Bagman Quotes in Knightriders (1981)

Steve: [angry in the wake of Bagman's beating by local police, and Billy's refusal to consider promotion for the troupe] Dammit, Billy, you're all stone-broke most of the time. And you take in every damn longhair that knows how to make a pair of sandals, and you wanna pick up the Blue Cross tab? Do you have the slightest idea what gas is selling for, or two-by-fours, or hamburger or anything else?

Billy: You think it's breaking up?

Steve: It's money, Billy. It's all to do with money. Money makes the world go round, even your world.

Billy: No, it's just getting too tough. It's tough to live by the code. I mean, it's real hard to live for something that you believe in. People try it and then they get tired of it, like they get tired of their... diets. Or exercise. Or their marriage. Or their kids, or their job, or themselves... or they get tired of their God. You can keep the money you make off this sick world, lawyer, I don't want any part of it. Anybody who wants to live more for themselves doesn't belong with us. Let them go out and buy some pimpy psychiatrist's paperback that says it's okay, don't ask me to say it's okay, it's NOT okay!

Bagman: [breaking the awkward silence] Once, I was in a jail in Alabama, and I got my ass kicked, just like I did last night, only then it was because I was a nigger-lover.

[Merlin begins playing his harmonica]

Bagman: Well, I woke up in the morning, and I didn't even have energy enough to lick my wounds. I found out I'd given up. So I tried to kill myself. Tried to cut my wrists with a bedspring.

[Laughs]

Bagman: See, I'd found out that I'd given up on it all because of where I was, what was all around me. Well, last night I get my ass kicked, and I came up laughing. Because now, I'm in Camelot.

Bagman: You see, the way I see it is this: You got two separate fights. The one for truth and justice and the American way of life and all that. That's gotta take a backseat to the one for staying alive. You gotta stay alive! Man, you can have the most beautiful ideals in the whole world, but if you die, your ideals are gonna die with you! The important thing is we gotta stay together, we gotta keep the troupe together. And if keeping the troupe going means that we have to take some of this promoter's money, then I say let's take it and get some sleep!

Bagman: Remember, trust in the spirits. They're everywhere!

[gestures to heart]

Bagman: Especially in here.