[first lines]

Giles: If I spoke about it - if I did - what would I tell you? I wonder. Would I tell you about the time? It happened a long time ago, it seems. In the last days of a fair prince's reign. Or would I tell you about the place? A small city near the coast, but far from everything else. Or, I don't know... Would I tell you about her? The princess without voice. Or perhaps I would just warn you, about the truth of these facts. And the tale of love and loss. And the monster, who tried to destroy it all.
Strickland: You may think, "That thing looks human." Stands on two legs, right? But - we're created in the Lord's image. You don't think that's what the Lord looks like, do you?
Giles: [interpreting Elisa] When he looks at me, the way he looks at me... He does not know, what I lack... Or - how - I am incomplete. He sees me, for what I - am, as I am. He's happy - to see me. Every time. Every day. Now, I can either save him... or let him die.
[from trailer]

Strickland: The natives in the Amazon worshiped it. Like a god. We need to take it apart, learn how it works.
Giles: Get him out? What are you talking about? No! Absolutely not!
Hoffstetler: I'm not competitive, I don't want an intricate, beautiful thing destroyed!
Zelda: Don't do this, Elisa. Don't do this!
Giles: If I told you about her, what would I say? I wonder.
Fleming: Now. I don't want to bolster or overstate the matter, but uh, this may very well be *the* most sensitive asset ever to be housed in this facility.
Giles: We can do nothing! I'm sorry! But this, this, this is just - Oh God, it's not even human. God!

[Elisa follows Giles into the hallway and hits the wall to get his attention]

Giles: What?

Elisa: [in sign language] If we / do nothing / neither are we.
Giles: Oh God! It's not even human.
Zelda: [to Elisa] Yeah. That's good. Keep that up. Lookin' like you don't know anything.
Strickland: [to himself in the mirror] You deliver. You deliver, that's what you do, you deliver. Right? RIGHT?
Strickland: [to Zelda] Now, do ya know what that particular story means, for us Delilah?

[Zelda shakes her head]

Strickland: It means if you know somethin' you're not tellin' me, you're gonna tell me.
Hoffstetler: Sir, we need to get him back in the water.
Strickland: [to Zelda] Where is it?

Brewster Fuller: Listen - fella...

Strickland: SIT DOWN!

[Brewster drops back into the chair]
Zelda: Elisa honey, make a sound on the phone if you can hear.

[Elisa taps on the receiver]

Zelda: OK, good. He's comin' for you. You gotta go now and you gotta take that thing with ya.
Strickland: I do not fail. I deliver.
Strickland: [to Elisa] What'd you say to me?

Elisa: [in sign language] F - U - C - K

Strickland: What is she saying?

Elisa: Y - O - U

Zelda: Uh, I, I didn't catch it.

Strickland: [kicks the desk; pointing at Elisa] WHAT IS SHE SAYING?

Zelda: She, she is sayin' "Thank you"!
Hoyt: So go get some real decency, son. And unfuck this mess.
[from trailer]

Hoyt: Their only concern is the asset.

Strickland: The Soviets want it.

Hoyt: Do you have it?

Strickland: Sir, I'm getting it back.
Hoffstetler: He's bleeding. What happened?

Strickland: It's an animal, Hoffstetler. Just keepin' it tame.
Strickland: [to Zelda and Elisa] Let me say this up front: You clean that lab, you get out. The thing we keep in there is an affront. Do you know what an affront is, Zelda?

Zelda: Something offensive?

Strickland: That's right. And I should know, I dragged that... filthy thing... out of the river muck in South America all the way here. And along the way we didn't get to like each other much. Now. You may think, "That thing looks human." Stands on two legs, right? But - we're created in the Lord's image. You don't think that's what the Lord looks like, do you?
Mihalkov: [in Russian] Kill it. Destroy it.
Giles: [interpreting Elisa] I can either save him, or let him die.
Zelda: [to Elisa] Oh! Woman, we gon' burn in hell!
Strickland: What am I doing, interviewing the fucking help? The shit cleaners. The piss wipers.
Giles: He's a wild creature. We can't ask him to be anything else.
Giles: [to Elisa] I have no one. And you are the only person that I can talk to. Now, whatever this thing is, you need it.

[choking up]

Giles: So, you just tell me what to do.
Giles: Oh! God, to be young and beautiful. If I could go back

[Elisa nods]

Giles: to when I was 18 - I didn't know anything about anything - I'd give myself a bit of advice.

Elisa: [in sign language] What would you say?

Giles: I would say: Take better care of your teeth and fuck a lot more.

[Elisa smiles and gently nudges him]

Giles: Oh no, no, that's very good advice.
[last lines]

Giles: If I told you about her, what would I say? That they lived happily ever after? I believe they did. That they were in love? That they remained in love? I'm sure that's true. But when I think of her - of Elisa - the only thing that comes to mind is a poem, whispered by someone in love, hundreds of years ago: "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere."
Hoffstetler: [speaking Russian] As Lenin said, "There is no profit in last week's fish."
Strickland: [to the creature] Fuck. You *are* a god...
Hoffstetler: When will you release him?

Zelda: [interpreting Elisa] Soon. When the rain fills the canal that flows to the sea.

[Elisa nods]
Giles: [to Elisa, rapidly] Now, you said that - you know, he was worshiped like a god. Now, is he a god? I dunno if he's a god. I mean he ate a cat, so I mean, I don't, I don't know! I don't know, but... I mean, we have to keep him around, a while... Little while.
Zelda: Man is as silent as the grave. But if farts were flattery? Honey, he'd be Shakespeare.
Zelda: Some of the best minds in the country peein' all over the floor in this here facility.
Strickland: [Elisa offers him a towel] Oh, no. No, a man washes his hands before or after tending to his needs. It tells you a lot about a man.

[eats a candy]

Strickland: He does it both times - points to a weakness in character.
Giles: Y'know, uh - cornflakes were invented to prevent masturbation. It didn't work.
Hoyt: A man has the decency not to fuck up. Now that's one thing. That's real decent of him. But the other kind of decency - it doesn't really matter. We sell it, but it's an export. We sell it because we don't use it.
Zelda: Short people are mean. I never met a short man that stays nice all the way through. No sir. Mean little backstabbers, all of 'em. Maybe it's the air down there. Not enough oxygen or somethin'.
Bernard: Oh, and they want the - them happier. The family.

Giles: Happier?

Bernard: Mm.

Giles: Happier? The father looks like he just discovered the missionary position!
Strickland: [to Zelda] That story about Samson: I never told you how it ends. After the Philistines torture him, and blind him, Samson asks God for the strength he needs. And at the last minute he is spared. And the Lord gives him his strength back! One last time. And - he holds the columns of the temple with his powerful arms, and he crushes 'em. And he brings the whole building down on the Philistines. HE dies, but he gets every single one of those motherfuckers! That is his WILL!

[punches the wall behind Zelda]

Strickland: Now, do ya know what that particular story means, for us Delilah?

[Zelda shakes her head]

Strickland: It means if you know somethin' you're not tellin' me, you're gonna tell me. Either before, or after, I bring this particular temple down upon our heads.
Hoyt: [to Strickland] Thirty-six hours from now, this entire episode will be over. And so will you. Our universe will have a hole in it, with your outline. And you will have moved on. To - an alternate universe. A universe of shit. You'll be lost to civilization, and you will be unborn, unmade, and undone.
Zelda: [Elisa looks noticeably happier] Why you smilin', hon? Well stop lookin' like that. What happened?

[Elisa shakes her head to say "nothing"]

Zelda: Why? How? How? Does he - have a...?

[Elisa nods and uses her hands to describe what the Amphibian Man's penis looks like]

Zelda: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[pause]

Zelda: Lor'...! Never trust a man. Even when he looks flat down there.

[laughs]
Zelda: [cleaning the men's room] There's pee freckles on the ceiling now! How'd they get it up there? Just how big a target do they need, you figure? They get enough practice, that's for sure.
Hoffstetler: This creature is intelligent. Capable of language... Of understanding emotions!

Strickland: So are the Soviets. The gooks. And we still kill them, don't we?
Zelda: [commenting on Elisa's demeanor] Yeah. That's good. Keep that up. Lookin' like you don't know anything. Lord help me if they ask me if I do! I'm not a good liar. Except Brewster. It takes a lotta lies to keep a marriage goin'.
Giles: [to the Amphibian Man sitting in the bathtub] Have you always been alone?

[pause]

Giles: Did you ever have someone? Do you know what happened to you, do you? Because I don't. I don't know what happened to me.

[laughs]

Giles: I don't know! I look in the mirror and the only thing I recognize, are these eyes. In this old man's face. You know sometimes I think I was either born too early or too late for my life. Maybe we're both just relics.
Zelda: [after questioning Elisa about her evening] Lor'...! Never trust a man. Even when he looks flat down there.
Strickland: [to Elisa] Look don't touch. That lovely dingus right there is an Alabama howdy-do. Molded grip handle, low-current high-voltage electric shock cattle prod. Name's Strickland, Security.
Giles: [shows Elisa his artwork] Ta-dah. That's not bad, is it?

[chuckles; Elisa shakes her head]

Giles: For being shit!

[giggles]

Elisa: [in sign language] It's not shit.

Giles: Ah - listen: You eat, you go to bed, you rest...

[grabs jacket]

Giles: And when I - get paid...

[sighs and does a twirl; pause]

Giles: We get pie.

Elisa: [in sign language] Nothing for me.

Giles: No, we don't get pie. I get pie! You get whatever you want!

[laughing]

Giles: Hahhh.

[gently touches her face]

Giles: Wish me luck.

Elisa: [in sign language] Good luck.

[Alice Faye singing on TV: "Then I have only this to say..."; Giles looks back and smiles]
Strickland: But we're created in the Lord's image. You don't think that's what the Lord looks like, do you?

Zelda: I wouldn't know, sir, what the Lord looks like.

Strickland: Well, it's human, Zelda. He looks like a human, like me. Or even you. Maybe a little more like me, I guess.
Strickland: [to the General] Two fingers, yeah. He got two fingers. But I still got my thumb, my trigger, and my pussy finger.
Giles: [reading Elisa] "What am I? I move my mouth, like him, I make no sound, like him. What does that make me? All that I am... all that I've ever been... brought me here, to him".
Mihalkov: We don't need to learn. We need Americans not to learn.
Title Card: Tuesday, October 9th - Daily Thought: Life is but the shipwreck of our plans.
Title Card: Monday, September 17th - Daily Thought: Time is but a river flowing from our past.

The Shape of Water Quotes

Extended Reading

The Shape of Water short comments

Leopold 2022-04-24 07:01:02

In the elgin theatre where the movie was filmed, it's beautiful to add half a star, but this central romance didn't touch me at all. Michael Shannon's gaston is also boring from beginning to end. This year's lalaland can already see the shape of backlash.
Nyasia 2022-03-21 09:01:14

A fairy tale that contains everything, the most romantic one is probably "My wound has become an organ that breathes with you".