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Doctor Rock: So what's your sign?
Pauline Axelrod: Stop.
Doctor Rock: That's really cute. I thought it was slippery when wet.
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John Cassady: I thought you were dead.
Richard Boyle: Dead? Why, do I look that bad?
John Cassady: Yes.
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Priest: Do you follow the Catholic way
Richard Boyle: ...Not exactly.
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Richard Boyle: [to his captors] I hope you all get anal herpes!
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Richard Boyle: Left-wing, Colonel? Eh, maybe. But I'm not a Communist. And you guys never seem to be able to tell the difference!
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John Cassady: They're not just shooting the Indians... they're shooting at us!
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Richard Boyle: [he and his friend are being searched by troops] Whatever you do,okay, don't get on the ground.
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Richard Boyle: It is widely rumoured sir, that you are the head of the death squads terrorizing the countryside of the city!
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Doctor Rock: They kill people here, Boyle!
Richard Boyle: Do you believe everything you read in the papers?
Doctor Rock: Yeah I do!
Richard Boyle: Come on man, you're gonna love it here.
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John Cassady: You gotta get close to get the truth. You get too close, you die.
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Doctor Rock: Listen Rich, can I crash at your place tonight? I got no other place to go man, I'll sleep in the shower, it doesn't matter.
Richard Boyle: You'd better light another joint, 'cause I got bad news for you. I don't got a place. We're evicted, man, we were gonna come stay with you and Miriam...
Doctor Rock: You mean I gave you my last two hundred bucks and got no place to stay?
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Richard Boyle: [his wife has left him] Marriage made in hell... maybe she'll be back.
Doctor Rock: [indicates the messy apartment] Sure. Who could leave all this?
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Richard Boyle: What are the death squads, but the brain child of the CIA? But you'll run with them because they're anti-Moscow!
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Richard Boyle: Marry me.
María: What?
Richard Boyle: We could have a family together!
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Richard Boyle: [about his girlfriend] I mean they could come tonight, take her away and they could kill her too!
Ambassador Thomas Kelly: Richard, Richard... that doesn't have anything to do with us. And you know the laws of this country. She's gonna have to go back to her home town.
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Ambassador Thomas Kelly: [about the government in El Salvador] A pathological killer on the right, God-knows-what on the left, and a gutless middle.
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María: I can't marry a divorced man!
Richard Boyle: God!
María: And you, Richard, are a bad Catholic in all ways.
Richard Boyle: How am I a bad Catholic?
María: You are living in sin. You drink!
Richard Boyle: Okay, yeah, once in a while...
María: You sleep with many women... Do you smoke marijuana?
Richard Boyle: No, that was Rock! He's a troublemaker!
María: And you lie. You scheming scum! What is good or decent about you? What redemption can you expect?
Richard Boyle: Well none I guess, but look... okay you got a point, I am a fucking weasel, there's no doubt about that. But think about this... If I went to church, I haven't been to church in thirty years, but if I went and I took confession, and with the communion together that'd be great! We could go to Archbishop Romero, you know he knows me, he likes me very much. I could become his Catholic worker, that'd be wonderful, I could get a little basket and collect coins...
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Richard Boyle: John! John! You crazy fucking stooge, you're not that magic!
John Cassady: Today I am, Boyle.
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Richard Boyle: Is that why you're here, Colonel? Some kind of post-Vietnam experience like you need a rerun or something? You pour a hundred twenty million bucks into this place, you turn it into a military zone, so what, so you can have chopper parades in the sky?
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Richard Boyle: [drunkenly waves a blade at the thugs surrounding him] You're gonna have to fucking kill me. You ain't fucking taking me alive!
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Richard Boyle: Listen, I think it's gonna blow in El Salvador real soon. I thought if you guys could get me a new press card and two grand I could get you some pretty good stuff. What do ya say?
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Doctor Rock: [there is a letter on Boyle's door] What does it say?
Richard Boyle: 'Fuck you' in Italian.
Richard Boyle: [sees the room and crumples the letter] Shit, she's gone back to Italy to her parents. Goddamnit!
Doctor Rock: That's too bad, Richard. But at least she left the TV.
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Richard Boyle: The people would vote for Donald Duck or Genghis Khan or whoever the local cop tells them to because if they don't,
[holds up a photo of a dead boy]
Richard Boyle: this is what happens!
Pauline Axelrod: And you're just a real fucking pro, Boyle, that's why you can't even last two weeks with the network.
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Pauline Axelrod: What do you think? Rumour has it they ran the roadblock and there was an exchange of gunfire.
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Jack Morgan - State Department Analyst: You know I'm often asked by people like yourself to examine my conscience and every now and then I do examine it.
Richard Boyle: And what do you find there, Jack?
Jack Morgan - State Department Analyst: That whatever mistakes we make down here, the alternative would be ten times worse!
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Colonel Bentley Hyde Sr.: If I were you, I'd get my rubber shoes on, and get to the airport.
Richard Boyle: You know you're gonna fit in really well here, you know that? You sound just like another gangster.
[claps Bentley on the shoulder and walks away]
Colonel Bentley Hyde Sr.: Dumb fuck!
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Jack Morgan - State Department Analyst: Do you want to go down in the history books as the man who lost El Salvador?
Ambassador Thomas Kelly: That's hardly the issue here! We're talking about human lives here! We're not playing some computer game! Jesus, history books? God!
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John Cassady: I got the shot! I got the shot!
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María: I always dreamed of going to California.
Richard Boyle: It's a wacko joint. Not like El Salvador.
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Richard Boyle: You let them close down the universities, you let them wipe out the best minds in the countries, you let them kill whoever they want, you let them wipe out the Catholic Church, you let them do it all because they aren't Commies! And that, Colonel, is bull shit!
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Doctor Rock: That's the biggest fucking needle I ever saw!
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John Cassady: You know what made photographers like Robert Cappa great, Rich? They weren't after money, they captured the nobility of human suffering!
Richard Boyle: That was a great shot in Spain. The one flying through the air.
John Cassady: Yeah but it was more than just bodies, Rich. He got... why they died.
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Doctor Rock: [about Ronald Reagan] Can you believe that a straight man to a chimpanzee is going to be the next President of the United States? I mean, doesn't that depress you?
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Richard Boyle: You could live in this country for three hundred bucks a year!
Doctor Rock: [rummages through Boyle's pack] What the fuck is this!
Richard Boyle: Mace.
Doctor Rock: Mace, for what?
Richard Boyle: Wild dogs.
Doctor Rock: Yeah, wild dogs, that's bullshit! You've lied to me straight through, haven't you?
Richard Boyle: You want me to be honest with you?
Doctor Rock: No!
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Carlos: [about El Salvador] There is no more God.
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Jack Morgan - State Department Analyst: Hey, Boyle. I thought you were dead!
Richard Boyle: Well, it takes more than wishing.
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Major Maximiliano 'Max' Casanova: Senor, there are no death squads in El Salvador. The outrage of the people against the Communist threat cannot be stopped, or organized, by anyone.
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Richard Boyle: [drunk] Cathy, talk to Maria. I gotta get Maria back. Just talk to Father Paul, she'll listen to him.
Cathy Moore: Richard, you're forty-two years old. You're old enough to be her father, forget her.
Richard Boyle: I'm in love with her!
Doctor Rock: [also drunk] I love you, Richard.
-
Doctor Rock: [waves a beer bottle at the gangsters] Okay, cocksuckers, how do you like these odds, huh?
[attempts to break the end of the bottle, but it doesn't break]
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Boyle's Wife: What? You cannot walk in here like this!
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Doctor Rock: You know you come off with this journalist bullshit all the goddamn time, you know that? I haven't seen one article
Richard Boyle: I wrote a book! "Flower of the Dragon"!
Doctor Rock: "Flower of the Dragon"? That was ten years ago, Boyle!
Richard Boyle: It was a big exposé!
Doctor Rock: Ten years ago! What have you written since?
Richard Boyle: Articles.
Doctor Rock: What articles?
Richard Boyle: I wrote for a right wing newspaper in El Salvador about guerillas.
Doctor Rock: [sarcastic] Oh the one in El Salvador? Oh yeah, I read that, my whole family read that! Everyone saw that article, Boyle!
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Pauline Axelrod: You're real fucking pro, Boyle!
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Major Maximiliano 'Max' Casanova: [talking to his henchmen] Now... who will be the one among you who will rid me of this Romero?
[several men stand up. Major Max approaches one of them and gives him a single bullet]
Major Maximiliano 'Max' Casanova: You will be famous!
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Richard Boyle: [lying in a hammock with Maria] How bad is it here, eh?
Doctor Rock: [points at Maria] If I had one of those, I'd be better.
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Doctor Rock: [babbles in poor Spanish, trying to buy a drink]
Richard Boyle: You asshole. You know what you just said?
Doctor Rock: What?
Richard Boyle: You said you'd pay her in two menstrual cycles, you moron!
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Army Lieutenant: First I'll take your arms, then I'll take your legs! Then I'll take your balls, sounds like a fun game?
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Richard Boyle: I'm not only a fucking Irishman... I'm a fucking Viking!
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Doctor Rock: [doesn't understand the insults being spoken at him in Spanish] Yeah up yours too, Jack!
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Cop in San Francisco: Mr. Boyle, your license has been revoked. You're driving without a license, registration, or insurance. You've got four outstanding speeding tickets, all gone to warrant. You've got forty-three unpaid parking tickets!
Richard Boyle: Jesus!
Cop in San Francisco: Nothing is legal about your car. Even your press card is out of date!
Richard Boyle: [acts surprised, though he knows very well] My press card's out of date? Damned.
Cop in San Francisco: I'm taking you in.
Richard Boyle: [is getting arrested] Oh, uh, look, see I'm not that Richard Boyle, this, this happens all the time! There's another Richard Boyle...
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Richard Boyle: [his last lines] You don't know what it's like in El Salvador! You have no idea! Maria! *Maria!*
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Doctor Rock: Vietnam, you know, Vietnam? I mean, we invading here, or what?
Female U.S. soldier: I don't know what you're talking about. I was kinda young during all that. Look I got orders not to speak to the press, okay? And you're weird, so fuck off.
Doctor Rock: What the hell, I'm not with the press!
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Colonel Bentley Hyde Sr.: [talking to Boyle] You know if you were Vietnamese you'd be working in a re-education camp, pulling up turnips!
Richard Boyle: Oh I never really like turnips very much, Colonel. And you don't see me applying for Vietnamese citizenship, do ya?
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Richard Boyle: [about Archbishop Romero] Very good man. Man of the people, man of God. You know, Doc, they say this man's gonna win the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Major Maximiliano 'Max' Casanova: [in the commercial] As you well know, I stand for nationalism, law and order, and economic prosperity. More importantly, I stand for the church... and a peaceful Salvador!
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Roberto: [trying to get Boyle to pay his debt] I'm trying to run a restaurant, not a fucking bank!
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Richard Boyle: [furious at the sight of how rebels treat their prisoners] Is this your sense of justice?!
Rebel Woman: [In Spanish] It's necessary!
Richard Boyle: [Is pulled away by two rebels] You've become just like them! You've become just like them!
Rebel Youth: This is war! You don't have the stomach for it! Get out!
Richard Boyle: [Turns around one last time] YOU'VE BECOME JUST LIKE THEM!
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Doctor Rock: Best thing about Latin women is they don't speak English.
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Priest: Just repent. Change your ways.
Richard Boyle: That's gonna be a little tough.
Priest: You love this woman, you will be willing to change.
Richard Boyle: Okay, I can still drink and take a few hits from a joint once in a while, right? That's okay?
Priest: Twelve Our Fathers, ten Hail Marys, and an Act of Contrition.
Richard Boyle: That's it?
Priest: Ask the Lord for forgiveness from your heart.
Richard Boyle: From my heart... If I'd known this, I would've come earlier, before years.
Salvador Quotes
Extended Reading
