Dalton Trumbo Quotes in Trumbo (2015)

Frank King: [Agreeing to hire Trumbo] All right, when do I get my goods?.

Dalton Trumbo: Three days.

Frank King: A hundred page screenplay in three days? Are you trying to fuck me? 'Cause if you fuck me I will fuck you.

Dalton Trumbo: Mr. King, I've heard this speech.

[pause]

Dalton Trumbo: It was better in jail.

Dalton Trumbo: Friends? What friends? Who the hell has the luxury of friends? I've got allies and enemies. There's no room for anything else.

Dalton Trumbo: [challenging John Wayne] If you're gonna talk about World War II as if you personally won it, let's be clear where you were stationed - on a film set, shooting blanks, wearing makeup, and if you're going to hit me, I'd like to take off my glasses.

Dalton Trumbo: [V.O] What the imagination can't conjure, reality delivers with a shrug.

Niki Trumbo: We're having birthday cake.

Dalton Trumbo: When you hear me working, you don't knock.

Niki Trumbo: But it's my birthday.

Dalton Trumbo: You don't knock. Ever.

Niki Trumbo: So the house is on fire, you don't wanna know?

Dalton Trumbo: I work in a bathtub, surrounded by water. So I'm fairly certain that even if the whole goddamn country was on fire, that I can still function as this family's personal slave. And all I ask is not to be interrupted for every little slice of fucking birthday cake. What? It's ridiculous!

Frank King: Trumbo, we can't afford you!

Dalton Trumbo: Well, how much did you pay for the script of... that

[points to movie poster]

Dalton Trumbo: Bad Men of Tombstone?

Frank King: 1200 bucks.

Dalton Trumbo: All right, I'll write you a movie for 1200 then.

Frank King: And you don't want your name on it?

Dalton Trumbo: No, *you* don't want my name on it.

Hymie King: You got that right. Especially if you're still, uh, you know - up to stuff. Are you?

Dalton Trumbo: Perpetually.

Hymie King: Jesus.

Dalton Trumbo: [Presenting his new script to the producers] Oh, one problem though.

Hymie King: Expensive?

Dalton Trumbo: Worse. It's good.

Dalton Trumbo: [voiceover] ... and reality has delivered, in all its beautific wonder, to the Federal penal system, J. Parnell Thomas - convicted of tax evasion.

J. Parnell Thomas: Well, look at us - just a couple of jailbirds.

Dalton Trumbo: Except you actually committed a crime.

John Wayne: You won't get any takers. Not here, anyway.

Dalton Trumbo: Oh, why is that? All it says is that Congress has no right to investigate how we vote or where we pray, what we think, say or how we make movies. Hello, I'm Dalton Trumbo.

John Wayne: Congress has the right to go after anything they think is a threat.

Dalton Trumbo: Well, that's where we disagree and that's the point. We both have the right to be wrong.

Arlen Hird: Look, I know what I am. Okay? I want this whole country to be different, top to bottom. If I get what I want, nobody gets their own lake.

Dalton Trumbo: Well, that would be a very dull life, don't you think?

Arlen Hird: Yeah, for you. Not for the guys who built this. If I'm wrong, tell me, but ever since I've known you, you talk like a radical. But you live like a rich guy.

Dalton Trumbo: That is true.

Arlen Hird: Well, I don't know that you're... I don't think you're willing to lose all of this just to do the right thing.

Dalton Trumbo: [scoffs] Well, I despise martyrdom and I won't fight for a lost cause. So you're right. I'm not willing to lose it all. Certainly not them. But I am willing to risk it all. That's where the radical and the rich guy make a perfect combination. The radical may fight with the purity of Jesus. But the rich guy wins with the cunning of Satan.

Niki Trumbo: It's crazy, how mad you make me. Since all I ever wanted was to be just like you.

Dalton Trumbo: Well, I'm afraid to say that you've succeeded.

[Niki smiles]

Dalton Trumbo: Hello? Oh hello, Otto.

Otto Preminger: I've read your last draft.

Dalton Trumbo: What do you think?

Otto Preminger: My answer is on the front page of today's New York Times.

[Trumbo checks the paper and sees Otto has given him screen credit under his real name]

Dalton Trumbo: [Amused] You hated it that much?

Otto Preminger: Merry Christmas, Mr. Trumbo.

Niki Trumbo: [about their neighbor] He knows. He sees Kirk Douglas coming in and out of here. And Otto Preminger and his Rolls. He's an idiot. But he's not stupid.

[Trumbo chuckles]

Niki Trumbo: Has he called the FBI? Congress? No, because everything they can do, they've already done. That Oscar belongs to you. Get it!

Dalton Trumbo: My God! You're nothing like me. You're worse.

[Niki smiles]