"To life! To the magnificent, dangerous, brief, brief, wonderful life...and the courage to live it! You know, Baron, I've only lived since last night, but that little while seems longer than all the time that's gone before."

"The Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go...nothing ever happens."

"[to Preysing, after he tries to get 'familiar' with her by asking her to call him by his first name] You know I always say that nothing should be left hanging over. And names are like that. Suppose I met you next year and said, 'How do you do Mr. Preysing?' And you said, 'That's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester.' That's all quite proper. But supposing I saw you and yelled 'Hi baby. Remember Manchester.' [he laughs] Yeah, and you were with your wife. How would you like that?"

"Believe me, Mr. Kringelein, a man who is not with a woman is a dead man."

"Tully Marshall - Gerstenkorn"

"What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little. Dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall, and no one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed, and that's the end."

"I don't know much about women. I've been married for 28 years, you know."

"When a man's collar is an inch too big for him I know he's ill."

"Frank Conroy - Rohna"

"Now listen, hear me good, Mama. Please. Don't make me have to send you to jail... There's white time in jail and there's colored time in jail. The worst kind of time you can do is colored time."

"I got the motive which is murder and the body which is dead!"

"They call me Mister Tibbs!"

"Jester Hairston - Henry (Endicott's butler)"

"Harry Dean Stanton- policeman"

"Anthony James - Ralph Henshaw (diner counterman)"

"Arthur Malet - Ted Ulam (mortician)"

"Quentin Dean - Delores Purdy"

"Scott Wilson - Harvey Oberst (murder suspect)"

"Peter Whitney - CPL. George Courtney"

"Kermit Murdock - H.E. Henderson (banker)"

"Beah Richards - Mama Caleba (Mrs. Bellamy)"

"James Patterson - Lloyd Purdy (Delores's brother)"

"Matt Clark - Packy Harrison"

"William Schallert - Mayor Webb Schubert"

"Larry D. Mann - Watkins"

"Sidney Poitier - Detective Virgil Tibbs"

"Rod Steiger - Police Chief Bill Gillespie"

"They're going to pin something on that smart cop from Philadelphia... maybe a medal... maybe a murder!"

"They got a murder on their hands... they don't know what to do with it."

"Warren Oates - Sergeant (Patrolman) Sam Wood"

"Lee Grant - Mrs. Leslie Colbert"

"Eldon Quick - Charlie Hawthorne (photographer)"

"Larry Gates - Eric Endicott"

"Barry Corbin - Ellis"

"Stephen Root - Man Who Hires Wells"

"Woody Harrelson - Carson Wells"

"Where's the last man standing?"

"Tommy Lee Jones - Sheriff Ed Tom Bell"

"Tess Harper - Loretta Bell"

"Josh Brolin - Llewelyn Moss"

"Javier Bardem - Anton Chigurh"

"All the time you spend trying to get back what's been took from you, more is going out the back door."

"There are no clean getaways."

"[opening monologue] I was Sheriff of this county when I was 25 years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman, father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time, him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time Sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough never carried one. That's the younger Jim. Gaston Borkins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can't help but wonder how they'd have operated in these times. There was this boy I sent to the electric chair at Huntsville here awhile back, my arrest and my testimony. He killed a 14 year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been plannin' to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out, he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell, be there in about fifteen minutes. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willin' to die to even do this job. but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet somethin' I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say: "Okay, I'll be part of this world.""

"You can't stop what's coming."