Big Eyes Quotes

Walter Keane: Would you rather sell a $500 painting, or a million cheaply reproduced posters?

Walter Keane: See, folks don't care if it's a copy.

Ruben: Why are their eyes so big?

Walter Keane: Eyes are the windows to the soul!

Walter Keane: For God's sake, you've seen me paint!

Margaret Keane: No, I haven't. I always thought that I had, but it's like a mirage. It's like a mirage. From a distance, you look like a painter. But up close, there's not much there.

[first lines]

Dick Nolan: [narrating] The '50s were a grand time, if you were a man. I'm Dick Nolan. I make things up for a living - I'm a reporter.

[Margaret frantically packing things]

Dick Nolan: It's the strangest goddamn story that I ever covered. It started the day that Margaret Ulbrich walked out on her suffocating husband, long before it became the fashionable thing to do.

Margaret Keane: Come on, Janie.

[they get into the car]

Margaret Keane: I think people buy art because it touches them.

Walter Keane: Yeah, you're living in fairyland. People don't get to discover anything. They buy art because it's in the right place at the right time.

Hipster Lady: I think it's creepy, maudlin and amateurish.

Hipster Man: Exactly. I love it.

Walter Keane: What are you afraid of! Just because people like my work, that means automatically it's bad?

John Canaday: No, but it doesn't make it art either. Art should elevate, not pander. Particularly in a Hall of Education.

Walter Keane: You have no idea! Why does someone become a critic? Because he cannot create!

John Canaday: Oh, dear. That moldy chestnut.

Walter Keane: Don't interrupt! You don't know what it's like to put your emotions out there, naked for the whole world to see!

John Canaday: What emotions? It's synthetic hack work. Your masterpiece has an infinity of Keanes, which makes it an infinity of kitsch.

Jehovah's Witness #1: We have something to share with you about the wonderful things that God's kingdom will do for mankind.

Margaret Keane: Well, from where I'm standing, I don't see much good anywhere. Just a lot of pride and thievery and people treating each other poorly.

Jehovah's Witness #1: Do you know what it says in Timothy 3:1-5? "In the last days, critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves."

Margaret Keane: Sounds like my ex-husband.

[last lines]

Dick Nolan: [narrating] Two things mattered to Margaret: Her daughter and her paintings. And after all the crazy turns the story took, she came out at the end with both of them.

Closing Title Card: Walter never accepted defeat, insisting he was the true artist for the rest of his life. He died in 2000, bitter and penniless. He never produced another painting.

Closing Title Card: Margaret found personal happiness and remarried. After many years in Hawaii, she moved back to San Francisco and opened a new gallery. She still paints every day.

Dee-Ann: Oh, stop that. You're better off. Between us, I never liked Frank.

Margaret Keane: You were a bridesmaid!

Dee-Ann: Exactly. That's why I couldn't speak up. But if I ever see you wrong off again, I will tell you.