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Back in September, I asked you about what line hit you harder than any other in fiction the first time you read it. This week, let’s try a variant of this question with cinema:
What line hits you harder than any other in film history?
Unlike my question about fiction, I’m leaving this one open to the present tense, too. After all, we return to films more often. Maybe a line hits you harder today than it did ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Which brings me to my answer—
“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”
—from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Once upon a time, this dialogue was just amusing to me. Crisp, funny, characterful. I hoped one day I’d write something so memorable. But today, decades after I first heart it, it speaks to me at a much deeper, visceral level. It hurts even. I don’t feel like I’m 48 years old, but I feel those years for the first time all the same. Age, experience, trauma…it’s not going away no matter how much I hope it will.
“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”
What about you?
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"It's not your fault," Robin Williams to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. It hit me hard in the theater, and it still hits as deep every time. I learned that everything in my life -- good and bad --was my fault, something Instagram therapy calls hyper-independence, and that line gave me the permission to put some of that burden down.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I just watched Kung Fu Panda again, one of my forever favorite films since I was a kid. So I'm gonna say the line that hit me hardest is "there is no secret ingredient." because it's SO TRUE and I need to be reminded of it all the time, honestly. This film is a masterpiece of beautiful action/fight sequences and economical, tightly built story structure. It is simply gorgeous.
Jay, do you want to know what line written at this Substack hits harder than any other? "I just watched Kung Fu Panda again, one of my forever favorite films since I was a kid." SINCE I WAS A KID?! Jesus, I am getting old. I'm not even that old, but now I feel old. Thanks for that.
Ironically, I also feel a bit old, even when I know that, objectively, I'm really not! I'm only 26! Kung Fu Panda came out the year I turned 10! Sorry to make you feel old, though. But as my dad would say, it happens to the best of us!
When I read your email, the first line that came to me was:
"You know _nothing_, Jon Snow."
When Ygritte says this to Jon, it has so many layers of meaning. Such a simple line with so much emotional weight behind it expressing her love for him that he remains ignorant of, and simultaneously referring to the vast ignorance he has of the world beyond the wall, and also his imminent future as Azor Ahai reborn.
And it also spoke to me. The more one learns, the less we know.
“The Bear and the Maiden Fair” Game of Thrones S03E07
It's a brilliant line. When I lived in London, I remember the reporter Jon Snow giving up trying to understand the political turmoil in Parliament by declaring, "I am Jon Snow, and I know nothing." Perfect collision of reality and fiction.
Yes, I did! And commented on it then, how its meaning has changed for me as I’ve aged and experienced loss. Fun fact: my sister lives not too far from the bridge that was the inspiration for the short story that inspired the movie. There’s a plaque there to prove it!
I usually struggle with these questions but I’m ew exactly what to go for this time. When I watched Past Lives, this line hit me so hard that I wrote it down immediately.
“It’s just that you make my life so much bigger. And I’m wondering if I do the same for you.”
It’s such a beautiful way of summing up love and admiration and insecurity and doubt. It says a lot about real, human relationships in very few words.
The line I identified with most would have to be from Steel Magnolias: I am not mad, I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years.
The line which most chilled me whilst being simultaneously hilarious was from Kind Hearts and Coronets: It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.
Ealing cinema was uniquely stylised and quirky-British! Kind Hearts is my favourite but other greats are: Passport to Pimlico, The Man in the White Suit and The Lavender Hill Mob. I know the studio reopened and gave us films like Shaun of the Dead but for me nothing has the magic of its films from the 40s and 50s.
I've seen PASSPORT TO PIMLICO and THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, so I have a good start. British cinema between 1940 and 1960 is an incredibly exciting period to me. Between David Lean, Pressburger & Powell, and Hammer Film...
"No one is anyone until they are" from Kneecap stayed with me for some reason. But that only came out this year, so I'll say "We are food for worms, lads" from Dead Poets Society
Maybe this is because I just rewatched ROBOCOP for the umpteenth time, but it has lived in my brain for nearly four decades now. The casual corporate cruelty, the body horror, the dark humor of it all... and the fact that they never reveal what's happening to Murphy's body in the transition between human and cyborg. It's chilling and hilarious, all in three words.
This is a great pick. I always liked, "Bitches, leave." It's up there with "Jesus wept" as one of the most succinct and perfect lines in literary history.
You had me at hello, from Jerry Maguire. It has turned out to be a little corny or at least overused through the years, but I still like it. It says so much with very few words
Yeah, it's such an economical way of responding to a declaration of love. A kiss wouldn't have been adequate, it wouldn't have revealed anything about her; a lengthy response would've killed the scene.
Me too I love the way Ennio’s score moves the action along. I saw it a while back at an early screening at the Chauvel there were three of us in the audience.
I've seen it on the big screen three times. It's a film that is beautiful to look at in any format, but it's largely wasted on the TV screen. It's too much of a visual, sonic, and communal experience to ever be captured at home.
"You are home," ALMOST FAMOUS, spoken by Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) to William (Patrick Fugit), when William says, on that moving scene on the bus, with everyone singing "Tiny Dancer" after a night of debauchery, "I have to go home."
This was such a beautiful utterance of acceptance; Penny Lane is telling this misfit kid that he has found his tribe. Of course, William is right, he does have to go home. He's in too deep. This is an adult world, and he's just a kid. But in that moment he belongs right there, on the bus with the band...or at least Penny believes that he does, and that is a gift to him.
So, it comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol. When the ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge the utter devastation that the death of Tiny Tim has brought to The Cratchits, he turns to the spirit and says :-
“Oh Spirit, must there be a Christmas that brings this awful scene? How can we endure it?”
When I first watched the movie 32 years ago, I didn’t have kids so the line was sad but didn’t hold the meaning that it now does as a father. Also, Scrooge is not just talking about the Cratchits, he’s talking about all of us and the grief that life will naturally bring that we need to endure.
It may be a kids movie with muppets but that line gets me every time!
“You know they always say if you live in one place long enough, you are that place.”
~Rocky Balboa
“Damaged people are dangerous.” ~Damage (the entire context: Damaged people are dangerous; they have no pity. They know others can survive, as they have.)
It's a good movie mostly because Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche are so perfectly cast, but I strongly recommend the book, by Josephine Hart. Iris Murdoch (!) called it "a passionate, elegant, ruthless story." You can finish it in one sitting but it will stay with you much longer.
It’s a fascinating gem, superb example of the script carrying you through everything in one room. Probably Nic Roeg’s most approachable work, as it’s basically a stage play.
"You're a Timex watch in a digital age." A statement about John McClane in Die Hard. For old dinasours in my decade (70s) this fits like a glove at times. But, what I really like about the line is that McClane might be a Timex watch, but he keeps on ticking when the others take a licking! Back to basics, babe!
From The Green Mile.. He killed them with their love. With their love for each other. That’s how it is, every day all over the world.
I get goosebumps just writing it. When my kids were teenagers my son would vet every boy who so much as looked at his sister. He would have made a great FBI agent.
Seriously, I have watched that movie at least 10 times and cry every time too.
“Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.” Josey – *The Outlaw Josey Wales*
said in response to his friend’s suggestion that they bury the men who had just attacked them – i’m not sure why this line has stuck to me over the decades ... but it has stuck to me
something about humanity’s place in the natural order of things, maybe?
on a different note:
“Something, something, something, we win.” Nimona – *Nimona*
i love the confidence – the focus on the outcome (we win), while tacitly acknowledging the “somethings” that will need to be overcome
It's hard to single out any one line as so many have passed into our family's vocabulary and are frequently heard (like from The Lion in Winter when Eleanor responds to Henry's declaration that the day his sons band together will be the day pigs sprout wings, "There'll be pork in the treetops by morning!" But a personal favorite could be from Zulu in the aftermath of the battle as they marvel at their survival and Sergeant Bourne says, "It's a miracle" to be told by Lt Chard, "If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle."
So much HEAT! The entire movie is this intricate takedown of male stereotypes and vulnerability wrapped in a tense drama of cops and crime. I'm in love with the ending more and more every time I see it. And, of course, the diner scene is indelibly etched in my brain. But the scene that stands out is Pacino and Diane Venora talking quietly in the hospital about the breakdown of their marriage. Having gone through a divorce myself, and struggled in a career with highs and lows, Pacino's line to Venora hits way harder than it did almost thirty years ago, when life was so much simpler and the future stretched out before me like the runway at the end of the film.
"It's not your fault," Robin Williams to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. It hit me hard in the theater, and it still hits as deep every time. I learned that everything in my life -- good and bad --was my fault, something Instagram therapy calls hyper-independence, and that line gave me the permission to put some of that burden down.
It's amazing how four simple words can bring most of us to our knees. The truth distilled.
From Bladerunner:
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Absolutely... it had such soul ....
It's a brilliant monologue. Do you know that Rutger Hauer improvised it?
Yes!
He should've won a special Oscar just for that!
Soooo many, but a recent one for me - Mary to Paul in The Holdovers:
"You can't even dream a whole dream, can you?"
Yeah, as you know, I just watched it. That hit hard because that could be said of so many people I know and love.
I just watched Kung Fu Panda again, one of my forever favorite films since I was a kid. So I'm gonna say the line that hit me hardest is "there is no secret ingredient." because it's SO TRUE and I need to be reminded of it all the time, honestly. This film is a masterpiece of beautiful action/fight sequences and economical, tightly built story structure. It is simply gorgeous.
Jay, do you want to know what line written at this Substack hits harder than any other? "I just watched Kung Fu Panda again, one of my forever favorite films since I was a kid." SINCE I WAS A KID?! Jesus, I am getting old. I'm not even that old, but now I feel old. Thanks for that.
Ironically, I also feel a bit old, even when I know that, objectively, I'm really not! I'm only 26! Kung Fu Panda came out the year I turned 10! Sorry to make you feel old, though. But as my dad would say, it happens to the best of us!
When I read your email, the first line that came to me was:
"You know _nothing_, Jon Snow."
When Ygritte says this to Jon, it has so many layers of meaning. Such a simple line with so much emotional weight behind it expressing her love for him that he remains ignorant of, and simultaneously referring to the vast ignorance he has of the world beyond the wall, and also his imminent future as Azor Ahai reborn.
And it also spoke to me. The more one learns, the less we know.
“The Bear and the Maiden Fair” Game of Thrones S03E07
It's a brilliant line. When I lived in London, I remember the reporter Jon Snow giving up trying to understand the political turmoil in Parliament by declaring, "I am Jon Snow, and I know nothing." Perfect collision of reality and fiction.
“To my big brother George, the richest man in town.”
An easy pick for me. I could write volumes of how that movie has influenced my life through the years, but that one line caps the movie for me.
Sally, have you read my essay about this film? https://colehaddon.substack.com/p/why-you-never-get-tired-of-its-a?utm_source=publication-search
Yes, I did! And commented on it then, how its meaning has changed for me as I’ve aged and experienced loss. Fun fact: my sister lives not too far from the bridge that was the inspiration for the short story that inspired the movie. There’s a plaque there to prove it!
"They call me Mr. Tibbs!" Sidney Poitier in "In The Heat Of The Night" (1967). Just the way he said it spoke volumes to me.
Absolutely! Fantastic pick.
Yes, great pick.
I usually struggle with these questions but I’m ew exactly what to go for this time. When I watched Past Lives, this line hit me so hard that I wrote it down immediately.
“It’s just that you make my life so much bigger. And I’m wondering if I do the same for you.”
It’s such a beautiful way of summing up love and admiration and insecurity and doubt. It says a lot about real, human relationships in very few words.
It really is a stunning line. From a stunning film.
Broadcast News:
"It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room."
"No. It's awful."
I have related to Albert Brooks' character my entire life. Heh.
Ha, this is one of my favourites too!
The line I identified with most would have to be from Steel Magnolias: I am not mad, I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years.
The line which most chilled me whilst being simultaneously hilarious was from Kind Hearts and Coronets: It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.
Love that Steel Magnolias line!
I haven't seen KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, but that line from STEEL MAGNOLIAS is obviously wonderful!
I am really surprised you haven’t seen Kind Hearts and Coronets. It’s a fantastic film. It’s such a showcase for the talents of Alec Guinness.
Until today, I'd never even heard of it. Adding it to my to watch list!
Ealing cinema was uniquely stylised and quirky-British! Kind Hearts is my favourite but other greats are: Passport to Pimlico, The Man in the White Suit and The Lavender Hill Mob. I know the studio reopened and gave us films like Shaun of the Dead but for me nothing has the magic of its films from the 40s and 50s.
I've seen PASSPORT TO PIMLICO and THE LAVENDER HILL MOB, so I have a good start. British cinema between 1940 and 1960 is an incredibly exciting period to me. Between David Lean, Pressburger & Powell, and Hammer Film...
Passport to Pimlico is a cracker, isn't it! It's probably as relevant today as when it was made.
"No one is anyone until they are" from Kneecap stayed with me for some reason. But that only came out this year, so I'll say "We are food for worms, lads" from Dead Poets Society
Oh! And of course, "It can't rain all the time" from The Crow. Got my mum a ring with that engraved on it after a particularly tough year for her
I haven't seen KNEECAP, but this line makes me want to see it.
"Lose the arm."
Maybe this is because I just rewatched ROBOCOP for the umpteenth time, but it has lived in my brain for nearly four decades now. The casual corporate cruelty, the body horror, the dark humor of it all... and the fact that they never reveal what's happening to Murphy's body in the transition between human and cyborg. It's chilling and hilarious, all in three words.
This is a great pick. I always liked, "Bitches, leave." It's up there with "Jesus wept" as one of the most succinct and perfect lines in literary history.
"Where is she?" ... "Standing next to my window."
The Sixth Sense.
Even reading that line is creepy AF.
You had me at hello, from Jerry Maguire. It has turned out to be a little corny or at least overused through the years, but I still like it. It says so much with very few words
Yeah, it's such an economical way of responding to a declaration of love. A kiss wouldn't have been adequate, it wouldn't have revealed anything about her; a lengthy response would've killed the scene.
“When your time comes Harmonica pray that you get someone who knows where to shoot . “ Once Upon a Time in the West.
Me too I love the way Ennio’s score moves the action along. I saw it a while back at an early screening at the Chauvel there were three of us in the audience.
I've seen it on the big screen three times. It's a film that is beautiful to look at in any format, but it's largely wasted on the TV screen. It's too much of a visual, sonic, and communal experience to ever be captured at home.
God, I love this film.
"You are home," ALMOST FAMOUS, spoken by Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) to William (Patrick Fugit), when William says, on that moving scene on the bus, with everyone singing "Tiny Dancer" after a night of debauchery, "I have to go home."
This was such a beautiful utterance of acceptance; Penny Lane is telling this misfit kid that he has found his tribe. Of course, William is right, he does have to go home. He's in too deep. This is an adult world, and he's just a kid. But in that moment he belongs right there, on the bus with the band...or at least Penny believes that he does, and that is a gift to him.
Is that Almost Famous? Loved that film. Must watch it again.
Yes, I forgot to name the film. That one!
I actually liken this line to David Bowie's "You are not alone!" in "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide." They hit the same for me.
So, it comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol. When the ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge the utter devastation that the death of Tiny Tim has brought to The Cratchits, he turns to the spirit and says :-
“Oh Spirit, must there be a Christmas that brings this awful scene? How can we endure it?”
When I first watched the movie 32 years ago, I didn’t have kids so the line was sad but didn’t hold the meaning that it now does as a father. Also, Scrooge is not just talking about the Cratchits, he’s talking about all of us and the grief that life will naturally bring that we need to endure.
It may be a kids movie with muppets but that line gets me every time!
That book and every film adapted from it has been pretty much lost on the wider world for its entire existence. Great pick.
I can’t choose between two so here they are
“You know they always say if you live in one place long enough, you are that place.”
~Rocky Balboa
“Damaged people are dangerous.” ~Damage (the entire context: Damaged people are dangerous; they have no pity. They know others can survive, as they have.)
I haven't seen DAMAGE, but I do love that first line!
It's a good movie mostly because Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche are so perfectly cast, but I strongly recommend the book, by Josephine Hart. Iris Murdoch (!) called it "a passionate, elegant, ruthless story." You can finish it in one sitting but it will stay with you much longer.
“I don’t… I don’t believe it!” — Luke
“_That_ is why you fail.” — Yoda
(Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)
Good pick, Bill.
“Starvation is a great aphrodesiac”
Billy Kwan in “The Year of Dangerously”, commenting on the eager prostitutes in Jakarta.
Intriguing pick - I like it.
Correction: The Year of LIVING Dangerously
The last line of 'Some like it hot': "Well nobody's perfect". What a zinger!
One of the greatest final lines in cinema history, if not the greatest.
From INSIGNIFICANCE, spoken by “The Actress” (who is Marilyn Monroe in all but name):
— Have you ever noticed how “What the hell” is always the right decision to make?
A guiding principal for life.
I haven't seen INSIGNIFICANCE. I'm intrigued. Thanks for sharing.
It’s a fascinating gem, superb example of the script carrying you through everything in one room. Probably Nic Roeg’s most approachable work, as it’s basically a stage play.
“Daddy, my daddy!” From The Railway Children. Still tear up just thinking about it…
I haven't seen, but the mystery of these words is still very powerful. Thanks for sharing!
😬
"You're a Timex watch in a digital age." A statement about John McClane in Die Hard. For old dinasours in my decade (70s) this fits like a glove at times. But, what I really like about the line is that McClane might be a Timex watch, but he keeps on ticking when the others take a licking! Back to basics, babe!
It's a great line!
From The Green Mile.. He killed them with their love. With their love for each other. That’s how it is, every day all over the world.
I get goosebumps just writing it. When my kids were teenagers my son would vet every boy who so much as looked at his sister. He would have made a great FBI agent.
Seriously, I have watched that movie at least 10 times and cry every time too.
I forgot to say that the quote is from John Coffey
Oh, I knew which character it came from. Beautiful film, beautiful book!
“Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.” Josey – *The Outlaw Josey Wales*
said in response to his friend’s suggestion that they bury the men who had just attacked them – i’m not sure why this line has stuck to me over the decades ... but it has stuck to me
something about humanity’s place in the natural order of things, maybe?
on a different note:
“Something, something, something, we win.” Nimona – *Nimona*
i love the confidence – the focus on the outcome (we win), while tacitly acknowledging the “somethings” that will need to be overcome
I love JOSEY WALES, but I am very happy to see anyone reference NIMONA.
It's hard to single out any one line as so many have passed into our family's vocabulary and are frequently heard (like from The Lion in Winter when Eleanor responds to Henry's declaration that the day his sons band together will be the day pigs sprout wings, "There'll be pork in the treetops by morning!" But a personal favorite could be from Zulu in the aftermath of the battle as they marvel at their survival and Sergeant Bourne says, "It's a miracle" to be told by Lt Chard, "If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle."
Great lines, Robert.
"All I am, is what I'm going after."
So much HEAT! The entire movie is this intricate takedown of male stereotypes and vulnerability wrapped in a tense drama of cops and crime. I'm in love with the ending more and more every time I see it. And, of course, the diner scene is indelibly etched in my brain. But the scene that stands out is Pacino and Diane Venora talking quietly in the hospital about the breakdown of their marriage. Having gone through a divorce myself, and struggled in a career with highs and lows, Pacino's line to Venora hits way harder than it did almost thirty years ago, when life was so much simpler and the future stretched out before me like the runway at the end of the film.
HEAT is one of those films that really does hurt more with age and life, as you explain. Thanks for sharing.
"Your back's broken,"
John Wayne, Rio Lobo
I know it sounds weird, but I saw it when I was a kid and the bluntness of it shocked me.
Still does
Intriguing pick!
From Michael Clayton:
“I am Shiva, the God of death.”
I love this film so much.
It is one of my favorite films.
What have you been doing the last thirty years?
Going to bed early …
Once Upon a Time in America
Thanks for sharing!