Hooper Quotes in Hooper (1978)

Ski: My life is worth more than a piece of film.

Hooper: I'll tell you EXACTLY what your life is worth. Your life is worth fifty thousand dollars, that's the price you put on it when you got behind this wheel!

[the three men are comparing their scars]

Brody: What's that one?

Quint: What?

Brody: That one, there, on your arm.

Quint: Oh, uh, that's a tattoo, I got that removed.

Hooper: Don't tell me, don't tell me..."Mother."

[he roars with laughter]

Hooper: What is it -

[Quint solemnly clamps a hand on Hooper's arm]

Quint: Mr. Hooper, that's the USS Indianapolis.

[Hooper immediately stops laughing]

Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?

Brody: What happened?

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know... was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Heh.

[he pauses and takes a drink]

Quint: They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. Y'know, it's... kinda like ol' squares in a battle like, uh, you see in a calendar, like the Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and that man, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin', and sometimes the shark'd go away... sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then... oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin', the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces.

[he pauses]

Quint: Y'know, by the end of that first dawn... lost a hundred men. I dunno how many sharks. Maybe a thousand. I dunno how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun's mate. I thought he was asleep. Reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. Young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and come in low and three hours later, a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. Y'know, that was the time I was most frightened, waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a life jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

[he pauses, smiles, and raises his glass]

Quint: Anyway... we delivered the bomb.

Quint: [seeing Hooper's equipment] What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut?

[examining the shark cage]

Quint: Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there - a portable shower or a monkey cage?

Hooper: Anti-Shark cage.

Quint: Anti-shark cage. You go inside the cage?

[Hooper nods]

Quint: Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water. Our shark.

[sings]

Quint: Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we've received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again.

[last lines]

Brody: What day is this?

Hooper: It's Wednesday... eh, it's Tuesday, I think.

Brody: Think the tide's with us?

Hooper: Keep kicking.

Brody: I used to hate the water...

Hooper: I can't imagine why.

Hooper: I'm not going to waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch.

Brody: It doesn't make any sense when you pay a guy like you to watch sharks.

Hooper: Well, uh, it doesn't make much sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island either.

Brody: It's only an island if you look at it from the water.

Hooper: That makes a lot of sense.

Hooper: This was no boat accident.

[Hooper is examining the remains of the first victim - describes the post-mortem into his tape recorder]

Hooper: The height and weight of the victim can only be estimated from the partial remains. The torso has been severed in mid-thorax; there are no major organs remaining...

Hooper: Right arm has been severed above the elbow with massive tissue loss in the upper musculature... partially denuded bone remaining...

Hooper: [to the m.e. and Brody] This was no boat accident!

Hooper: [to Brody] Did you notify the Coast Guard about this?

Brody: No. It was only local jurisdiction.

Hooper: [continues post-mortem] The left arm, head, shoulders, sternum and portions of the rib cage are intact...

Hooper: [to Brody] Do not smoke in here, thank you very much.

Hooper: [lifts up the severed arm] This is what happens. It indicates the non-frenzied feeding of a large squalus - possibly Longimanus or Isurus glauca. Now... the enormous amount of tissue loss prevents any detailed analysis; however the attacking squalus must be considerably larger than any normal squalus found in these waters. Didn't you get on a boat and check out these waters?

Brody: No.

Hooper: Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn't any propeller; and it wasn't any coral reef; and it wasn't Jack the Ripper! It was a shark.

Hooper: That's a twenty footer.

Quint: Twenty-five. Three tons of him.

Hooper: Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all. Now, why don't you take a long, close look at this sign.

[refers to the graffitied billboard]

Hooper: Those proportions are correct.

Mayor Vaughn: Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name into the National Geographic.

Brody: Is it true that most people get attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from the beach?

Hooper: Yeah.

Brody: And that... and that before people started to swim for recreation - I mean before sharks knew what they were missing - that a lot of these attacks weren't reported?

Hooper: That's right.

Brody: Now this shark that... that... that swims alone...

Hooper: Rogue.

Brody: What's it called?

Hooper, Brody: [together] Rogue.

Brody: Rogue, yeah. Now this guy, he... he keeps swimmin' around in a place where the feeding is good until the food supply is gone, right?

Hooper: It's called "territoriality". It's just a theory that I happen to... agree with.

Brody: Then why don't we have one more drink and go down and cut that shark open?

Ellen Brody: Martin? Can you do that?

Brody: I can do anything; I'm the chief of police.

Hooper: Boys, oh boys... I think he's come back for his noon feeding.

Hooper: [singing] Show me the way to go home / I'm tired and I want to go to bed...

Hooper, Quint, Brody: [all singing together] I had a little drink about an hour ago and it got right to my head / Wherever I may roam / by land or sea or foam...

Quint: Hooper, what exactly can you do with these things of yours?

Hooper: Well, I think I can pump 20 cc's of strychnine nitrate into him, if I can get close enough.

Quint: Can you get this little needle through his skin?

Hooper: No, I can't do that. But if I can get him close enough to this cage, I think that I can get him in the mouth or the eye...

Brody: That shark will rip that cage to pieces!

Hooper: [shouting] YOU GOT ANY BETTER SUGGESTIONS?

Hooper: Ha, ha - they're all gonna die.

[about to go looking for the shark]

Brody: On the water?

Hooper: Well, if we're looking for a shark we're not gonna find him on the land.

Quint: You wanna drink? Drink to your leg.

Hooper: I'll drink to your leg.

Quint: Okay, so we drink to our legs!

[both laugh]

Mayor Vaughn: I don't think either of one you are familiar with our problems.

Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!

Hooper: [motioning to Brody to get closer to the barrels] Come on Martin! Move, move, move!

Brody: I'm not going out there!

Hooper: Beyond the edge of the barrels, go to the end of the barrels! Further out!

Brody: What?

Hooper: Further out!

Brody: Why?

Hooper: Go further out!

Brody: What for?

Hooper: Will you go to the end of the pulpit, please?

Brody: What?

Hooper: Will you just please go to the end of the pulpit!

Brody: What for?

Hooper: I need to have something in the foreground to give it some scale.

Brody: Foreground, my ass!

Hooper: [trying to get the fishing line secure] It may be a marlin or a stingray... but it's definitely a game fish.

[Hooper pulls as the lines snaps and he crashes his head into the wall]

Quint: [picking up the line] Gamin' fish, eh? Marlin? Stingray? Bit through this piano wire? Don't you tell me my business again! You get back on the bridge...

Hooper: Quint, that doesn't prove a damn thing!

Quint: Well it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong.

[Quint enters the cabin as Hooper makes faces at him]

Brody: [following Quint inside the boat] What's the point? Hooks and lines...

Quint: [slams on the roof at Hooper] Hooper! 12 minutes south south east now, full throttle!

Hooper: [Mocking Pirate Voice] Aye, aye, sir! AYE JIMBOY ARAGHHH!

Quint: [to Brody] See what I do, Chief, is I trick 'em to the surface. And I jab at 'em. I'm not gonna haul 'em up like a lot of catfish.

[slams on the roof]

Quint: Hooper, full throttle!

Hooper: [voice imitating W. C. Fields] I don't have to take this abuse much longer!

Hooper: [points to a scar on chest] Mary Ellen Moffat. She broke my heart.

[Hooper, Brody and Quint all laugh]

Hooper: [Hooper attempts to wet his mask before Quint and Brody lower him in the shark cage] I got no spit.

Mayor Vaughn: And what did you say the name of this shark is?

Hooper: It's a carcaradon carcharias. It's a Great White

[as Brody sends the air tanks flying]

Hooper: Dammit, Martin! This is compressed air!

Brody: Well, what the hell kind of a knot was that?

Hooper: You pulled the wrong one. You screw around with these tanks, and they're gonna blow up!

Quint: Yeah, that's real fine expensive gear you brought out here, Mr. Hooper. 'Course I don't know what that bastard shark's gonna do with it, might eat it I suppose. Seen one eat a rockin' chair one time. Hey chieffy, next time you just ask me which line to pull, right?

Brody: Yeah, but I'm not drunk enough to go out on a boat.

Hooper: Yes, you are.

Brody: No, I'm not.

Hooper: Yes, you are.

Brody: I can't do that.

Hooper: Yes, you can.

Ellen Brody: [to Chief Brody] You told me the shark was caught. And I, I heard it on the news... I heard it on the Cape station.

Hooper: They caught A shark, not THE shark. Big difference. Not the shark that killed Chrissie Watkins... and probably not the shark that killed the little boy... which I wanted to prove today, by cutting the shark open...

[sees the Chief pouring the wine he brought]

Hooper: you know, you oughta let that breathe a little

[sees the massive glass the Chief has poured]

Hooper: nothing, nothing!

Hooper: He ate the light.

Quint: You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life.

Hooper: All right, all right. Hey, I don't need this... I don't need this working-class-hero crap.

Brody: [Drunk] I'm tellin' ya, the crime rate in New York'll kill you. There's so many problems, you never feel like you're accomplishing anything. Violence, rip-offs, muggings... kids can't leave the house - you gotta walk them to school. But in Amity one man can make a difference. In twenty-five years, there's never been a shooting or a murder in this town.

Hooper: Fascinating. Want a pretzel?

Brody: Where are we?

Hooper: [on telephone] Doctor, there is no need for me to come to Brisbane, when I have a great white shark right here!

Out of Towner: Yeah, well, but what kind? What kind of shark?

Hooper: [With a pencil in his mouth] It's a tiger shark.

[Three Out of Towners turn slowly to face Hooper]

Out of Towner: A what?

Hooper: Hello.

Ben Gardner: Hello back... young feller. How are ya? Say I hope you not going out with those nuts, are ya?

Hooper: Fast fish.

Hooper: Ah. Just like I thought... He came up with the Gulf Stream - from southern waters.

[he pulls a Louisiana license plate from the shark. Brody examines it]

Brody: He didn't eat a car, did he?

Hooper: Naw, a tiger shark's like a garbage can, it'll eat anything. Someone probably threw that in a river.

Quint: [referring to a cut on Brody's head] Chief... don't you worry about it, Chief. It won't be permanent. Wanna see somethin' permanent, boom-boom-boom?

[Quint pulls out a false front tooth and laughs]

Quint: Hey, Hoop, you wanna feel somethin' permanent? You just put your hand underneath my cap... and you just feel that little lump. Knock an ole un, St. Paddy's day, Boston.

Hooper: I got that beat.

Hooper: [to Brody] I got that beat.

Hooper: I got the creme de la creme. Right here. Hold on. Yeah, you see that?

[takes off his t-shirt, showing a very hairy chest]

Brody: You're wearing a sweater!

Hooper: [to Brody] 'Scuse me. You know those eight guys in the fantail launch out there? Well, none of 'em are gonna get out of the harbor alive.

[the three shark hunters have found the shark and are preparing to tag and kill it; Brody and Hooper are climbing over the the bow while Quint is in the cabin, taking out his harpoon gun]

Sonar Operator: [via Quint's radio] Amity Point Lighthouse to Orca. Come in, Orca.

Quint: [answering; via reciever] Orca. Come in.

Sonar Operator: [via radio cont] I have a call from a Mrs. Brody here.

Quint: Put her on.

[Shift back to Brody and Hooper; The shark is circling around the boat]

Hooper: Come on, Martin! Move, move, move!

Brody: I'm not going out there!

Hooper: Go to the end of the barrels!

[Brody stops halfway]

Hooper: Further out!

Quint: What?

Hooper: [points with his outstretched arm] *Further* out!

Brody: Why?

Hooper: Go further out!

Brody: What for?

Hooper: Can you just go to the end of the pulpit, please?

Hooper: What?

Hooper: Go to the end of the pulpit.

Brody: What for?

Hooper: [getting his camera out] *I need* something in the foreground to give it some scale!

Brody: [shouts] Foreground, my ass!

[Scene shifts to Quint]

Quint: [rapid fire speech; into the reciever] You're husband's alright, Mrs. Brody. He's caught a couple of stripers. We'll bring them home for dinner. We won't be long. We haven't seen anything yet. Over and out.

[Quint hangs up, ending the call]

[after the "Bluntman & Chronic" premiere]

Banky: God, I'm so embarrassed.

Hooper: You should be. They took your intellectual property and turned it into one 90-minute long gay joke. It was like watching "Batman & Robin" all over again.

Hooper: Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Bust this: Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!

Banky Edwards: What's a Nubian?

Hooper: Shut the fuck up! Now... Vader, he's a spiritual brother, y'know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he's gonna run the fuckin' universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader's hood, the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?

Banky Edwards: Intergalactic civil war?

Hooper: Gentrification! They gon' drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white folks. And Jedi's the most insulting installment! Because Vader's beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin' to tell us that deep inside we all wants to be white!

Banky Edwards: Well, isn't that true?

[Hooper pulls out his gun, shoots Banky]

Hooper: For years in this industry, whenever an African American character, hero or villain, was introduced - usually by *white* artists and writers - they got slapped with racist names that singled them out as Negroes. Now, my book, "White-Hatin' Coon," don't have none of that bullshit. The hero's name is Maleekwa, and he's a descendant from the black tribe that established the first society on the planet, while all you European motherfuckers were still hiding in caves and shit, all terrified of the sun. He's a strong role model that a young black reader can look up to. 'Cause I'm here to tell you, the chickens is coming home to roost, y'all. The black man's no longer gonna play the minstrel in the medium of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We keepin' it real, and we gonna get respect by any means necessary.

Holden: Ah, come on, that's a bunch of horse shit! Lando Calrissian was a black guy. You know. He got to fly the Millennium Falcon, what's the matter with you?

Hooper: Who said that?

Holden: I did! Lando Calrissian is a positive role-model in the realm of science-fiction/fantasy.

Hooper: Fuck Lando Calrissian! Uncle Tom nigger!

[while autographing a comic for a young fan, Hooper points at Holden]

Hooper: See that man right there? He the Devil, understand? Never take your eye off the man.

Hooper: Screw that "all for one" shit, alright? I gotta deal with being a minority in a minority of the minority, and nobody's supportin' my ass.

Hooper: Men need to believe that they're Marco Fucking Polo when it comes to sex.

Hooper: Archie was the bitch and Jughead was the butch. That's why Jughead wears that crown-looking hat all the time. He the king of queen Archie's world.

Hooper: So where's your better half?

Banky Edwards: Takin' a piss. The guy's got a bladder like an infant.

Hooper: That's funny. He says you're hung like an infant.

Banky Edwards: Does his mother tell him everything?

Hooper: Wait, wait. There's something you should know.

Holden: She's got a boyfriend?

Hooper: Well, no.

Holden: Then what's to know, my friend? What's to know?

Hooper: Ooh, Yanni!

Hooper: I need to sell the image to sell the book. I mean, would the audience still buy the whole black rage angle if they found out the book was written by a... you know...

Banky Edwards: Faggot?

Hooper: When you say it, it sounds so sexy.

[kisses Banky]

Hooper: I think it's more like Banky's having a real problem with all things not hetero right about now.

Hooper: [waves a dollar at Banky] Here.

Banky Edwards: What?

Hooper: I want you to go down to the corner store, and buy yourself a clue.

Holden: Alyssa from last night Alyssa?

Hooper: How do you begin and end a question with the same word like that? You got skill.

Hooper: So what if it is true? Does it bother you?

Holden: Sex with multiple partners? At the same time?

Hooper: [gasps sarcastically]

Ruth: [coaching the nursing home women in a game of soccer, jumping up and down] Come on! Kick that ball! Yes, go! Come on Miss Zulinski!

Hooper: What is going on here?

Ruth: Oh, isn't it wonderful?

Hooper: I know what you've been doing! The vitamins, the workouts, it's against the rules! I'm going to report you to Mrs. Trumper and then you'll be sorry.

Ruth: Oh I don't think so, I HAVE been sorry my whole life and by the looks of it, so have you, so you do whatever you want. It's a shame though, Hooper, I always thought that women like us should stick together. Let's go! Kick that ball!