"May 10. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm working long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me."

"Albert Brooks - Tom"

"Leonard Harris - Sen. Charles Palantine"

"Peter Boyle - Wizard"

"Harvey Keitel - Sport"

"Jodie Foster - Iris"

"Cybill Shepherd - Betsy"

"Robert De Niro - Travis Bickle"

"Though movies (Taxi Driver for John Hinckley Jr., would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan), books (The Catcher in the Rye for Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's murderer) and songs ("Helter Skelter" for Tate-LaBianca murders mastermind Charles Manson) may articulate specific criminals acts, they don't inspire the person's desire for violence. Science has proven that in numerous studies. It’s tempting to blame movies, video games and rap music because they often express humanity's worst impulses, but impulses are not actions for most of us. And for the mentally ill seeking violence, anything can set them off. Alek Minassian, the self-described incel (involuntary celibate) who deliberately drove his van into a crowd in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 people, said he was motivated by his resentment toward women for having sexually rejected him in favor of giving "their love and affection to obnoxious brutes." Should we then demand that studios producing romantic comedies and publishers of romance novels be shamed into contributing to anti-incel causes? The 2017 Las Vegas shooter killed 59 and injured 851 during a country music festival. Should country music bear some responsibility?"

"The distinction between hero and villain is sometimes a matter of interpretation or misinterpretation of facts"

"On every street in every city in this country there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. He's a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he's alive."

"Iris' father: [in a letter to Travis] Dear Mr. Bickle: I can't say how happy Mrs. Steensma and I were to hear that you are well and recuperating. We tried to visit you at the hospital when we were in New York to pick up Iris. But you were still in a coma. There is no way we can repay you for returning our Iris to us. We thought we had lost her, and now our lives are full again. Needless to say, you are something of a hero around this household. I'm sure you want to know about Iris. She's back in school and working hard. The transition has been very hard for her as you can well imagine. But we have taken steps to see she has never cause to run away again. In conclusion, Mrs. Steensma and I would like to again thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to come to New York again, to thank you in person or we surely would. But if you should ever come to Pittsburgh, you would find yourself a most welcome guest in our home. Our Deepest Thanks, Burt and Ivy Steensma."

"Passenger: [to Travis] You see the woman in the window? Do you see the woman in the window?...I want you to see that woman, because that's my wife. But that's not my apartment. That's not my apartment. You know who lives there? Huh? I mean, you wouldn't know who lives there - I'm just saying, "But you know who lives there?" Huh? A nigger lives there. How do ya like that? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill her. There's nothing else. I'm gonna kill her. What do you think of that? Hmm? I said 'What do you think of that?' Don't answer. You don't have to answer everything. I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill her with a .44 Magnum pistol. I have a .44 Magnum pistol. I'm gonna kill her with that gun. Did you ever see what a .44 Magnum pistol can do to a woman's face? I mean it'll fucking destroy it. Just blow her right apart. That's what it can do to her face. Now, did you ever see what it can do to a woman's pussy? That you should see. You should see what a .44 Magnum's gonna do to a woman's pussy you should see. I know, I know you must think that I'm, you know... You must think I'm pretty sick or something, you know, you must think I'm pretty sick. Right? You must think I'm pretty sick? Hmm? Right? I'll betcha, I'll betcha you really think I'm sick right? You think I'm sick? You think I'm sick? You don't have to answer. I'm paying for the ride. You don't have to answer."

"We meet at a crossroads in history. No longer will the wrong roads be taken."

"As the movie explored 1980s themes, including genetic engineering and consumerism, it said more with production design than words, detailing a grim, overcrowded future where ornate architecture has been replaced by industrial overload. Harrison Ford, as Deckard, has an apartment so cramped and blocky, he appears to be living in a game of Tetris."

"The secret of "Blade Runner" is that Scott's fantastically baroque, future-shock imagery, all dark decay and techno-clutter, effectively becomes the story. As the layers of mood and detail settle in, the very process by which we watch the film — scanning those shimmering, claustrophobic frames for signs of life — turns into a running metaphor for what "Blade Runner" is about: a world in which humanity has been snuffed by "progress." This is perhaps the only science-fiction film that can be called transcendental."

"About ten minutes into Blade Runner, I reeled out of the theater in complete despair over its visual brilliance and its similarity to the “look” of Neuromancer, my [then] largely unwritten first novel. Not only had I been beaten to the semiotic punch, but this damned movie looked better than the images in my head! [...] It was also obvious that Scott understood the importance of information density to perceptual overload. When Blade Runner works best, it induces a lyrical sort of information sickness, that quintessentially postmodern cocktail of ecstasy and dread. It was what cyberpunk was supposed to be all about"

"That was the main area of contention between Ridley and myself at the time. I thought the audience deserved one human being on screen that they could establish an emotional relationship with. I thought I had won Ridley's agreement to that, but in fact I think he had a little reservation about that. I think he really wanted to have it both ways."

"What I have always wondered is why the Tyrell Corporation made their androids so lifelike. Why not give them four arms and settle the matter, and get more work out of them? Is there a buried possibility that Tyrell's long-range plan is to replace humans altogether? Is the whole blade-running caper simply a cover for his scheme? But never mind. What matters to the viewer is that the ground rules seem to be in place, and apply in one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created in a film."

"In an earlier review of "Blade Runner," I wrote; "It looks fabulous, it uses special effects to create a new world of its own, but it is thin in its human story." This seems a strange complaint, given that so much of the movie concerns who is, and is not, human, and what it means to be human anyway. Now study that paragraph again and notice I have committed a journalistic misdemeanor. I have referred to replicants without ever establishing what a replicant is. It is a tribute to the influence and reach of "Blade Runner" that 25 years after its release virtually everyone reading this knows about replicants. Reviews of "The Wizard of Oz" never define Munchkins, do they? This is a seminal film, building on older classics like "Metropolis" (1926) or "Things to Come," but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom -- and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision. Look at "Dark City," "Total Recall," "Brazil," "12 Monkeys" or "Gattaca" and you will see its progeny. I have never quite embraced "Blade Runner," admiring it at arm's length, but now it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon."

"The purpose of this story as I saw it was that in his job of hunting and killing these replicants, Deckard becomes progressively dehumanized. At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human. Finally, Deckard must question what he is doing, and really what is the essential difference between him and them? And, to take it one step further, who is he if there is no real difference?"

"Man has made his match. Now it's his problem."

"You're watching a stage play. A banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog."

"You become pregnant by a man who runs off with your best friend, and you decide to get an abortion."

"You're reading a magazine. You come across a full-page nude photo of a girl. You show it to your husband. He likes it so much, he hangs it on your bedroom wall."

"You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm."

"You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar."

"It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet."

"Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother."

"Ben Astar - Abdul Ben Hassan"

"Hy Pyke - Taffey Lewis"

"John Edward Allen - Kaiser"

"Kevin Thompson - Bear"

"Morgan Paull - Holden"

"James Hong - Hannibal Chew"

"Joanna Cassidy - Zhora"

"Joe Turkel - Tyrell"

"Brion James - Leon"

"William Sanderson - J.F. Sebastian"

"Daryl Hannah - Pris"

"M. Emmet Walsh - Bryant"

"Edward James Olmos - Gaff"

"Sean Young - Rachael"

"Rutger Hauer - Roy Batty"

"Harrison Ford - Rick Deckard"

"According to one source, the preview cards filled out after both screenings told the same story: “This was a film that made demands on an audience that wasn’t expecting a movie that made demands on them, an audience somewhat befuddled by the film and very disappointed by the ending.” It wasn’t so much that people actively disliked “Blade Runner,” they were simply unprepared for it. Another crisis had arrived."

"The key design concept came to be called retrofitting, the idea being that once cities start to seriously break down, no one would bother to start new construction from scratch. Rather, such essentials as electrical and ventilation systems would simply be added onto the exteriors of older buildings, giving them a clunky, somehow menacing look. Progress and decay would exist hand in hand, and the city’s major buildings, like the massive, Mayan-inspired pyramid that houses the Tyrell Corp., would tower miles above the squalor below."

"With its references to off-world colonies -- where humans get "a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure" -- "Blade Runner" was ahead of its time in introducing the idea that there are consequences to humankind's actions on Earth."