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George Noyce: This is a game. All of this is for you. You're not investigating anything. You're a fucking rat in a maze.
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George Noyce: You wanna uncover the truth? You gotta let her go.
Teddy Daniels: I can't.
George Noyce: You have to let her go!
Teddy Daniels: I can't! I can't!
George Noyce: Then you'll never leave this island.
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Chuck Aule: All I know is it's a mental hospital.
Teddy Daniels: ...for the criminally insane.
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[first lines]
Teddy Daniels: Pull yourself together, Teddy. Pull yourself together.
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Teddy Daniels: We are duly appointed Federal Marshals.
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Teddy Daniels: I'm sorry, Honey. I love this thing because you gave it to me. But the truth is... it is one fuckin' ugly tie.
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Dr. John Cawley: You blew up my car. I really loved that car.
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Teddy Daniels: So, what's our next move?
Chuck Aule: You tell me.
Teddy Daniels: I gotta get off this rock, Chuck. Get back to the mainland. Whatever the hell's going on here, it's bad.
[pause]
Teddy Daniels: [sotto voce] Don't worry, partner, they're not gonna catch us.
Chuck Aule: That's right, we're too smart for 'em.
Teddy Daniels: Yeah, we are, aren't we?
[pause]
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?
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[recurring line]
Teddy Daniels: Why are you all wet, baby?
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[recurring line]
Teddy Daniels: We gotta get off this rock, Chuck.
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Warden: Did you enjoy God's latest gift?
Teddy Daniels: What?
Warden: God's gift. Your violence.
[Daniels looks at him blankly]
Warden: When I came downstairs in my home, and I saw that tree in my living room, it reached out for me... a divine hand. God loves violence.
Teddy Daniels: I... I hadn't noticed.
Warden: Sure you have. Why else would there be so much of it? It's in us. It's what we are. We wage war, we burn sacrifices, and pillage and plunder and tear at the flesh of our brothers. And why? Because God gave us violence to wage in his honor.
Teddy Daniels: I thought God gave us moral order.
Warden: There's no moral order as pure as this storm. There's no moral order at all. There's just this: can my violence conquer yours?
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Dolores Chanal: Set me free.
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Warden: If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy Daniels: Give it a try.
Warden: That's the spirit.
-
Chuck Aule: You okay boss?
Teddy Daniels: Yeah fine, I just ah, I just can't, can't stomach the water.
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Nurse Marino: [Daniels has asked the staff about Rachel's activities before her disappearance] She was in a group therapy session.
Teddy Daniels: Anything unusual occur?
Nurse Marino: Define 'unusual'.
Teddy Daniels: Excuse me?
Nurse Marino: This is a mental institution, Marshal. For the criminally insane. Usual isn't a big part of our day.
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[Dr. Cawley has asked the marshals about their preferred drinks]
Teddy Daniels: Soda and ice, please, thanks.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Oh. You don't indulge in alcohol? I'm surprised. Isn't it common for men in your profession to imbibe?
Teddy Daniels: Common enough. And... in yours?
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Er... I'm sorry?
Teddy Daniels: Your profession, Doctor, psychiatry.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Yes?
Teddy Daniels: I always heard it was overrun with boozers and drunks.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Not that I noticed.
Teddy Daniels: What's that, ice tea in your glass there?
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: [laughs, despite himself] Excellent, Marshal. You have outstanding defense mechanisms. You must be quite adept at interrogations.
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Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: You both served overseas, huh?
Chuck Aule: It's not much of a stretch, Doc. For all you know, we're both paper pushers over there.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: No, you are not. - Since the schoolyard, neither of you has ever walked away from a physical conflict. No, no, not because you enjoyed it, but because retreat isn't something you consider an option.
Chuck Aule: We weren't raised to run, Doc.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Ah, yes. Raised. And who raised you, Marshal?
Teddy Daniels: Me? Wolves.
[Dr. Naehring and Dr. Cawley laugh again]
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Very impressive defense mechanisms.
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Rachel 2: You're smarter than you look, Marshal. That's probably not a good thing.
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Chuck Aule: Nice music, who is that, Brahms?
Teddy Daniels: [pauses] No. It's Mahler.
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Dr. John Cawley: [re: Rachel] We don't know how she got out of her room. It was locked from the outside. And the only window's barred. It's as if she evaporated, straight through the walls.
-
Dr. John Cawley: [examines Rachel's note] Ah, this is definitely Rachel's handwriting. I have no idea... what the "Law of Four" is, though.
Teddy Daniels: It's not a psychiatric term?
Dr. John Cawley: No, I'm afraid not.
Chuck Aule: [reads the note] "Who is 67?" Fucked if I know.
Dr. John Cawley: I have to say that's quite close to my clinical conclusion.
-
Rachel 2: Fifty years from now, people will look back and say, "Here, at this place, is where it all began. The Nazis used the Jews, Soviets used prisoners in their own Gulags. And we - we tested patients on Shutter Island."
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Dr. John Cawley: Why are you all wet, baby?
-
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Men like you are my specialty, you know. Men of violence.
Chuck Aule: Now, that's a hell of an assumption to make.
Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: No assumption, no, not at all. You misunderstand me. I said, you are 'men of violence'. I'm not accusing you of being violent men. That's quite different.
-
Warden: You're as violent as they come. I know this, because I'm as violent as they come. If the constraints of society were lifted, and I was all that stood between you and a meal, you would crack my skull with a rock and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn't you?
-
Teddy Daniels: I could come get you, get, get you off this island.
Rachel 2: Haven't you heard a word I've said? The only way off the island is the ferry, and they control it. You'll never leave here.
-
Teddy Daniels: I had a friend. I was with him yesterday, but we got separated. Have you seen him?
Rachel 2: Marshal... you have no friends.
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George Noyce: She's... fucking with your head!
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Dr. Jeremiah Naehring: Did you know that the word 'trauma' comes from the Greek for 'wound'? Hm? And what is the German word for 'dream'? Traum. Ein Traum. Wounds can create monsters, and you, you are wounded, Marshal. And wouldn't you agree, when you see a monster, you... you must stop it?
Teddy Daniels: Yeah... I agree.
[injects him with a sedative]
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[last lines]
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?
[gets up and walks off]
Chuck Aule: Teddy?
-
Teddy Daniels: After she tried to kill herself the first time, Dolores told me she... she had an insect living inside her brain. She could feel it clicking across her skull, just... pulling the wires, just for fun. She told me that. She told me that but I didn't listen. I loved her so much.
-
Teddy Daniels: Is there a reason, doctor, why you keep referring to your patient in the past tense?
Dr. John Cawley: Take a look outside, marshall.
[nods to the storm outside]
Dr. John Cawley: . Why do you think?
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Dolores Chanal: Let's put them at the table, we'll dry them off, change their clothes. They'll be our living dolls, huh? Tomorrow we can take them on a picnic.
Teddy Daniels: If you ever loved me, Dolores, please stop talking.
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Dr. John Cawley: It's my job to treat the patients, not their victims.
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Dr. John Cawley: Sanity's not a choice, Marshall. You can't just choose to get over it.
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Rachel 2: You're smarter than you look, Marshall. That's probably not a good thing.
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Warden: [Leaning across the jeep to Teddy as he lets him out] If I was to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?
Teddy Daniels: [Wryly] Give it a try.
Warden: That's the spirit!
[He smiles]
-
Rachel 2: Do you know how pain enters the body, Marshal? Do you?
Teddy Daniels: Depends on where you're hurt?
Rachel 2: No, it has nothing to do with the flesh. The brain controls pain.
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Teddy Daniels: They're experimenting on people here.
Chuck Aule: I don't know, boss. How can you believe a crazy guy?
Teddy Daniels: That's the beauty of it. Mental Patients make the perfect subjects, if they talk nobody listens to them!
-
Teddy Daniels: I am a federal Marshall. They can't stop me.
Rachel 2: I was an esteemed psychiatrist from a respected family. Didn't matter.
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Dolores Chanal: [holding a liquor flask] I found a whole stack of these, Teddy. Jesus, are you ever sober any more?
Teddy Daniels: I killed a lot of people in the war.
Dolores Chanal: Is that why you drink?
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George Noyce: Been alone much since you got here?
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Teddy Daniels: So this female prisoner...
Dr. John Cawley: Patient.
Teddy Daniels: Sorry... patient, one Rachel Solando, escaped sometime in the last 24 hours.
Dr. John Cawley: Last night between ten and midnight.
Chuck Aule: Is she considered dangerous?
Dr. John Cawley: You could say that. She killed all three of her children.
-
Dr. John Cawley: McPherson's a good man. He believes in the work we do here.
Teddy Daniels: And what would that be, exactly?
Dr. John Cawley: A moral fusion between law and order and clinical care.
Chuck Aule: Pardon me, Doc. A what between what and what?
Shutter Island Quotes
Extended Reading
