Wonderful Movie Lines
I read a quote today in Living Next Door To Alice (I still can't do the html stuff and don't have the time or patience to figure it out. The link is on the right under Recommended) of a speech by Robert Kennedy. The quote, the speech and the post were good reading.
But for some reason, I immediately thought of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck:
Tom Joad: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...
Ma Joad: Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casy.
Tom Joad: They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then...
Ma Joad: Tommy, you're not aimin' to kill nobody.
Tom Joad: No, Ma, not that. That ain't it. It's just, well as long as I'm an outlaw anyways... maybe I can do somethin'... maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it. I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma. I can't. I don't know enough.
Ma Joad: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I'd never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?
Tom Joad: Well, maybe it's like Casy says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then...
Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?
Tom Joad: Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
Ma Joad: I don't understand it, Tom.
Tom Joad: Me, neither, Ma, but - just somethin' I been thinkin' about
The line everyone remembers is of course Tom's "everywhere" monologue towards the end.
What are the best lines or scenes from novels or movies or plays that you've kept with you? For inspiration, or recollection, you can find the lines above from The Grapes of Wrath and much, much more at
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032551/quotes.
I promise, I'll figure out the html stuff soon.
8 comments:
One of my all time favorites:
'The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.'
- Lester Bangs (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), Almost Famous
Off topic, but thanks for rolling Blognonymous. I've added Rather Than Working over at my place.
Now to the topic at hand, and speaking of yelling. I'm watching Spike Lee's documentary 'When The Levees Broke' and it's heartbreaking. Talk about a people crying out for help...
I've been thinking about this question all day, and it made me realize that the moments that most resonate with me are all wordless:
When Harold plucks a few notes on the banjo at the end of Harold & Maude; when Jesus and Judas look into each other's eyes in Jesus Christ Superstar; when Jake and Elwood put their hands over their hearts after the Bluesmobile falls apart in The Blues Brothers; when Graciela spreads her arms wide at the end of Men With Guns…
thomas,
I need to watch Harold and Maude again. It's been years.
With Blues Brothers, given the silence theme, you really have to appreciate when they are behind the chicken wire with the set not going over. They stop, pause and start playing the the theme from Rawhide.
I've not seen Men With Guns. I thought last night when I was writing the post that it might be time for a few months of Netflicks again.
Frankie Laine died recently, and I had completely forgotten that someone else had sung that song first!
I hyperlinked "Men with Guns" because there are several with that same name. Be sure you get the one directed by John Sayles.
Dave - I don't watch tv and very few movies so... my knowledge of movie lines is slightly limited.
I hope your having fun on your blogging vacation.
Ryan,
I should have changed the title. At the end, I said lines or scenes from movies, novels or plays. All are accepted. So?
Wish I could come up with some good words for you all, but I can't.
What I can do is recommend a new author to you. Jacqueline Winspear has written four novels about a wonderful character named "Maisie Dobbs" - the title of the first book.
Maisie comes from nowhere, but she gets a hand up when some good people recognize her talent. Now she's a "psychologist/investigator" in England post WWI, and her work uncovers truths that apply to all of us.
I never realized how that war killed a whole generation of young men and how that affected England. Now I have some idea.
Guaranteed by Life Hiker!
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