"I loved her. And the thing no one ever realized about me or believed was that I could learn. I could train myself into anything. People always look down their noses at hookers. Never give you a chance cause they think you took the easy way out. When no one could imagine the will power it took to do what we do, walking the streets night after night. Taking the hits and still getting back up. But I did and they'd all miss out. Cause they had no idea what I could discipline myself too and I believed in something - and I believed in her."

"I always wanted to be in the movies. When I was little I thought for sure I could be a big, big star. Or maybe just beautiful. Beautiful and rich, like the women on TV. Yeah, I had a lot of dreams, and I guess you could call me a real romantic, because I truly believed that one day, they'd come true. So I dreamed about it for hours. As the years went by I learned to stop sharing this with people. They said I was dreaming, but back then, I believed in it wholeheartedly. So whenever I was down, I would just escape into my mind. To my other life, where I was someone else. It made me happy to think that all these people just didn't know yet who I was gonna be. But one day, they'd all see."

"Leonardo DiCaprio - Jordan Belfort"

"I will not fall into despair. I will keep myself hardy, till freedom is opportune!"

"[Upon meeting his family again after 12 years] I apologize for my appearance. But I have had a difficult time these past several years."

""And that servant which knew his Lord's will... which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself... prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes..." D'ye hear that? "Stripes." That nigger that don't take care, that don't obey his lord - that's his master - d'ye see? - that 'ere nigger shall be beaten with many stripes. Now, "many" signifies a great many. Forty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty lashes... That's Scripture."

"My name is John Tibeats, William Ford's chief carpenter. You will refer to me as Master. Mister Chapin is the overseer on this plantation. He is responsible for all of Ford's property. You too will refer to him as Master. This plantation covers many hundreds of acres, and you will traverse the Texas road between the forest site and the sawmill in double time. Any clever nigger on that path that gets a little light-footed, I will remind him that on one side men and bloodhounds patrol the border and on the other the bayou provides a hard living, with alligators and little to eat or drink that won't kill you. No slave has escaped here with his life. You're here to work niggers, so let's commence."

"[singing] Run nigger run, run so fast/Stoved his head in a hornets nest/Run nigger run well the pattyroller'll get you/ Run nigger run well you better get away."

"Clemens: If you want to survive, do and say as little as possible. Tell no one who you really are and tell no one that you can read and write. Unless you want to be a dead nigger."

"Chiwetel Ejiofor - Solomon Northup"

"Michael Fassbender - Edwin Epps"

"Lupita Nyong'o - Patsey"

"Sarah Paulson - Mary Epps"

"Benedict Cumberbatch - William Ford"

"Brad Pitt - Samuel Bass"

"Paul Dano - John Tibeats"

"Adepero Oduye - Eliza"

"Paul Giamatti - Theophilus Freeman"

"Garret Dillahunt - Armsby"

"Scoot McNairy - Brown"

"Taran Killam - Hamilton"

"Chris Chalk - Clemens Ray"

"Michael K. Williams - Robert"

"Kelsey Scott - Anne Northup"

"Alfre Woodard - Mistress Harriet Shaw"

"Quvenzhané Wallis - Margaret Northup"

"Cameron Zeigler - Alonzo Northup"

"Rob Steinberg - Parker"

"Jay Huguley - Sheriff Villiere"

"Christopher Berry - James Birch"

"Bryan Batt - Judge Turner"

"Bill Camp - Radburn"

"Dwight Henry - Uncle Abram"

"Ruth Negga - Celeste"

"In 12 Years a Slave, McQueen immerses viewers in the magnolia-scented hell to which Northup was exiled. You will recoil at every whiplash, feel each slur, wonder at man’s inhumanity to men and women he thought animals."

"12 Years a Slave is a scarifying, unblinking portrayal of life as it was for tens of thousands of people less than 200 years ago. It pulls no punches."

"There are so many aspects that often don't [appear in ] depictions of people in those oppressive circumstances. "12 Years a Slave," for example-one thing I missed in that film was some sense of joy, some sense of pleasure, some sense of humanity."

"Oh, my God, the emperor of Fucksville came down from Fucksville to give me a pass! [Brad: From Fucksville, huh?] Hey, what are the citizens of Fucksville doing today when their emperor's gone? Is it... is it mayhem? Are people looting and raping? What are all the little fuckheads doing while you're here?"

"[urinating on his subpoena] Fuck you, U.S.A. Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!"

"Men engaging in dwarf tossing when film freeze frames My name is Jordan Belfort. Freeze frame when dwarf is about to hit target Not him. Film shows protagonist Me. That's right. I'm a former member of the middle class raised by two accountants in a tiny apartment in Bayside, Queens. The year I turned 26, as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week."

"You want to know what money sounds like? Go to a trading floor on Wall Street. "Fuck" this, "shit" that, "cunt", "cock", "asshole"; I couldn't believe how these guys talked to each other. I was hooked in seconds. It was like main-lining adrenaline."

"On a daily basis I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month. I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, pot to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome."

"The Quaalude, or Lude as it is commonly referred to, was first synthesized in 1951 by an Indian doctor—that's dots, not feathers—as a sedative, and was prescribed to stressed-out housewives with sleep disorders. But, pretty soon, somebody figured out that if you resisted the urge to sleep for just 15 minutes, you got a pretty kick-ass high from it. Didn't take long for people to start abusing Ludes, of course, and in 1982, the U.S. Government "Schedule 1'd" them, along with the rest of the world. Which meant there was only a finite amount of these things left. No shit. You can't even buy them, anymore. You people are all shit out of luck."

"Let me tell you something. There's no nobility in poverty. I've been a poor man, and I've been a rich man. And I choose rich every fucking time."

"So you listen to me and you listen well. Are you behind on your credit card bills? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! Is your landlord ready to evict you? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! Does your girlfriend think you're a fucking worthless loser? Good! Pick up the phone and start dialing! I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich! All you have to do today is pick up that phone and speak the words that I have taught you. And I will make you richer than the most powerful CEO in the United States of fucking America!"

"An IPO is an initial public offering. It's a first time a stock is offered for sale to the general population. Now as the firm taking the company public, we set the initial sales price, then sold those shares right back to our friends. The i- Look, I-I know you're not following what I'm saying anyway, right? That's-that's okay. That doesn't matter. The real question is this: was all this legal? Absolutely fucking not. But we were making more money than we knew what do with."

"I fucked her brains out... for eleven seconds."

"This right here is the land of opportunity. This is America. This is my home! The show goes on! [quoting from Norma Rae] They're gonna need to send in the National Guard to take me out, 'cause I ain't going nowhere!"

"I clean up my act, I did rehab, I'm a TV personality, I'm sober for two years, and THIS happens. Rugrat goes and gets busted down in Miami, and guess who the fuck with? Saurel. I mean, what are the fucking odds? There had to be 10,000 Swiss bankers in Geneva, and Rugrat gets the one dumb enough to get himself arrested on U.S. soil. Even more fucked, was that he got busted for shit that had nothing to do with me. It had nothing to fucking do with me! Something about laundering drug money through off-shore boat racing and a guy named Rocky Aoki. You know, the founder of Benihana. Benihana? Beni-fucking-hana?! BENI-FUCKING-HANA?! WHY?! WHY, WHY, GOD?! WHY WOULD YOU BE SO CRUEL AS TO CHOOSE A CHAIN OF FUCKING HIBACHI RESTAURANTS TO TAKE ME DOWN?!"

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it."