Frank Towns Quotes in Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Frank Towns: Why give people false hope?

Liddle: Come on man.Most people spend their whole lives hanging on to hopes and dreams that are never going to come true but they hold on to them. Why are you going to give up on them now when you need them most?

Frank Towns: You are assuming I'm one of those people who has hopes and dreams.

Liddle: I find it hard to believe that a man who learns to fly never had a dream.

Frank Towns: Look, how can I let those people build that plane when I don't believe it will work? And, every day they waste trying to build it brings them one day closer to dying.

Liddle: I think a man only needs one thing in life. He just needs someone to love. If you can't give him that, then give him something to hope for. And if you can't give him that, just give him something to do.

[James tosses the water bottle back to Frank and walks away]

Frank Towns: James, you'll never make it.

Liddle: Then I'll die trying. There are people counting on me.

Frank Towns: Okay, Okay, Okay. Okay. We'll build it. Just come back with me.

[preparing for takeoff]

A.J.: [as Bill Cosby] OK, all set, Mr. President. I think it's about that time that we do the checklist as the two Bills. What do you say, buddy?

Frank Towns: [as Bill Clinton] Why change a good thing? Go ahead, good buddy.

A.J.: Allow me to grab my bulletin. Seatbelts.

Frank Towns: I always like to have a little something strapped to my lap. Check.

A.J.: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Windows, doors and hatches.

Frank Towns: Closed and secure, so no-one can disturb us.

A.J.: Water injection.

Frank Towns: That's what she said.

[A.J. laughs]

Frank Towns: Check.

A.J.: Gyro.

Frank Towns: Set and uncaged, just like yours truly.

A.J.: And last but not least, cowl flaps.

Frank Towns: Till the cows come home... Alright, I think we're ready to go. Gonna kiss your lucky man?

A.J.: I'll make it happen right now.

Frank Towns: All right. Clear left.

A.J.: Clear right.

Frank Towns: All right... here we go...

Frank Towns: I've lost five men, Lew. Gabriel in there, he's on the way, that'll be six. Are you asking me to try to kill the rest of them trying to get a deathtrap off the ground. I don't know... I don't know, Lew. It won't work... it just can't work.

Lew Moran: All right, then, it can't. Maybe it can't and we'll all be killed. But if there's just one chance in a thousand that he's got something, boy, I'd rather take it than just sit around here waiting to die.

Frank Towns: If you hadn't made a career out of being a drunk you might not have been a second-rate navigator in a firth-rate outfit. And if you'd not stayed in your bunk to kill that last bottle, maybe you might have checked that engineer's report on the radio and we might not be here now. All right!

Lew Moran: Time was you could take real pride, in just getting there, flying used to be fun Lou, it really was.

Frank Towns: He's crazy Lou, he builds toy airplanes.

Heinrich Dorfmann: Gentlemen, I have been examining this aeroplane.

Frank Towns: Yeah?

Heinrich Dorfmann: Yes. We've everything we need here to build a new one and fly it out. Now, if you'd like to have a look at my calculations, I don't know whether you can read my handwriting.

Frank Towns: Are you trying to be funny?

Heinrich Dorfmann: What did you say?

Frank Towns: I said, are you trying to be funny?

Heinrich Dorfmann: That is precisely the reaction I would have expected from a man of your obvious limitations.

Frank Towns: Your theory's fine, but you get this mister... that engine's rated at two thousand horsepower and if I was ever fool enough to let it get started up it'd shake your patched-up pile of junk into a thousand pieces, and cut us up into mincemeat with the propeller.