Ronin Quotes

Deirdre: Are you afraid?

Sam: 'Course I'm afraid. You think I'm reluctant because I'm happy?

Sam: You labour or management?

Vincent: If I was management, I wouldn't have given you a cigarette.

[Sam is talking about how he was interrogated once]

Larry: How did they finally get to you?

Sam: They gave me a grasshopper.

Larry: What's a grasshopper?

Sam: Let's see, that's, uh, two part gin, two part brandy, one part Creme de Menthe...

Sam: Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.

Vincent: Who taught you?

Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.

Spence: You ever kill anybody?

Sam: I hurt somebody's feelings once.

[Vincent has just removed a bullet from Sam's side]

Sam: If you don't mind, I'm gonna pass out.

Deirdre: What were you doing back here?

Sam: [retrieves the gun he hid behind some crates] Lady, I never walk into a place I don't know how to walk out of.

Deirdre: Then why would you get into that van?

Sam: You know the reason.

Sam: So, how'd you get started in this business?

Dierdre: A wealthy scoundrel seduced and betrayed me.

Sam: Same with me. How about that?

Spence: You worried about saving your own skin?

Sam: Yeah, I am. It covers my body.

[the arms dealers want to complete the deal inside a tunnel]

Sam: You aren't going in there?

Spence: Yeah, I'm going in there. And so are you.

Sam: Why am I going in there?

Spence: Why? To protect me.

Sam: There is no protection there. If it's a come-on, we're fish in a barrel. What are you doing? Why do they want you in there? What are you, crazy?

Spence: You know, you think too hard.

Sam: Nobody ever told me that before. But I wouldn't go in there.

Gregor: You're going to kill me?

Seamus O'Rourke: No, I'm not going to kill you.

[the moment Gregor takes off his glasses, Seamus punches him on and on until a blow at Gregor's stomach lands him on the floor]

Seamus O'Rourke: Why would I want to kill you?

[Sam deliberately tests Gregor by pretending to accidentally knock his cup off the table. Gregor quickly and smoothly catches it before it hits the floor]

Sam: Good reflexes.

Gregor: [almost embarrassed] Oh, yeah. They die hard.

Spence: [drawing a diagram on the white board - two circles with arrows pointing at each other] We got shooters here... shooters here. I'll tell you an old trick...

Sam: Hey.

[Sam puts his cup of coffee down on a table, walks over to the white board and rubs out Spence's diagram]

Spence: What's your problem?

Sam: Draw it again. Draw it again. You're the ace field man, draw it again. It's a simple diagram, just draw it again, draw what you saw.

[Spence just stands there]

Sam: Draw it again! Draw it again.

[Spence still does nothing so Sam takes the marker pen off him and redraws his diagram]

Sam: Two shooters, car comes through here, shooters across from each other, kill each other dead. Oh my, where'd you learn that? Huh?

Spence: In the regiment.

Sam: What regiment was that?

Spence: The 22nd Special Air Service.

Sam: What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford? What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford?

Spence: I don't like your attitude.

Sam: What's the color of the boathouse?

Spence: Oh, fuck off!

Sam: [moves closer to Spence, who backs away] You got the gun, I'm unarmed. Do something. Go ahead, do something. Do something. Do something.

[as he backs away, Spence bumps into the table with Sam's coffee cup on it, spilling hot coffee onto his leg. Sam grabs his neck and face and bends him backwards over a railing, completely overpowering him. He takes Spence's gun off of him, then releases him]

Sam: Tell me about an ambush? Tell me about an ambush? I ambushed you with a cup of coffee!

Gregor: How does the day find you?

Dapper Gent: How do they say in French - en plein forme?

Gregor: [body searches Dapper and finds a gun] This was supposed to be a social occasion?

Dapper Gent: Life is uncertain.

Gregor: It is indeed.

Dapper Gent: But Gregor, we have so much history together I was sure you wouldn't mind. Besides the world these days is so...

Gregor: Unsafe?

Dapper Gent: Exactly.

Gregor: I'll show you how unsafe it is.

[last lines]

Vincent: No questions. No answers. That's the business we're in. You just accept it and move on. Maybe that's lesson number three.

Gregor: It would be nice to do something.

Sam: We are doing something. We're sitting here, waiting.

Vincent: What do you want for Christmas?

Sam: My two front teeth.

Vincent: A friend of yours?

Sam: Yeah, we went to high school together.

Vincent: Well, everyone's your brother 'till the rent comes due.

Vincent: Are you sure you can do this?

Sam: [Preparing to perform surgery on himself] Yeah. I once removed a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon.

Spence: You ex-military?

Sam: No, I got my job through The New York Times.

Sam: Excuse me, could you tell me how to find the post office?

Man with the Newspaper: Do, uh, do I know you? No, I'm sorry, do I know you? Cause, uh, how did you know I speak English?

Sam: You got an English newspaper.

[Spence is walking into a possible ambush]

Vincent: Do you want to back him up?

[Sam shrugs]

Vincent: What would I profit from your death?

Sam: Well, you'd have the money.

Vincent: I have the money already.

[pause]

Vincent: [nods] I'll watch the back.

[the Dapper Gent pulls a gun on Gregor after he had already been disarmed]

Gregor: Where did that come from?

[the Gent smiles lecherously]

Gregor: I should've made you strip.

Gregor: [after Sam exposes Spence as a phoney SAS veteran by asking him "What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford?"] So, what color *is* the boathouse at Hereford?

Sam: How the fuck should I know?

Vincent: [Gregor has just stolen the case for himself during a shoot-out] Where is Gregor?

Sam: Gregor fucked us!

Sergi: Where do I know you from?

Vincent: Vienna.

Sergi: Of course!

Sam: What's in the case?

Deirdre: That isn't necessary.

Sam: Is it heavy, is it explosive, is it chained to some unlucky bloke's wrist? Are we gonna have to chop it off?

Deirdre: All right. But I am not under any obligation to let you know...

Sam: If not, the price has gotta go up. I'll get you the case, but the price has gotta go up. If it's gonna be a amateur night, I want a hundred thousand dollars. I want it upfront. I want it in a bank account. I want another $100,000 when you get the case.

Deirdre: [after a phone conversation with someone] You'll get your money when we get the case.

Sam: The others too.

Deirdre: That is what I understood. We've gotten the word.

Seamus O'Rourke: You bollocksed it up.

Dierdre: I bollocksed it up?

Seamus O'Rourke: You hired them.

Dierdre: Through your fucking contacts!

Seamus O'Rourke: I was clearing up your mess.

Dierdre: My mess? Oh, well, you take over then.

Seamus O'Rourke: Eh?

Dierdre: But you can't, can ya? It's you that's hidin' isn' it, Seamus? It's you that can't show your face.

Vincent: What was in the case?

Sam: I don't remember.

Vincent: Lesson number two.

Vincent: We need some information. We're looking for some people in Paris.

Jean-Pierre: Who?

Vincent: An Irish man and a woman, and a German, ex-KGB. They're professionals, and they're in hiding.

Jean-Pierre: This is really important to you?

Vincent: He saved my life.

[Sam looks at Jean-Pierre's model]

Jean-Pierre: The Forty-Seven Ronin. Do you know it?

[Sam shakes his head]

Jean-Pierre: Forty-seven samurai, whose master was betrayed and killed by another lord. They became ronin, masterless samurai, disgraced by another man's treachery. For three years they plotted, pretending to be thieves, mercenaries, even madmen. That, I didn't have time to do. And then one night they struck, slipping into the castle of their lord's betrayer, killing him.

Sam: Nice. I like that. My kind of job.

Jean-Pierre: There's something more. All forty-seven of them committed seppuku. Ritual suicide, in the courtyard of the castle.

Sam: Well, that I don't like so much.

Jean-Pierre: But you understand it?

Sam: What do you mean, I understand it?

Jean-Pierre: The warrior code. The delight in the battle, you understand that, yes? But also something more. You understand there is something outside yourself that has to be served. And when that need is gone, when belief has died, what are you? A man without a master.

Sam: Right now I'm a man without a paycheck.

Jean-Pierre: The ronin could have hired themselves to new masters. They could have fought for themselves. But they chose honor. They chose myth.

Sam: They chose wrong.

Gregor: [aiming his gun at a children's playground] See that little girl down there?

[the Dapper gent grabs Gregor's arm, Gregor fires a shot which just misses her and hits the top of the playground apparatus she's on. Gregor's gun is silenced so nobody notices the shot]

Dapper Gent: Have you lost your mind? Why did you do that?

Gregor: To make a point. I don't know her, but I was ready to splatter her brains all over the playground. But you... I don't particularly like you. Just imagine what I'll do to you if you try anything. Now give me my money.

Jean-Pierre: [in his modeling workshop] My hobby. One grows old.

Sam: I knew a lot of fellas, friends of mine, that just wanted to live to open a bar.

Jean-Pierre: Had they lived, would they have done it?

[Sam shrugs]

Jean-Pierre: Then they were spared their disillusion.

Sam: [Sam walking in hotel with Dierdre as they pass the Carousel; she rolls her eyes when he finishes saying:] You're my wife; maybe you want to look like it. It's just a game; just a game. Man and woman going for a walk and all that that entails. Piece of cake. Relax. Relax, darling.

[pause]

Sam: You look good cleaned up.

Vincent: It's a case for ice skates.

Sam: Why ice skates? And why would Gregor know an ice-skate case?

Vincent: He didn't have time to have it made. He didn't have time to have the fake case made. The Russians made it. The Russians made it.

Sam: We're following the wrong people.

Vincent: So why did you take this job?

Sam: My friend, I need the money.

Gregor: So what brought you here?

Sam: A fellow that doesn't work so well.

Gregor: The man in the wheelchair? How did he get there?

Sam: Seems to me that was in your neck of the woods back in the late unpleasantness.

Spence: What do you use, weapons-wise?

Sam: Hm?

Spence: Weapons. I'm a weapons man.

Sam: Weapons man?

Spence: Yeah. They tend to settle the argument. So what do you favour?

Sam: Oh, you know, it's a toolbox. I don't care, you put the tools in for the job, that's all.

Spence: What?

Sam: You know, I actually favour the old 1911.

Spence: .45. Old gun.

Sam: It served my country well. A long time.

Spence: Your country. Not done too well though, have you, last few wars?

Sam: Perhaps not, but at least we don't go around whining about it.

Vincent: [in French to Sam; about Spence] Don't let him get you down.

Sam: It don't mean nothing to me.

Spence: [in French] I say what I think.