The Third Man Quotes

Maj. Calloway: Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don't know what you're mixing in, get the next plane.

Holly Martins: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I'll get the next plane.

Maj. Calloway: Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.

Holly Martins: Mind if I use that line in my next Western?

Holly Martins: Listen, Callahan!

Maj. Calloway: Calloway. I'm English, not Irish.

Holly Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?

Harry Lime: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

Holly Martins: I guess nobody really knew Harry like he did... like I did.

Maj. Calloway: How long ago?

Holly Martins: Back in school. I was never so lonesome in my life until he showed up.

Maj. Calloway: When did you see him last?

Holly Martins: September, '39.

Maj. Calloway: When the business started?

Holly Martins: Um, hmm.

Maj. Calloway: See much of him before that?

Holly Martins: Once in a while. Best friend I ever had.

Maj. Calloway: That sounds like a cheap novelette.

Holly Martins: Well, I write cheap novelettes.

Porter: He is now

[points up]

Porter: in hell, or

[points down]

Porter: in heaven.

Crabbin: [inviting Holly Martins to give a lecture at the local Cultural Reeducation Society] We do a little show each week. Last week we had "Hamlet." The week before we had... something.

Sgt. Paine: The striptease, sir.

Crabbin: Yes, the Hindu dancers. Thank you, sergeant.

Anna Schmidt: We're both in it, Harry.

Holly Martins: Holly!

Anna Schmidt: l'm so sorry.

Holly Martins: lt's all right. You might get my name right.

Anna Schmidt: You know, you ought to find yourself a girl.

British MP: I'm sorry, Miss, it's orders. We can't go against the protocol.

Anna Schmidt: I don't even know what protocol means.

British MP: Neither do I, Miss.

[first lines]

Opening Narrator: [voice over] I never knew the old Vienna before the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better.

Opening Narrator: [voice over continues after scenes of black market goods changing hands] I really got to know it in the classic period of the black market. We'd run anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay. Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs...

Opening Narrator: [voice over continues as a dead body is seen floating in the river] ... but, well, you know, they can't stay the course like a professional. Now the city is divided into four zones, you know, each occupied by a power: the American, the British, the Russian and the French. But the center of the city that's international policed by an international patrol. One member of each of the four powers. Wonderful! What a hope they had! All strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language. Except a sort of smattering of German. Good fellows on the whole, did their best you know. Vienna doesn't really look any worse than a lot of other European cities. Bombed about a bit. Oh, I was going to tell you, wait, I was going to tell you about Holly Martins, an American. Came all the way here to visit a friend of his. The name was Lime, Harry Lime. Now Martins was broke and Lime had offered him, some sort, I don't know, some sort of job. Anyway, there he was, poor chap. Happy as a lark and without a cent.

Maj. Calloway: I told you to go away, Martins. This isn't Santa Fe. I'm not a sheriff and you aren't a cowboy. You've been blundering around with the worst bunch of racketeers in Vienna, your precious Harry's friends, and now you're wanted for murder.

Holly Martins: Put down drunk and disorderly too.

Maj. Calloway: I have.

Harry Lime: Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.

Holly Martins: You used to believe in God.

Harry Lime: Oh, I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don't miss much here, poor devils.

Holly Martins: I was going to stay with him, but he died Thursday.

Crabbin: Goodness, that's awkward.

Holly Martins: Is that what you say to people after death? "Goodness, that's awkward?"

Holly Martins: Oh, Anna, why do we always... have to quarrel?

Anna Schmidt: If you want to sell your services, I'm not willing to be the price. I loved him. You loved him. What good have we done him? Love. Look at yourself.They have a name for faces like that.

Holly Martins: When he was 14, he taught me the three-card trick. That's growing up fast.

Anna Schmidt: He never grew up. The world grew up around him, that's all.

Crabbin: Hello, Mr. Martins! I've been trying to reach you at your hotel. I've arranged the lecture for tomorrow.

Holly Martins: Oh? What about?

Crabbin: On the modern novel, you remember? What we arranged. I want you to talk about the crisis of faith.

Holly Martins: What's that?

Crabbin: Oh, I thought you'd know. You're a writer.

Holly Martins: Did you ever hear of "The Lone Rider of Santa Fe"?

Maj. Calloway: Can't say that l have.

Holly Martins: "Death at Double-X Ranch"? Uh, "Raunch".

Holly Martins: Did you ever read a book of mine called, "The Lone Rider of Santa Fe"?

Sgt. Paine: No, not that one, sir.

Holly Martins: lt's a story about a man who hunted down a sheriff who was victimizing his best friend.

Crabbin: Seems exciting.

Holly Martins: lt is! l'm gunning just the same way for your Major Callaghan.

Sgt. Paine: Sounds anti-British, sir.

Holly Martins: There was a third man there. l suppose that doesn't sound peculiar to you.

Maj. Calloway: l'm not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or by an accident. The only important thing is that he's dead.

Popescu: l helped Harry fix her papers, Mr. Martins.

Holly Martins: Oh, you did?

Popescu: Not a sort of thing l should confess to a stranger, but you have to break the rules sometimes. Humanity - is a duty. Cigarette, Miss Schmidt?

Holly Martins: l was told that a third man helped you and Kurtz carry the body.

Popescu: l don't know how you got that idea. You'll find all about it in the police report. There was just the two of us, me and the Baron. Who could have told you a story like that ?

Popescu: Why wasn't he at the police inquiry?

Holly Martins: He doesn't want to get involved.

Popescu: You'll never teach these Austrians to be good citizens. lt was his duty to give the evidence.

Holly Martins: ls it comedy or tragedy?

Anna Schmidt: Comedy. l don't play tragedy.

Popescu: Can l ask, is Mr. Martins engaged on a new book?

Holly Martins: Yes. lt's called, "The Third Man".

Popescu: A novel, Mr. Martins?

Holly Martins: lt's a murder story. l've just started it. lt's based on fact.

Popescu: l'd say you were doing something pretty dangerous this time.

Holly Martins: Yeah?

Popescu: Mixing fact and fiction.

Holly Martins: Should l make it all fact?

Popescu: Why, no, Mr. Martins. l'd say stick to fiction. Straight fiction.

Holly Martins: l knew him for 20 years - at least, l thought l knew him. Suppose he was laughing at fools like us all the time?

Anna Schmidt: He liked to laugh.

Holly Martins: l'm just a hack writer who drinks too much and - falls in love with girls. You.

Anna Schmidt: Me?

Holly Martins: Well, what's this? Where are we?

Sgt. Paine: lt's the main sewer. Runs right into the blue Danube. Smells sweet, doesn't it?

Holly Martins: A lot of good your money will do you in jail.

Harry Lime: That jail's in another zone.

[last lines]

Maj. Calloway: Be sensible, Martins.

Holly Martins: l haven't got a sensible name, Calloway.