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Lorenzo: The temperature topped out at ninety-eight degrees the day our lives were forever altered.
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Carol: The man I know is not the boy you remember.
Lorenzo: None of us are.
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Nokes: What do you want?
John: What I've always wanted. To watch you die.
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Shakes' Father: [to Shakes' mother] I buried one fucking wife, I can bury another.
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Father Bobby: [about Shakes' prank in the church] Nuns are such easy targets.
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Lorenzo: [narrating] Hell's Kitchen was a place of innocence ruled by corruption.
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Shakes' Father: He should not have to do time. Nobody in this family should have to do time. I've done enough time for *everybody*!
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[voice over]
Lorenzo: Most priests like to preach from the pulpit. Father Bobby liked to talk during the bump and shove of a pick-up game.
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Father Bobby: Listen, I got a story I want to tell you.
Young Tommy Marcano: It ain't the one about the lepers, is it? Cause that one gave me nightmares.
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[voice over]
Lorenzo: Young protesters spoke about how they'd change our lives and fix the world. But while they shouted their slogans, my friends and I went to the funeral services of the young men of Hell's Kitchen who came back from Vietnam in body bags.
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King Benny: Father Bobby would have made a good hitman. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.
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Father Bobby: [about sermons, before the boys are sentenced] This is one of my favorites.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: What is?
Father Bobby: "Whatever you do to the least of brethren, you do to me".
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Father Bobby: I stopped off at Attica today on my way up here to see an old friend of mine.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: You have any friends who aren't in jail?
Father Bobby: Not as many as I'd like.
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John: One down, Shakes, one down.
Lorenzo: One what?
Tommy: One Sean Nokes.
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Michael: You read the Count of Monte Cristo lately?
Lorenzo: I dunno, 10 years ago
Michael: I read a little bit every night. I read words like revenge, sweet, lasting revenge.
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Michael: It's payback time.
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Lorenzo: Mike, are you sure you wanna go this way? I mean we buried this a long time ago.
Michael: You still sleep with the light on?
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Michael: You gotta get me one for our side.
Lorenzo: One what?
Michael: One witness. A witness who'll put John and Tommy somewhere else on the night of the murder. A witness they can't touch
Lorenzo: Don't they got a name for that?
Michael: A judge would call it perjury.
Lorenzo: I see, and what are we calling it?
Michael: A favor.
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Carol: Mug me or marry me, Shakes. I'm too tired for anything else.
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Lorenzo: [narrating about Father Bobby] I told him about the torture, the beating and the rapes. I told him about four frightened boys who prayed to Father Bobby's God for help that never came. I told him everything.
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Danny Snyder: I can't do this now. You gotta know that. It's been a long time for me. I mean -ah- you need somebody younger, ya know, somebody like I used to be.
King Benny: younger is not better. Doesn't have experience, doesn't know his way around the courthouse.
Danny Snyder: Hey, I'm lucky I can find the courthouse. I had only four cases last year-you know how many I won? None, that's how many, none. In two of them, uh, I, a, I think the jury blamed me personnally.
King Benny: They must have been innocent. It is tough to get an innocent man off a rap.
Danny Snyder: I wasn't even planning on going to court with this one. I was just gonna plea it down the best I could and walk away. I wasn't, I wasn't planning on taking this to trial.
King Benny: Well your plans have been changed.
Danny Snyder: Well I'm afraid I'll make a mistake and... say the wrong thing and, ya know, uh, uh, make a wrong turn somewhere. You don't want to take that risk.
King Benny: Life is a risk.
Danny Snyder: I'm sorry?
King Benny: Life is risk.
Danny Snyder: Life is a risk.
King Benny: Um-huh.
Danny Snyder: A-huh.I haven't been in here before. What do you need me to do?
King Benny: Listen. You're going to be given the answers and the questions. All you have to do is read. You can read can't you?
Danny Snyder: It's, it's, is it in English?
King Benny: Just don't drift, don't drink, and don't lose.
Danny Snyder: What if I do lose?
King Benny: Then you'll go down for the dirt nap.
Danny Snyder: Never heard that expression before... dirt nap. I'm not cut out for this anymore. I mean a guys gets hit by a bus, ya know, and sues. I like that. Some lady slips in a supermarket, I'm with her, a guy...
King Benny: The discussion's over.
Danny Snyder: I'm an alcoholic. This is a murder case. This isn't for me.
King Benny: It was once. Before you let the drink lead. Be sober by tomorrow and don't look so worried, Snyder. You have nothing to lose, just like the rest of us.
Danny Snyder: I don't want to be a burden to you, but, I do, you know, aside, or along with my alcohol problem, I have a slight drug problem, I mean nothing big, just...
King Benny: Go away.
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Tommy: This is amazing!
John Reilly: Hello! It's been a long time!
Nokes: Who the fuck are you guys?
[John and Tommy each pull up a chair and sit down at Nokes' table]
Nokes: Hey, who the fuck asked you to sit down?
Tommy: I thought you'd be happy to see us... I guess I was wrong.
John: You know, after all that training, all that time you put in, to stand up watching someone else's money... that seems like a waste!
Nokes: I'm asking you for the last time what the fuck do you want?
John: Why don't you take your time it will come to you!
[Nokes stares at them, thinking]
John: I can see how you might forget. We were just something for you and your friends to play with.
Tommy: It's not that easy for us to forget... you gave us so much more to remember.
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Father Bobby: What about the life that was taken, Shakes? What's that worth?
Lorenzo: To me? Nothing.
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Lorenzo: [after handing Detective Davenport surveillance photos and proof that Adam Styler's a crooked cop] So, you got enough for conviction?
Detective: That ain't up to me. That's up to a jury.
Lorenzo: [hands Davenport a gun in a plastic bag] Show the jury this.
Detective: What do you got there, Ness?
Lorenzo: About 3 weeks ago, the body of a drug dealer named Indian Red Lopez was found in an alley in Jackson Heights. Three bullets in his head, nothing in his pockets.
Detective: I'm with you so far.
Lorenzo: This is the gun that killed him, and these are the shells.
Detective: What's behind door number 3?
Lorenzo: The prints on the gun belong to Adam Styler.
Detective: Hey, do me a favor, would you?
Lorenzo: What's that?
Detective: If I ever make it onto your shit list, give me a call. Give me a chance to apologize.
-
Lorenzo: A number of the inmates, as tough as they acted during the day, would often cry themself to sleep at night. There were other cries, too. Diffrent from those full with fear and lonelyness. They were low and muffled, the sounds of pain and anguish.Those cries can change the course of a life. They are cries that once heard, can never be erased from the memory. On this one night those cries belonged to my friend John, when guard Ferguson paid him a visit.
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Fat Mancho: The street is the only thing that matters. Court is for uptown people with suits, money, lawyers with three names. If you got cash you can buy court justice. But on the street, justice has no price. She's blind where the judge sits but she's not blind out here. Out here the bitch got eyes.
-
Lorenzo: Do you love him?
Carol: I don't think about it, Shakes. If I did, I'd say yes.
-
Young Michael: What do you want?
Nokes: A blowjob. Down on your knees.
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Nokes: [after breaking up fight] So you Hell's Kitchen's Boys get any lunch?
Young Michael: I got to smell it.
Nokes: [laughing] You got to smell it, that's good
[boys start walking back to line]
Nokes: , Hey, Hey, Hey, where you going?
Young Michael: You said to get lunch.
Nokes: Oh, you boys don't need to get back in line to get lunch 'cause there's plenty to eat right where you're standing
[looks at food on floor]
Nokes: , YOU CAN SMELL IT.
Young Michael: [looks at food in disbelief and shock] I'm not hungry.
Nokes: Well I don't give a fuck if you're hungry or not. You eat because I'm telling to eat.
Young Michael: [looks down at food again] I'm still not hungry!
Young Michael: [gets Hit by Nightstick] Uh, Ooh!
Nokes: I'll tell you when you're hungry or not, now eat!
Nokes: [looks at Shakes, Tommy, and John] Excuse me, what the fuck are you looking at? GET THE FUCK DOWN ON YOUR GODDAMN KNEES AND FINISH YOUR GODDAMN LUNCH!
-
Lorenzo: I didn't know you like pigeons so much.
King Benny: I like anything that don't talk.
-
[first lines]
Lorenzo: This is a true story about friendship that runs deeper than blood. This is my story and that of the only three friends in my life that truely mattered. Two of them were killers who never made it past the age of 30. The other's a non-practicing attorney living with the pain of his past - too afraid to let it go, never confronting its horror. I'm the only one who can speak for them, and the children we were.
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Lorenzo: There are no clear pictures of the sexual abuse we endured. I buried it as deep as it can possibly go.
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Young Lorenzo: They killed him?
Young Michael: They took turns beating him... until there was nothing left of that kid to beat.
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Michael: Revenge. Sweet lasting revenge. Now it's time for all of us to get a taste.
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Lorenzo: The plan, as it turned out, was as simple and as dumb as anything we'd ever done.
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Nokes: So what do you want?
John Reilly: What I've always wanted. Is to watch you die!
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Michael: Do you still sleep with the lights on?
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Lorenzo: Michael was the most sexually experienced of us, which means he had kissed a girl on more than two occasions.
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Lorenzo: I couldn't look at him. He might look right through the fear and the shame, right through to the truth.
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Fat Mancho: You want a Rolls-Royce, you don't come here, no no. You go to England, or wherever the fuck they make it. If you want champagne, you go see the French. If you need money, you find a Jew. But, if you want dirt, or scum buried under a rock somewhere, or some secret nobody wants anybody to know about, there's only one place to go: right here, Hell's Kitchen. It is the lost and found of shit. They lose it and we find it. Forget about it, man.
-
Detective: Where'd you get this evidence?
Lorenzo: It fell into my lap.
-
King Benny: Father Bobby would have made a good hit-man. It's a shame we lost him to the other side.
-
[last lines]
Lorenzo: The future lay sparkling ahead, and we thought we would know each other forever.
-
Father Bobby: It was the Sistine Chapel he painted.
John Reilly: Sixteenth Chapel?
Father Bobby: Sistine Chapel.
John Reilly: Who painted the other fifteen?
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Lorenzo: In truth we were all surprised in Michael's action. But in his mind losing that game and handing a feeling of victory was more important to a girl in a wheelchair was more then the right thing to do.
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Sean Nokes: [to Inmates after breaking up fight] You know your time here hasn't taught you shit. You're still the same fucking clowns you were the day you walked in here.
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Priest: You will be defenders of the faith. You will be soldiers of Christ.
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Danny Snyder: Did you observe these experiences?
Ralph Ferguson: Ye, ye, ye, yes.
Danny Snyder: Did you more then *observe* these experiences?
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Fred Carlson: [about The Count of Monte Cristo] We can discuss the book on Friday if you think the count can hold their attention.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: He's got a shot.
Fred Carlson: Any particular section I should read from?
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: That's easy, the part where he escapes from prison.
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Rizzo: [about why he won't play football] Guards steer clear of me all right, they stay back and let me do my time. If I play in that game and put a hurting on one of them, that just might change my cushion.
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Young John Reilly: [Sadly] I want to be able to sleep one night and not worry about who's coming in my room or what's gonna happen to me. If I can get that, then I'll be happy.
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Carol: Don't you guys have to go shoot somebody?
John: No, We've always got time for a song!
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Young Michael: We can eat hot dogs, or we can eat air. Choose...
Young Tommy Marcano: Air is probably safer, Mike...
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Young Michael: We haven't hit the hot dog vendor in couple of weeks.
Young Tommy Marcano: I don't know Mike... The cart guy ain't like the others. I mean he gets pretty pissed, like crazy when you try to take him off.
Young Michael: We can eat hot dogs... or we can eat air... Choose.
Young Tommy Marcano: Air is probably safer, Mike.
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Michael: I just wish I could shut my eyes, and not see the places I've been.
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Rizzo: Why is Saturday any different?
Young Michael: cause on Saturday we can hit back, look they don't fuck with you like they do with us, but they fuck with you in another way, you're just an animal to them.
Rizzo: I don't give a fuck
Young Michael: Yeah you do, and beating them on Saturday won't make a difference.
Rizzo: Then why, white boy, why?
Young Michael: To make them feel what we feel, just for a couple of hours.
-
Young John Reilly: I could die now, and I wouldn't be sad.
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Woman at Subway Station: Sweet Jesus! What have you boys done? What in the name of God have you boys done?
Young Michael: I think we just killed a man.
-
Father Bobby: I'm telling you as a witness... and as a priest. We were at the game.
Michael: Yes, as a priest, and a priest wouldn't lie? Am I right?
Father Bobby: A priest with ticket stubs wouldn't need to lie. I always keep the stubs. Do you want to see them?
Michael: Why is that, Father? Why do you keep the stubs?
Father Bobby: Because you never know when someone might want more than your word.
Michael: Has anyone ever questioned your word before today?
Father Bobby: No. No one ever has. But there's a first time for everything.
-
Tommy: [after John shot Nokes in the groin] Did that hurt, Nokes?
-
Nokes: [Watching Shakes undress and sees he's wearing a necklace] What the fuck is that hangin' around your neck? Take it off.
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: It's Mary, you know, the mother of God.
Nokes: [scoffs] I don't give a fuck whose mother it is. Take it off.
-
Young John Reilly: Hey, uh, Father. How long did it take him? You know, paintin' the ceiling and all?
Father Bobby: Took him about nine years.
Young John Reilly: Nine years?
Father Bobby: That's right.
Young John Reilly: [laugh] For a ceiling? I had a Puerto Rican guy do my whole apartment in two days... and he had a bum leg.
-
Father Bobby: And you won't need a doctor when I'm done, you'll need a priest - to pray over your body.
[pause]
Father Bobby: See you in church.
-
[Nokes is escorting Shakes, Mike, John, and Tommy down a corridor]
Sean Nokes: It's a tragedy, I tell ya. I don't understand you, boys. I don't think you know what it means to have rules. You gotta have rules and you gotta have discipline. Now I don't know what it was like in your homes and your homelifes, but in my house with my father, there were rules. And if you didn't follow the rules, there was hell to pay. You had rules and you had discipline. Sometimes it wasn't nice, but boy, we learned. We sure did learn.
[the boys enter a storage room where the other three guards are waiting]
Sean Nokes: Yeah, right around there to the right. There ya go. Come on now. I mean, it's a simple thing really. You got rules and you got discipline. That's the beginning of the story and that's the end of the story. Do we understand each other?
-
[Shakes is about to see Father Bobby]
Lorenzo: [narrating] Nokes warned us not to say anything to Father Bobby. If we did, the reprisals would be severe.
-
Lorenzo: [after handing Detective Davenport surveillance photos and proof that Adam Styler's a crooked cop] So, you got enough for conviction?
Detective: That ain't up to me. That's up to a jury.
Lorenzo: [Hands Davenport a gun in a plastic bag] Show the jury this.
Detective: What do you got there, Ness?
Lorenzo: About 3 weeks ago, the body of a drug dealer named Indian Red Lopez was found in an alley in Jackson Heights. Three bullets in his head, nothing in his pockets.
Detective: I'm with you so far.
Lorenzo: This is the gun that killed him, and these are the shells.
Detective: What's behind door number 3?
Lorenzo: The prints on the gun belong to Adam Styler.
Detective: Hey, do me a favor, would you?
Lorenzo: What's that?
Detective: If I ever make it onto your shit list, give me a call. Give me a chance to apologize.
-
Young Lorenzo 'Shakes' Carcaterra: I could run... we could all run. Disappear for a while. Nobody's gonna come looking. Nobody's gonna care about us... about where we go.
-
Judge #1: John Reilly, the Court hereby sentences you to be remanded for a period of no more than 18 months, no less than one year at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. Thomas Marcano, the Court hereby sentences you to be remanded for a period of no more than 18 months, no less than one year at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. Michael Sullivan... the Court hereby sentences you to be remanded for a period of no more than 18 months, no less than one year at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. Lorenzo Carcaterra. Taking into consideration that you arrived on the scene after the theft of the cart had already occurred... in consideration of that, the Court hereby sentences you to serve... no more than one year, no less than six months at the Wilkinson Home for Boys. And I might add, had it not been for the intervention of Father Robert Carillo, who spoke in glowing terms on your behalf... I would have sentenced you to a much stiffer punishment. I still have my doubts as to your inherent goodness. But, only time will serve to prove me wrong.
-
Fat Mancho: That street is the dish of life, and you boys are appetizers. Somebody gonna come along, eat you up and forget about you by dessert.
Sleepers Quotes
Extended Reading
