Tony Scott’s Best Movie Quotes

Film and television lost one of its leading directors and producers on Sunday. Tony Scott took his own life by jumping off a California bridge.  While many sites will compile lists of his best movies or discuss his impact on television and film, we decided to focus on Scott’s impact on our lives.  While directing some of Hollywood’s most popular action movies, he introduced some of the most quotable lines in film history. Lines from Days of Thunder, Top Gun and other movies often work their way into daily conversations and are gleefully quoted by film fans at every opportunity.  We’ve compiled a list of 15 of the best quotes from Scott’s career. (We have chosen to include only those movies that Tony Scott directed.)

Days of Thunder (I)

1990's Days of Thunder gave us NASCAR's most quoted line.  When Tom Cruise's character Cole Trickle complains to Crew Chief Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) that another driver slammed into him, Hogge responds with this line, recognizable to race fans 20 years later:

"No, no, he didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you... he *rubbed* you. And rubbin, son, is racin'. "

Days of Thunder (II)

Another favorite from Days of Thunder, this time Hogge, frustrated with his reckless driving, instructs him to go back out on the track and hit the pace car. Why?  So it doesn't ruin his perfect day:

Harry Hogge: "All right. While we're still under a caution, I want you to go back out on that track and hit the pace car."
Cole Trickle: "Hit the pace car?"
Harry Hogge: "Hit the pace car."
Cole Trickle: "What for?"
Harry Hogge: "Because you've hit every other goddamned thing out there, I want you to be perfect."

Days of Thunder (III)

Our final entry from Days of Thunder comes from Randy Quaid.  Playing car owner Tim Daland, Quaid is less than impressed with Cole and Harry, and lets them know it:

"I had sponsors in the stands, we were hugging and holding hands, praying for good showing and what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there. Everybody out, please, except you two. "

Top Gun (I)

From 1986, Top Gun provided us with a number of memorable quotes, and one song that is on every pilot's playlist.  Early in the movie, Stinger (James Tolkan) is lecturing Tom Cruise's Maverick and Anthony Edwards' Goose and delivers this gem of a line:

"Maverick, you just did an incredibly brave thing. What you should have done was land your plane! You don't own that plane, the taxpayers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

Top Gun (II)

Again from Top Gun, Goose and Maverick are getting fired up for an early mission when they let loose with this memorable quote.  Pardon the cheesy high-five, it was the '80s.

"I feel the need, the need for speed."

Top Gun (III)

Val Kilmer's Iceman, the nominal bad guy in Top Gun, lets Maverick know exactly what he thinks about his flight skills:

 “You’re everyone’s problem. That’s because every time you go up in the air you’re unsafe. I don’t like you because you’re dangerous.”

 

Top Gun (IV)

A young Meg Ryan plays Goose's wife Carol in Top Gun.  After the boys return home she lets her husband know that it's time to report for duty in the bedroom:

 "Take me to bed or lose me forever."

True Romance (I)

In the faceoff between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken in True Romance, Hopper's Clifford Worley gives a little history on the history of Sicily. Knowing he's already doomed, Worley goes after Sicilian Vincenzo Coccotti the best way he knows how -- by insulting his lineage.  The key line is at the end, but we had to include the entire lesson:

Worley: "You're Sicilian, huh?"

Coccotti: "Yeah, Sicilian."

Worley: "Ya know, I read a lot. Especially about things... about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here's a fact I don't know whether you know or not. Sicilians were spawned by niggers."

Coccotti: "Come again?"

Worley: "It's a fact. Yeah. You see, uh, Sicilians have, uh, black blood pumpin' through their hearts. Hey, no, if eh, if eh, if you don't believe me, uh, you can look it up. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, uh, you see, uh, the Moors conquered Sicily. And the Moors are niggers."

Coccotti: "Yes... "

Worley: "So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin' with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That's why blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin. You know, it's absolutely amazing to me to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, that, uh, that Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. Now this... No, I'm, no, I'm quoting... history. It's written. It's a fact, it's written."

Coccotti:  "I love this guy."

Worley:  "Your ancestors are niggers. Uh-huh.  Hey. Yeah. And, and your great-great-great-great grandmother fucked a nigger, ho, ho, yeah, and she had a half-nigger kid... now, if that's a fact, tell me, am I lying? 'Cause you, you're part eggplant."

True Romance (II)

When Coccotti first introduces himself to Worley, it is one of the signature Christopher Walken introductions:

"I'm the Anti-Christ. You got me in a vendetta kind of mood. You tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti."

Crimson Tide (I)

1995's Crimson Tide features Gene Hackman as Captain Ramsey and Denzel Washington as Lt. Commander Ron Hunter as they battle for command of a nuclear submarine. Ramsey finds himself justifying his actions early and often to Hunter, to humorous effect in this line:

"What'd you think, son? That I was just some crazy old coot, putting everyone in harm's way as I yelled 'YEE-HA!'?"

Crimson Tide (II)

While this line, shouted by the crew at the end of Hackman's launch speech, isn't unique to Crimson Tide it is one of the most famous uses of the now ubiquitous Alabama chant:

"Go 'Bama, Roll Tide."

(If you don't think the comments on the YouTube page are 90% Alabama fans posting ROLL TIDE then you don't know Alabama fans)

The Fan

Robert De Niro might be a crazy stalker, murderer and all around wacko in 1996's The Fan, but when telling his son about baseball he gives us a line that seems more suited for Bull Durham than this story about an overly obsessed baseball fan:

Gil: "Don't get greedy, son. Don't get greedy. What we need now is a sacrifice. A winning team has to know how to manufacture runs. Coop taught me that. He used to say the most beautiful play in the game is a sacrifice fly, and you know why?"

Richie: "'Cause you give yourself up for the team?"

Gil: "And it doesn't even count against your average. That's why baseball's better than life, it's fair."

Jump to the six-minute mark for the line.

Beverly Hills Cop 2 (I)

Eddie Murphy lets loose some of his fast talking logic as Axel Foley in this line from Beverly Hills Cop II, claiming that his former religion allows him to spot an undercover cop:

"I have the money and I *do* wanna do business, but with *you*. I ain't doing nothing in front of this dude, 'cause this dude is a cop. I know when I can smell a pig inside the room. I used to be a Muslim, man. And I know that's pork over here. And... Yes, pork! It's definitely pork. I ain't doin' shit around this dude, man. You wanna do business, you know where to find me. Fuck you, man. Allahu Akbar. "

Beverly Hills Cop 2 (II)

Eddie Murphy sums up Brigitte Nielsen in six simple words after their first brief meeting:

 "God damn, that's a big bitch."

Beverly Hills Cop 2 (III)

Impressed with Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggert (John Ashton), Axel pays them the biggest compliment he knows:

""If you get your head out of your ass long enough"? "Kiss my ass"? You're gettin' more and more like me every day. Next thing you know you're gonna have Afros... big dicks and all! "