"Willie: I'm serious, man, you gotta read some books. There's a revolution going on, Kovic. Brothers are gettin' it together, and if you ain't part of the solution, man, then you're part of the problem."

"Marine Sergeant: [to high school boys] Not everybody can become United States Marines. We want the best and we settle for nothing but the best because there is nothing prouder, nothing finer, nothing standing as straight as a United States Marine. Now they got the Air Force, they got the Navy, they got the Army, they got the Coast Guard - and if you want to join them, go ahead. They got plenty of room. But if you want a challenge, if you want to try something difficult, try to achieve the impossible - try 13 weeks of hell at Parris Island, South Carolina and find out if you got what it takes, find out if you really are a man, then the Marines might be what you are looking for. Tarawa... Iwo Jima... Belleau Wood...the frozen Chosin Reservoir. First to fight, we have never lost a war. We have always come when our country has called."

"[to Charlie] I had a mother; I had a father, things - things that made sense. Do you remember things that made sense? Things you could count on? Before we all got so lost? What are we gonna do, Charlie? What am I gonna do?"

"It's my leg! I want my leg, you understand? Can't you understand that? All's I'm sayin' is that I want to be treated like a human being! I fought for my country! I am a Vietnam veteran! I fought for my country!"

"People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America."

"[to a news camera, outside the 1972 Republican Convention] I'm here tonight to say that this war is wrong, that this society lied to me, lied to my brothers. They've deceived the people of this country, tricked them into going 13,000 miles to fight a war against a poor, peasant people who have a proud history of resistance, who have been struggling for their own independence for 1,000 years - the Vietnamese people. I can't find the words to express, and the leadership of this government sickens me. People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America. We love the people of America very much, but when it comes to the government, it stops right there. The government is a bunch of corrupt thieves, they are rapists and robbers. And we are here to say that we don't have to take it anymore. We are here to say that we are here to tell the truth; they are killing our brothers in Vietnam! We want them to hear the truth tonight!"

"I want a woman, Dad. I want somebody to love me. I wanna to be free again. I wanna walk in the backyard on the grass. I wanna put my bare feet in the ocean. I wanna run along the sand and feel it on my feet. I wanna stand up in the shower with the hot water streaming down my legs, in the morning... I wanna explode, Dad. I wanna get out of this fucking body I'm in. I wanna be a man again...I just wanna be a man again."

"Without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount studio."

"The stars are ageless, aren't they?"

"They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!"

"There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!"

"We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!"

"No one leaves a star. That's what makes one a star."

"Jake LaMotta - Bartender"

"Michael Constantine - Big John"

"Murray Hamilton - Findley"

"Myron McCormick - Charlie Burns"

"George C. Scott - Bert Gordon"

"Piper Laurie - Sarah Packard"

"Jackie Gleason - Minnesota Fats"

"Paul Newman - "Fast" Eddie Felson"

"Trapped by the underworld . . . they risked love and fortune in a desperate gamble!"

"It delves without compromise into the hungers that lie deep within us all."

"Only the angel who falls knows the depths of hell."

"They called him "Fast Eddie"... He was a winner... He was a loser... He was a hustler."

"A motion picture that probes the stranger... the pick-up... why a man hustles for a buck or a place in the sun!"

"[to Eddie] George Findley is a very rich man. His grandfather left him twenty-five percent of his tobacco company... He's a gentleman. Gentlemen gamble. He gets his kicks playin' a hustler. He's got an old Southern mansion with a pool table in the basement, drinks eight-year-old bourbon, smokes a cork-tipped cigarette... I never saw him play. They say he's one of the best... I've got confidence in Findley... That means I've got confidence that he's a loser, all the way a loser. You happen to be about only one-half loser, the other half winner."

"Now why did I do it, Sarah, why did I do it? I could've beat that guy, I could've beat him cold. He never would have known. But I just had to show him. Just had to show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it's great, when it's really great. You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great. I don't care — brick-laying can be great if a guy knows. If he knows what he's doin' and why and if he can make it come off."

"[After discovering that Charlie kept some money from him] With that fifteen hundred, I could have beat him. That's all I needed, Charlie... You'd love to keep me hustlin' for ya, huh, wouldn't ya? I mean, a couple more years with me scufflin' around in them little towns and those back alleys, you might make yourself enough to get a little pool room back in Oakland, six tables and a handbook on the side... Lay down and die by yourself."

"He is great! Geez, that old fat man. Look at the way he moves, like a dancer... And those fingers, them marshmellow fingers. And that stroke, it's like he's, uh, like he's playin' a violin or somethin.'"

"Nancy Olson - Betty Schaefer"

"Erich von Stroheim - Max von Mayerling"

"Vincent Gardenia - Bartender"

"William Holden - Joe Gillis"

"Gloria Swanson - Norma Desmond"

"I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio, making a picture again! You don't know how much I've missed all of you. And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after Salome we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! There's nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!… All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

"An epic tale of crime and obsession and two men on opposite sides of the law."

"[to Vincent] I may be stoned on grass and Prozac, but you've been walking through our life dead."

"[to Vincent] You prefer the normal routine. We fuck and you lose the power of speech."

"[to Vincent] You don't live with me, you live among the remains of dead people. You sift through the detritus, you read the terrain, you search for signs of passing, for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down. That's the only thing you're committed to. The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through. ("You sift through the detritus" is missing in the US blu-ray release)."

"It's a 'No-Go', Vince."

"[barking into walkie-talkie] Unit 2? This is Command. Take him at the street, and check him out."

"{In Script Only} [slams Marciano into the wall, while speaking to an an Officer] GET HIM OUTTA HERE!!"