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Gloria Gaines: Everything you are and everything you have, is because of that butler.
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Cecil Gaines: America has always turned a blind eye to what we done to our own. We look out to the world and judge. We hear about the concentration camps but these camps went on for two hundred years right here in America.
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Gloria Gaines: Stop calling him a nigger cause he ain't no nigger.
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Carter Wilson: [on John Kennedy] They say this new boy is smooth.
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Thomas Westfall: Hattie, come on, I need your help in the shed. Come on.
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Annabeth Westfall: Stop crying.
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Cecil Gaines: I'm Cecil Gaines. I'm the new butler.
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Gloria Gaines: Now you take that trife low class bitch out of this house.
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title card: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
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Freddie Fallows: Are you political, Mr. Gaines?
Cecil Gaines: No, sir.
Freddie Fallows: Good. We have no tolerance for politics at the White House.
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Richard Nixon: I don't want to say anything negative about that Kennedy boy. I'm sure he's a real nice fellow. But do you really want that spoiled rich son-of-a-bitch fuck to be your next president?
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Louis Gaines: Something special is going on down here, Dad.
Cecil Gaines: What's so special about another colored man in jail?
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[first lines]
Cecil Gaines: The only thing I ever knew was cotton. It was hard work.
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Cecil Gaines: I don't think God meant for people to not have a family.
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Maynard: Cecil, we got two faces: ours, and the ones that we got to show the white folks. Now, to get up in the world, you have to make them feel non-threatened. Use that, them fancy words that I've taught you. White folks up north, they like some uppity coloreds. Yeah.
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Martin Luther King Jr.: Young brother, the black domestic defy racial stereotypes by being hardworking and trustworthy. He slowly tears down racial hatred with his example of a strong work ethic and dignified character. Now, while we perceive the butler or the maid to be subservient, in many ways they are subversive, without even knowing it.
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Louis Gaines: We're more grass roots. One-on-one with the community. Although we have started our own political party.
Charlie Gaines: [turning to Carol] What's your party? You like to party? I like to party. What's your party called?
Carol Hammie: The Black Panther Party.
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Cecil Gaines: Vietnam took my boy, and I didn't understand why we were there in the first place.
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Gloria Gaines: [looking at a picture of her granddaughter] I mean, really, Shaquanda. What kind of name is that?
Cecil Gaines: [laughing] Ain't nobody done nothing to spite you.
Gloria Gaines: Yes she did. She a ugly little old girl, too. That little pug nose. I hope she grow out of it.
Cecil Gaines: Now you need to stop that, you know that ain't right.
Gloria Gaines: Don't you think she look a little like Louis around the mouth?
Cecil Gaines: I think... she look just like you.
Gloria Gaines: Like me?
Cecil Gaines: Yeah, so you need to
[laughing]
Cecil Gaines: so you need to stop talking about her.
Gloria Gaines: Let me look at her again then, real good. She do look a little bit like me. She a pretty little thing.
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Cecil Gaines: You must look through your eyes, see what it is that they want, see what it is that they need, anticipate, bring a smile to the principal's eyes.
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[last lines]
Barack Obama: We will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.
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Carter Wilson: Negroes? Since when did he start calling us negroes? That nigger uses the word nigger more than I use it.
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Louis Gaines: Charlie, don't do this. Don't do this. This country treats us like dogs!
Charlie Gaines: And do what? Don't do this? You fight your country. I want to fight for my country.
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John F. Kennedy: [watching the Birmingham Campaign] I don't know what country i'm looking at.
Lee Daniels' The Butler Quotes
Extended Reading
