Raising Arizona Quotes

H.I.: If it's all the same to you, Honey, I think I'll skip this little get together, slip out with the boys and knock back a couple of Coca Colas.

[Ed gives him a look of disapproval]

H.I.: I guess that wouldn't be such a good idea.

Gale: So many social engagements, so little time.

Ed McDonnough: I'm not gonna live this way, Hi! It just ain't family life!

H.I.: Well... it ain't "Ozzie and Harriet."

Evelle: Gale? Um, Junior just had a - an accident.

Gale: What's that, pardner?

Evelle: He had hisself a little ol' accident.

Gale: What do you mean? He looks okay.

Evelle: No. You see, moving though we are, he just went and had hisself a little ol' rest stop.

Gale: [sniffs the air] Well, that's natural.

Parole Board chairman: They've got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called "recidivism."

Parole Board member: Repeat offender!

Parole Board chairman: Not a pretty name, is it H.I.?

H.I.: No, sir. That's one bonehead name, but that ain't me any more.

Parole Board chairman: You're not just telling us what we want to hear?

H.I.: No, sir, no way.

Parole Board member: 'Cause we just want to hear the truth.

H.I.: Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.

Parole Board chairman: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

H.I.: Yes, sir.

Parole Board chairman: Okay, then.

Glen: Say that reminds me, how'd you get that kid so darn fast? Me and Dot went in to adopt on account a' somethin' went wrong with my semen, and they said we had to wait five years for a healthy white baby. I said, "Healthy white baby? Five years? What else you got?" Said they got two Koreans and a negra born with his heart on the outside. It's a crazy world.

H.I.: Someone oughta sell tickets.

Glen: Sure, I'd buy one.

Ed McDonnough: You mean you busted out of jail.

Evelle: No, ma'am. We released ourselves on our own recognizance.

Gale: What Evelle here is trying to say is that we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us.

Glen: How many Polacks it take to screw up a lightbulb?

H.I.: I don't know, Glen. One?

Glen: Nope, it takes three.

[Glen laughs. H.I. doesn't]

Glen: Wait a minute, I told it wrong. Here, I'm startin' over: How come it takes three Polacks to screw up a lightbulb?

H.I.: I don't know, Glen.

Glen: 'Cause they're so darn stupid!

[Glen laughs again. H.I. doesn't]

Glen: Shit, man, loosen up! Don't ya get it?

H.I.: No, Glen, I sure don't.

Glen: Shit, man, think about it! I guess it's what they call a "way homer."

H.I.: Why's that?

Glen: 'Cause you only get it on the way home.

H.I.: I'm already home, Glen.

H.I.: Wake up, Son.

[aims gun at the clerk]

H.I.: I'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash ya got.

Ed McDonnough: [sees H.I. from the car] That son' bitch. That son of a bitch! You son of a bitch!

H.I.: Better hurry it up, I'm in dutch with the wife.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: You want that $25,000 reward, you go ahead and claim it. What's there to talk about?

Leonard Smalls: Price. A fair price. That's not what you say it is, and it's not what I say it is... It's what the market will bear. Now there's people - and I know 'em - who'll pay a lot more than $25,000 for a healthy baby. Why, I myself fetched $30,000 on the black market. And that was in 1954 dollars.

Prison Counsellor: Why do you say you feel "trapped" in a man's body?

"Trapped" Convict: Well, sometimes I get them menstrual cramps real hard.

Evelle: [about the balloons he just bought] These blow up into funny shapes and all?

Grocer: Well no... unless round is funny.

Gale: You understand, H.I.? If this works out, it's just the beginning of a spree to cover the entire southwest proper. And we keep going until we can retire. Or we get caught.

Evelle: Either way, we're fixed for life.

Gale: All right, ya hayseeds, it's a stick-up. Everybody freeze. Everybody down on the ground.

Feisty Hayseed: Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if'n I freeze, I can't rightly drop. And if'n I drop, I'm a-gonna be in motion. You see...

Gale: Shut up!

Feisty Hayseed: Okay then.

Gale: Everybody down on the ground!

Evelle: Y'all can just forget that part about freezin' now.

Gale: Better still to get down there.

Evelle: Yeah, y'all hear that, don't ya?

[Everybody lays down. Gale looks at the now-empty teller windows]

Gale: Shit! Where'd all the tellers go?

Teller's voices: We're down here, sir.

Evelle: They're on the floor as you commanded, Gale.

[an old convict and H.I. lying on their prison bunks, passing the time]

Ear-Bending Cellmate: ...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.

H.I.: You ate what?

Ear-Bending Cellmate: We ate sand.

[pause]

H.I.: You ate SAND?

Ear-Bending Cellmate: That's right!

Policeman: Do you have any disgruntled employees?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Hell, they're all disgruntled. I ain't running no damn daisy farm. My motto is "Do it my way or watch your butt!"

Policeman: Well, do you think any of them could've done it?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Oh, don't make me laugh. Without my say-so they wouldn't piss with their pants on fire.

Gale: Why ain't you breast-feeding? You appear to be capable.

Ed McDonnough: Mind your own bid'ness.

Evelle: Ma'am, you don't breast-feed him, he'll hate you for it later. That's why we wound up in prison.

Gale: Anyway, that's what Doc Schwartz tells us.

H.I.: What are you talkin' about, Glen?

Glen: What am I talkin' about? I'm talkin' about sex, boy, what the hell you talkin' about? I'm talkin' about l'amour! I'm talkin' that me and Dot are swingers, as in "to swing." I'm talkin' about wife swappin'. I'm talkin' about what they call nowadays open marriage. I'm talk...

H.I.: [Knocks Glen to the ground with a punch] Keep your goddamn hands off my wife!

Nathan Arizona Sr.: I got the cops and the Federal BI out there lookin' for my boy...

Leonard Smalls: Cops won't find your boy. A cop couldn't find his butt if it had a bell on it.

Policeman in Arizona house: What did the pyjamas look like?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: I don't know - they were jammies! They had Yodas 'n' shit on 'em!

H.I.: A man for a husband.

Ed McDonnough: That ain't no answer.

H.I.: Honey, that's the only answer.

Ed McDonnough: That ain't no answer.

Ed McDonnough: We finally go out with decent people and you break his nose. That ain't too funny, Hi.

H.I.: His kids seemed to think it was funny.

Ed McDonnough: Well they're just kids.

H.I.: Do you ever get the feeling that there's something... Powerful pressing down on you?

Glen: Yes, I know that feeling. I told Dot to lose some weight but she don't wanna listen.

Ed McDonnough: You guys just can't stay. I appreciate you being friends of Hi and all but this is a decent family here.

Gale: [Quietly, to H.I] Say, who wears the pants around here, H.I.?

FBI Agent: Sir, we discovered you were born Nathan Huffheins.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Yeah, I changed my name. What of it?

FBI Agent: Can you give us an indication why?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Would you shop at a store called Unpainted Huffheins?

[last lines]

H.I.: [final lines] That night I had a dream. I dreamt I was as light as the ether- a floating spirit visiting things to come. The shades and shadows of the people in my life rassled their way their way into my slumber. I dreamed that Gale and Evelle had decided to return to prison. Probably that's just as well. I don't mean to sound superior, and they're a swell couple of guys, but maybe they weren't ready yet to come out into the world. And then I dreamed on, into the future, to a Christmas morn in the Arizona home where Nathan Junior was opening a present from a kindly couple who preferred to remain unknown. I saw Glen a few years later, still having no luck getting the cops to listen to his wild tales about me and Ed. Maybe he threw in one Polack joke too many. I don't know. And still I dreamed on, further into the future than I had ever dreamed before, watching Nathan Junior's progress from afar, taking pride in his accomplishments as if he were our own. Wondering if he ever thought of us and hoping that maybe we'd broadened his horizons a little even if he couldn't remember just how they got broadened. But still I hadn't dreamt nothing about me and Ed until the end. And this was cloudier cause it was years, years away. But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don't know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I'm liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: You know what I think? I think you're an evil man. I think this is a shakedown. It's nothing but a Goddamn screw-job. I think you took Nathan Jr.

[reaches for telephone]

Nathan Arizona Sr.: And you, my fine friend, are the one who's gonna get his butt kicked.

[Turns around, then turns back to find Smalls had gone]

Nathan Arizona Sr.: If you're looking for furniture or a shitbox, out there is the sales floor.

Leonard Smalls: I'm not a customer. I'm a manhunter. But I do hunt babies on occasion. I heard tell you got one you can't put your hand to.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: How do you know about that?

Leonard Smalls: That's my job. I'm a tracker. Some say part hound dog.

Evelle: I got me some baby grub, baby wipes, diapers, them disposable kind. I also got a package of balloons.

Gale: They blow up into funny shapes and all?

Evelle: No, just circular.

Evelle: Promise we ain't never gonna leave him again, Gale. Promise me we ain't never gonna give him up.

Gale: We ain't never gonna give him up again, Evelle. He's our little Gale Jr. now.

Reporter: Mr. Arizona, do you have any messages for the kidnappers?

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Yeah: Watch your butts.

[Evelle is buying diapers]

Evelle: You know how to put these things on?

Grocer: Well, around the butt and up over the groin area.

Evelle: I know WHERE they go, old timer. I just want to know if I need pins or fasteners.

Grocer: Well, no, they got them tape-ettes already on there. It's self-contained and fairly explanatory.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: All right, boy, I guess you got a reward coming. Twenty-five thousand dollars. Or, if you need home furnishings, I can give you a line of credit at any of my stores. In fact, that's the way I'd rather handle it. Tax reasons.

Ed McDonnough: We don't want no reward. We didn't bring him back for money.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: We can work it that way, too!

Glen: Say, that 'minds me. What are going to name him?

H.I.: Uh... Ed. Ed, Jr.

Glen: But I thought you said it was a boy?

H.I.: As in "Edward." We just like that name!

Dot: Where's that baby? Where's he at?

Glen: [Glen smacks Dot on the butt] Go find him, honey!

Dot: [Dot smacks Glen with her purse] Cut it out, Glen!

H.I.: [quietly] He's asleep right now.

Glen: [rubbing his jaw] Shit! I hope we didn't wake it!

Dot: Can I just sneak a peek-a-loo?

Dot: I'm sure you have the life insurance squared away?

Ed McDonnough: Have we done that honey? We gotta do that honey!

Dot: You gotta do that HI! Ed's got her hands full with this little angel.

H.I.: Yes, ma'am.

Dot: What would Ed and little angel do if a truck came along and splattered your brains all over the interstate?

Ed McDonnough: Yeah honey! What if you get run over?

Dot: Or carried off by a twister?

Dot: [GASPS after seeing Nathan Jr] What's his name?

Ed McDonnough: Uh... Hi... Hi Junior, till we think of a better one.

Dot: Why don't ya call him Jason? l just love biblical names. If I had another little boy, I'd name him Jason, Caleb or Tab.

[GASPS; covers her face with her hands and looks through her fingers]

Dot: He's an angel! He's an angel straight from heaven! Now honey, I had all my kids the hard way. Tell me how you got this little angel. Did he fly straight down from heaven?

Ed McDonnough: Well...

Dot: You're gonna send him to Arizona State.

H.I.: What kind of name is Ed for a pretty thing like you?

Ed McDonnough: Short for Edwina. Turn to the right.

H.I.: You're a flower, you are. Just a little desert flower.

Ed McDonnough: I love him so much!

H.I.: I know you do, honey.

Ed McDonnough: I love him so much!

H.I.: I know you do.

H.I.: I think the wife and me are splitting up. Her point is that were both kind of selfish and unrealistic, so we're not really good for each other.

Nathan Arizona Sr.: Well, ma'am, I don't know much, but I do know human beings. You brought back my boy, so you must have your good points, too. I sure hate to think of Florence leaving me. I do love her so. You can go out the way you came in. Oh, and before you do another foolish thing like busting up, I suggest you sleep on it. At least for one night.

Ed McDonnough: [sobbing] Turn to the right.

H.I.: What's the matter, Ed?

Ed McDonnough: My "fy-ance" left me.

H.I.: [narrating] She said her fiancé had run off with a student cosmetologist, who knew how to ply her feminine wiles.

H.I.: [out loud] That sumbitch. You tell him, I think he's a damn fool, Ed. You tell him I said so - H.I. McDonnough. If he wants to discuss it, he knows where to find me: in the Maricopa County Maximum Security Correctional Facility For Men State Farm, Road Number 31, Tempe, Arizona! I'LL BE WAITIN'! I'll be waitin'.

[first lines]

H.I.: [voiceover] My name is H.I. McDonnaugh. Call me Hi.

H.I.: Need a beer, Glen?

Glen: Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

Evelle: Do they blow up in funny shapes?

Grocer: Nope. Unless round's funny.

Machine Shop Ear-Bender: So we were doin' paramedical work in affiliation with the state highway system. Not actual practice, you understand. And me & Bill were patrolling down Nine Miles.

H.I.: Bill Roberts?

Machine Shop Ear-Bender: No, not that mother-scratcher. Bill Parker. Anyway, we're approaching the wreck, and there's this spherical object a restin' in the highway. And it's not a piece of the car.

Ed McDonnough: I don't care about myself anymore. I don't care about us anymore. I just want Nathan Jr back safe.

H.I.: I know that.

Ed McDonnough: If we don't get him back safe, I don't want to go on livin' and even if we do get him back safe, I don't want to go on livin' with you. I guess I still love you, Hi. I-I know I do. I'm not even blaming you. The whole thing's crazy, and...

H.I.: Well, factually, I myself...

Ed McDonnough: Lemme finish. Ever since those two jailbirds took little Nathan, I've been doin' some thinkin' and I ain't too proud of myself. Even if Mrs. Arizona had more than she could handle, I was a police officer swarned to uphold the constitution of the United States.

H.I.: Well, honey, you retired...

Ed McDonnough: That ain't the point, Hi! We don't deserve little Nathan any more than those jailbirds do. And if I'm as selfish and irresponsible as you...

H.I.: You're not that bad...

Ed McDonnough: If I'm as bad as you, what good are we? What good are we to each other? You and me's just a fool's paradise.

Prison Counsellor: Most men your age Hi, are getting married and raising up a family.

H.I.: Well factually, the...

Prison Counsellor: They wouldn't accept prison as a substitute. Would any of you men care to comment.

Gale: Well, sometimes your career's gotta come before family.

Evelle: Work's what's kept us happy.

H.I.: He's a scandal in't he, he's a little outlaw.

Ed McDonnough: Naw, he-he-he's a good boy.

H.I.: He ain't too good, you can tell by that twinkle in his eye.

Ed McDonnough: What would have happened if me and Ed Junior got picked up for accessory to commit armed robbery?

H.I.: Aw, it ain't armed robbery if the gun ain't loaded.

Gale: [during the bank robber] I told you not to use our names, Evelle!

Evelle: [pauses] You mean our code names?

Gale: Oh yeah.

Evelle: You hear that everyone? We're usin' code names.