dying is the day worth living for!”
—Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush),
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
“We all fear death and question our place in the
universe. The artist’s job is not to succumb to
despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness
of existence.”
204
—Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates),
Midnight in Paris (2011)

In Memoriam
“Listen, do you wanna go back, or do you wanna
stay here? I get it. It’s nice up here. You can just
shut down all the systems, turn out all the lights,
and just close your eyes and tune out everyone.
There’s nobody up here that can hurt you. It’s
safe. I mean, what’s the point of going on? What’s
the point of living? Your kid died. Doesn’t get any
rougher than that. But still, it’s a matter of what
you do now. If you decide to go, then you gotta
just get on with it. Sit back, enjoy the ride. You
gotta plant both your feet on the ground and
start livin’ life. Hey, Ryan? It’s time to go home.”
—Matt Kowalski (George Clooney),
Gravity (2013)
“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do
is delay it for a while.”
—Westley (Cary Elwes),
The Princess Bride (1987)
“For someone who was never meant for this
world, I must confess, I’m suddenly having a hard
time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in
our bodies was once a part of a star. Maybe I’m
not leaving. Maybe I’m going home.”
—Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke),
Gattaca (1997)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“When someone
you love dies, you don’t
lose them all at once. You
lose them in pieces over
time, like how the mail
stops coming.”
—Joe Wentworth (Jim Carrey),
Simon Birch (1998)
“Nothing’s gone forever, only out of place.”
—Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt),
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
“Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”
—Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson),
The Muppet Movie (1979)
206
—Will Traynor (Sam Claflin),
Me Before You (2016)

In Memoriam
“Don’t think of me too often. I don’t want you
getting sad. Just live well. Just live. I’ll be walking
beside you every step of the way.”
“I walked the path of life,
and I have to say, you
will face difficulties. But
you have to have an open
mind. Don’t be like a bull
hitting his horns all over
the walls of the room.
Life isn’t just about what
you do, it’s more about
how you do it.”
—Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen),
The Farewell (2019)
207
Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Remember me
Though I have to say goodbye
Remember me
Don’t let it make you cry
For even if I’m far away
I hold you in my heart
I sing a secret song to you
Each night we are apart
Remember me
Though I have to travel far
Remember me
Each time you hear a sad guitar
Know that I’m with you
The only way that I can be
Until you’re in my arms again
Remember me.”
—Héctor (Gael García Bernal), Coco (2017)
208
10 Fantastic Films: In Memoriam
•
•
Get Low (2019): Aaron Schneider’s debut
film about a crotchety recluse who decides to
throw his own funeral party is a heartbreaking,
beautifully painful film about how loss can rob
you of humanity, how guilt can turn you into a
shadow of yourself, and how community can bring
you back. Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, the
town hermit who years ago broke off his highprofile engagement to his heartbroken fiancée
(Sissy Spacek) and retreated into the wilderness.
Bill Murray and Lucas Black co-star as funeral
parlor operators who are tasked with throwing
Felix a wake.
In Memoriam
•

The Farewell (2019): What if the person you
loved most in the world was dying and tradition
prevented you from telling them? The film,
inspired by writer-director Lulu Wang’s own
personal experiences, follows aspiring writer Billi
(Awkwafina) as she struggles with the knowledge
that her grandmother (Zhao Shuzhen) has been
diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and only has
months to live. However, her family refuses to
allow her to tell her grandmother, as per Chinese
cultural tradition.
Coco (2017): This animated tale follows Miguel, a
young boy in Mexico who longs to be a musician,
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
210
a profession forbidden in his family. After stealing
the guitar of a dead musician, Miguel finds himself
banished to the land of the dead during Dia de
los Muertos. A heart-wrenching yet uplifting tale
of remembrance and celebration, this is a film
that reminds us that death is part of life and that
nobody ever truly leaves us.
Rabbit Hole (2010): John Cameron Mitchell’s
melodrama about life after tragedy follows
a mother (Nicole Kidman) who strikes up an
unlikely friendship with the teenager (Miles
Teller) who accidentally killed her son a year
earlier in a melancholy, hopeful tale about
forgiveness, pain, and the burden of living with
pain. Kidman received an Oscar nomination for
her restrained, empathetic performance.
The Grey (2011): When a small plane carrying
a crew of oil workers crashes in the Alaskan
wilderness, suicidal widower John Ottway (Liam
Neeson) leads a small group of survivors in a
knowingly futile attempt at survival. Facing
treacherous landscapes, growing panic, and a
nasty pack of grey wolves, Ottway slowly begins
to accept that his will to live may not be enough
to overcome impending death. Joe Carnahan’s
survival film is bleak…and yet inspiring. How hard
would you fight in the face of certain death? And
what does it say about your life?
•
•
Ikiru (1952): After businessman Kanji Watanabe
(Takashi Shimura) is diagnosed with terminal
cancer, he sets off on a journey of self-discovery
and reflection through the busy streets of Tokyo.
Akira Kurusawa’s tragedy is a warm, albeit tearful,
reminder that there are always opportunities to
leave your mark on the world, even if that mark is
as simple as a swing set in a giant city.

In Memoriam
•
Logan (2017): What happens to a hero when
he’s too old and tired to save anyone, including
himself? James Mangold’s neo-western comic
book film is a reflective, moody piece about
disenchantment and pain. Logan, the Wolverine
of the Marvel canon, has lost his friends, his
loved ones, and now is even losing his powers.
Caring for a senile and dangerous Charles Xavier
in a makeshift sanctuary in Mexico, Logan is
reluctantly drawn into action once more when
he discovers his genes are being used to make
new mutants for a secret government agency.
Packed with crushing revelations and laden with
a heavy sense of finality, Logan is a eulogy for
superhero films.
John Wick (2014): After losing his beloved wife
to cancer and then having her puppy needlessly
murdered by organized crime henchmen,
legendary assassin John Wick comes out of
retirement to avenge his losses. John struggles to
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

•
•
212
maintain any semblance of the compassion his
wife instilled in him as he swaps grief for violence.
John Wick is a primal, guttural scream in the face
of loss, a cathartic shoot-em-up with a mythology
that rivals Marvel.
Gravity (2013): Alfonso Cuarón’s technical
marvel is an anxiety-inducing, jaw-clenching,
white-knuckle survival thriller that pits
humankind’s technological prowess and ingenuity
against the universal laws of physics. Sandra
Bullock stars as an astronaut haunted by her past
who must decide what life is worth when she is
severed from her only ride home. Harrowing,
terrifying, and ultimately moving, Gravity seeks to
remind the audience that we are tethered to life
by the most fragile of threads.
The Sweet Hereafter (1997): Atom Egoyan’s
Oscar-nominated film is a quiet, haunting
portrayal of tragedy. After a school bus crashes,
killing fourteen children on board, a lawyer
(Ian Holm) with a haunted past convinces the
survivors to file a lawsuit against the town
and the bus manufacturer. Part legal film, part
melodrama, The Sweet Hereafter chronicles an
entire community’s attempt to heal as one.
Thanks
Thanks
Epilogue

“Thank you—for the movie today. It was a gift.”
—Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), Hugo (2011)
This is something different that I wanted to toss in
that maybe doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the rest
of the chapters in this book, but represents a lesson
I’ve learned throughout my career. My dear friend and
publisher Brenda Knight has always reminded me to be
mindful, and above all else, thankful. So often we are so
wrapped up in our own happenings and anxieties that
we forget how much time and energy people put into
both their endeavors and into helping us with ours. It’s
hard enough to get through your own daily life without
having to pitch in to support others.
And yet, most of us do it. Many of us do it without a
passing thought. Even more, many of us receive support
without even a passing thought for what it took to
provide it. Give thanks frequently, with full awareness of
what it means. Be thankful, be grateful, be supportive.
I’m thankful for many people (and you can find a
good chunk of them in the acknowledgments). I’m
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

also thankful for movies. Throughout my entire life,
movies have supplied me with hope, encouraged me
to do better, comforted me in sadness, and brought
me down to earth when my head got a little too big for
my own good. Movies can be stupid, silly, gratuitous,
mean, and useless. But they can also be a place to hold
untold truths and wisdoms that we need in order to
survive. For that reason, I’m thankful for the glorious
consignment shop that is cinematic history. Don’t
complain about the bad, be thankful for all the good.
With that in mind, I present to you this bonus chapter
of thankful quotes; it is dedicated to Brenda Knight,
the patron saint/goddess of thankfulness. Thank you
and cheers!
“The world will break your heart ten ways to
Sunday. That’s guaranteed. I can’t begin to
explain that. Or the craziness inside myself and
everyone else. But guess what? Sunday’s my
favorite day again. I think of what everyone did
for me, and I feel like a really lucky guy.”
—Pat Solitano, Jr. (Bradley Cooper),
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
214
Thanks
“It’s like all of the bad
stuff that you went
through that you hated
along the way, the people
who disappointed you,
the things that didn’t
go the way you wanted,
suddenly, you feel
grateful to them, because
those are the things that
got you to here.”

—Adam Forrest (Ben Feldman),
The Perfect Man (2005)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

“Thanks to you. Oh, so many, many thanks to you.
[For] walking my legs off sightseeing, and for
lunch, and for shopping, and for a few moments
today when I actually felt alive.”
—Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis),
Now, Voyager (1942)
“Gus, my love, I cannot
tell you how thankful I
am for our little infinity.
I wouldn’t trade it for
the world. You gave me
a forever within the
numbered days, and I’m
grateful.”
—Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley),
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
216
—Michael Jordan (as himself),
Space Jam (1996)

Thanks
“Thanks guys, you got a lot of…a lot of…well,
whatever it is, you got a lot of it.”
“Karma’s a word. Like ‘love.’ A way of saying
‘what I am here to do.’ I do not resent my karma I’m grateful for it. Grateful for my wonderful wife,
for my beautiful daughter. They are gifts. And so I
do what I must do to honor them.”
—Rama-Kandra (Bernard White),
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
“You have to do something. You have to take a
chance. You do have to get involved. There are
people that are having trouble making their
miracle happen. There are people that don’t have
enough to eat, or people that are cold. You can go
out and say hello to these people. You can take an
old blanket out of the closet and say, ‘Here!’ ”
—Frank Cross (Bill Murray), Scrooged (1988)
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

218
“The only way you can beat my crazy was by
doing something crazy yourself. Thank you. I love
you. I knew it the minute I met you. I’m sorry it
took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck.”
­—Pat Solitano, Jr. (Bradley Cooper),
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
“Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and
despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness
and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian
sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there
aren’t any cookies, we can still find reassurance
in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and
loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a
loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to
mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an
uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender
Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece
of fiction. And we must remember that all these
things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties,
which we assume only accessorize our days, are
effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They
are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems
strange, but I also know that it just so happens
to be true.”
—Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson),
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
A lot of people stuck by me during the writing of this
second book and during possibly the most challenging
year of my life. I owe them a debt of gratitude I cannot
even begin to put into words, but I’ll give it a shot.

First and foremost, to my wife: I want to thank you
for never giving up, regardless of how difficult things
get. When I get low, you drag me back up. I’m more
than happy to return the favor, with all the love I can
possibly give.
Next on the list: Brenda Knight. I know how hard this
year has been and how difficult it was to drag me across
the finish line. I thank you most sincerely and wish
you so much peace and love in the coming years. You
deserve it more than you know.
Marlena Fiol, what a year we’ve had! Many thanks for
your support and friendship. I’m glad to count you and
Ed among my people. Cheers and best wishes for your
success this year!
My family, of course, always supports me in my
endeavors, so a tip of the hat to them and a reminder
that you can always turn to these pages if you forget
how cool I am.
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Movie Quotes for Special Occasions

220
George Cerda, Chris Campbell, Jesse Hernandez, Matt
Francesconi, and Saumaan Vahabi…you’ll always be aces
in my book.
Papa Bear…you know what you’ve done for me, this
year and all the years before since I met you. If ever you
needed it, you’d have my sword, my bow, and my axe.
About the Author
About the Author
James Scheibli was raised on the pop-culture relics
worshipped by his family. From an early age, he was
immersed in the works of Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola.
By the time he hit his teens, he was dissecting Kubrick,
Kurosawa, and Kieslowski. Under the tutelage of the
great film historian and Orson Welles collaborator Joe
McBride, James obtained his BA in Cinema and English
Literature and ventured out into the world…where he
was promptly pushed into marketing and social media.
As a social media manager and contributor for BayArea.
com, he is able to bring his expertise of film and pop
culture to the masses with all the humor his editor will
allow him.

221
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