Indiana Quotes in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Marion: You're not the man I knew ten years ago.

Indiana: It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.

Belloq: What a fitting end to your life's pursuits. You're about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a thousand years, even you may be worth something.

Indiana: Ha ha ha ha.

[under his breath]

Indiana: Son of a bitch.

Indiana: Meet me at Omar's. Be ready for me. I'm going after that truck.

Sallah: How?

Indiana: I don't know, I'm making this up as I go!

Indiana: Do we need the monkey?

Marion: I'm surprised at you. Talking that way about our baby. He's got your looks, too.

Indiana: And your brains.

Marion: Yes she does! She's very smart.

Indiana: You want to talk to God? Let's go see him together, I've got nothing better to do.

Indiana: There's a big snake in the plane, Jock!

Jock: Oh, that's just my pet snake Reggie.

Indiana: I hate snakes, Jock! I hate 'em!

Jock: Come on! Show a little backbone, will ya!

[Upon opening the Well of the Souls and peering down]

Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?

Indiana: Give me your torch.

[Indy takes the torch and drops it in]

Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.

[Discussing the fate of the Ark]

Maj. Eaton: We have top men working on it right now.

Indiana: Who?

Maj. Eaton: Top... men.

Brody: Marion's the least of your worries right now, believe me, Indy.

Indiana: What do you mean?

Brody: Well, I mean that for nearly three thousand years man has been searching for the lost ark. It's not something to be taken lightly. No one knows its secrets. It's like nothing you've ever gone after before.

Indiana: [laughing] Oh, Marcus. What are you trying to do, scare me? You sound like my mother. We've known each other for a long time. I don't believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus pocus. I'm going after a find of incredible historical significance, you're talking about the boogie man. Besides, you know what a cautious fellow I am.

[throws his gun into his suitcase]

Indiana: I can only say I'm sorry so many times.

Marion: Well, say it again anyway!

Indiana: Sorry.

Belloq: How odd that it should end this way for us after so many stimulating encounters. I almost regret it. Where shall I find a new adversary so close to my own level?

Indiana: Try the local sewer.

Indiana: [Indiana is being strangled against the bar. He calmly looks up at Marion] Whiskey

[Marion hands him the whiskey bottle and he smashes it over his assailant's head]

[Indiana needs his bullwhip to swing across a chasm]

Indiana: Give me the whip.

Satipo: Throw me the idol.

[they both see a stone door closing]

Satipo: No time to argue! Throw me idol, I'll throw you the whip!

Indiana: [throws the idol] Give me the whip!

Satipo: [drops the whip] Adiós, señor.

Sallah: Indy, there is something that troubles me.

Indiana: What is it?

Sallah: The Ark. If it is there, at Tanis, then it is something that man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it. It is not of this earth.

[as the Nazis are opening the Ark]

Indiana: Marion, don't look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion. Don't look at it, no matter what happens!

Indiana: Here, take this,

[hands Marion a torch]

Indiana: Wave it at anything that slithers.

Marion: The whole place is slitherin'!

[turns and mistakes Indy's whip on his side for a snake]

Marion: Indy!

[tries to burn it with the torch]

Indiana: [screams]

Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.

Indiana: Now you're getting nasty.

Indiana: The Ark of the Covenant, the chest that the Hebrews used to carry around the Ten Commandments.

Major Eaton: What, you mean THE Ten Commandments?

Indiana: Yes, the actual Ten Commandments, the original stone tablets that Moses brought down from Mt. Horeb and smashed, if you believe in that sort of thing...

[the officers stare at him blankly]

Indiana: Didn't any of you guys ever go to Sunday school?

[talking about Marion's late father]

Marion: He said you were a bum.

Indiana: Aw, he's being generous.

Marion: The most gifted bum he ever trained. You know, he loved you like a son... took a hell of a lot for you to alienate him.

Indiana: Not much... just you.

Satipo: Let us hurry. There is nothing to fear here.

Indiana: That's what scares me.

[Indy meets Belloq in a crowded bar]

Indiana: Belloq.

Belloq: Good afternoon, Doctor Jones.

Indiana: I oughta kill you right now.

Belloq: Not a very private place for a murder.

[Indy triggers a hidden booby trap, which fires a poisoned dart into a stick]

Indiana: [hands Satipo the stick] Stay here.

Satipo: [shrugs] If you insist, señor.

Marion: Well, Jones, at least you haven't forgotten how to show a lady a good time.

Indiana: Boy, you're something!

Marion: Yeah? I'll tell you what: until I get back my five thousand dollars, you're gonna get more than you bargained for. I'm your goddamn partner!

Sallah: Indy, you have no time. If you still want the ark, it is being loaded onto a truck for Cairo.

Indiana: Truck? What truck?

Indiana: Hello, Marion.

Marion: Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable. So, what are you doing here in Nepal?

Indiana: I need one of the pieces your father collected.

[Marion surprises him with a right cross to the jaw]

Marion: I've learned to hate you in the last ten years!

Indiana: I never meant to hurt you.

Marion: I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it!

Indiana: You knew what you were doing.

Marion: Now I do. This is my place. Get out!

[Marion removes heavy robe to reveal satin negligèe]

Indiana: Where'd you get that?

Marion: From him.

Indiana: Who 'him'?

Marion: Katanga. I got a feeling I'm not the first woman to travel with these pirates.

Brody: However, an Egyptian pharaoh...

Indiana: Shishak.

Brody: ...yes, invaded the city of Jerusalem round about 980 B.C., and he may have take the Ark back to the city of Tanis and hidden it in a secret chamber called The Well of Souls.

Major Eaton: [skeptically] Secret chamber?

Brody: However, about a year after the pharaoh had returned to Egypt, the city of Tanis was consumed by the desert in a sand storm which lasted a whole year. Wiped clean by the wrath of God.

Major Eaton: [turns slowly toward Col. Musgrove] Uh... huh.

Colonel Musgrove: Obviously, we've come to the right men. Now you seem to know, uh, all about this Tanis, then.

Indiana: No, no, not really. Ravenwood is the real expert. Abner did the first serious work on Tanis. Collected some of its relics. It was his obsession, really. But he never found the city.

Major Eaton: Frankly, we're somewhat suspicious of Mr. Ravenwood, an American being mentioned so prominently in a secret Nazi cable.

Brody: Oh, rubbish. Ravenwood's no Nazi.

Colonel Musgrove: Well, what do the Nazis want him for then?

Indiana: Well, obviously, the Nazis are looking for the headpiece to Staff of Ra and they think Abner's got it.

Major Eaton: What exactly is a headpiece to the Staff of Ra?

Indiana: Well, the staff is just a stick. I don't know, about this big. Nobody really knows for sure how high. And it's...

[turns blackboard to blank side]

Indiana: it's, uh... it's capped with an elaborate headpiece in the shape of the sun with a crystal in the center. And what you did was, you take the staff to a special room in Tanis, a map room with a miniature of the city all laid out on the floor. And if you put the staff in a certain place at a certain time of day, the sun shone through here and made beam that came down on the floor here... and gave you the exact location of the Well of the Souls.

Colonel Musgrove: Where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, right?.

Indiana: That's exactly what the Nazis are looking for.

Major Eaton: Now what does this Ark look like?

Indiana: Uh... there's a picture of it right here.

[opens a book on the table]

Indiana: That's it.

[they all look at an illustration of the Hebrews devastating their enemy with the Ark]

Major Eaton: Good God!

Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.

Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?

Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.

Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.

Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.

[looking at an old picture of the Ark]

Colonel Musgrove: Now, what's that supposed to be coming out of there?

Indiana: Lightning. Fire. The power of God or something.

Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.

Indiana: Too bad the Hovitos don't know you the way I do, Belloq.

Belloq: Yes, too bad. You could warn them... if only you spoke Hovitos!

Indiana: [to Satipo's dead body] Adios, Satipo...

Major Eaton: Doctor Jones, we've heard a lot about you.

Indiana: Have you?

Major Eaton: Professor of Archeology, expert on the occult, and how does one say it... obtainer of rare antiquities.

Indiana: That's one way of saying it. Why don't you sit down, you'll be more comfortable.

Colonel Musgrove: Yes, you're a man of many talents.

Major Eaton: Now, you studied under Professor Ravenwood at the University of Chicago.

Indiana: Yes, I did.

Major Eaton: You have no idea of his present whereabouts?

Indiana: Only rumors, really. Somewhere in Asia, I think. I haven't really spoken to him in ten years. We were friends once, but we had a bit of a falling out, I'm afraid.

Colonel Musgrove: Now, Doctor Jones, you must understand that this is all completely confidential.

Indiana: I understand.

Colonel Musgrove: Yesterday afternoon, our European section intercepted a German communique that was sent from Cairo to Berlin.

Major Eaton: You see, for the last two years, the Nazis have had teams of archaeologists running around the world looking for all sorts of religious artifacts. Hitler's a nut on the subject. He's crazy. He's obsessed with the occult. And right now, apparently, there is some kind of German archaeological dig going on in the desert outside Cairo.

Colonel Musgrove: Now, we have some information here, but we can't make anything out of it and maybe you can. "Tanis development proceeding. Acquire headpiece, Staff of Ra, Abner Ravenwood, US."

Indiana: The Nazis have discovered Tanis!

Major Eaton: Now just what does that mean to you... 'Tanis'?

Indiana: Tanis is one of the possible resting places of the Lost Ark.

Colonel Musgrove: The Lost Ark?

Indiana: Yeah, the Ark of the Covenant. The chest the Hebrews used to carry the Ten Commandments around in.

Major Eaton: Alright now, what do you mean the Ten Commandments, you're talking about THE Ten Commandments?

Indiana: Yes, the actual Ten Commandments. The original stone tablets that Moses brought down out of Mount Horeb and smashed, if you believe in that sort of thing. Didn't you guys ever go to Sunday School? Look, the Hebrews took the broken pieces and put them into the Ark. When they settled in Canaan, they put the Ark in a place called The Temple of Solomon, where it stayed for many years, till all of a sudden... whoosh, it was gone.

Major Eaton: Where?

Indiana: Nobody knows where or when.

Indiana: This site also demonstrates one of the great dangers of archaeology; not to life and limb, although that does sometimes take place. I'm talking about folklore.

Indiana: I'm gonna blow up the Ark, Rene.

Belloq: Your persistence surprises even me. You're going to give mercenaries a bad name.

[the old man reveals writing on the back of the medallion, which states that part of the staff must be removed]

Indiana: Balloq's medallion only had writing on one side? You sure about that?

Sallah: Positive!

Indiana: Balloq's staff is too long.

Indiana, Sallah: They're digging in the wrong place!

[last lines]

Marion: Hey, what happened? You don't look very happy.

Indiana: Fools. Bureaucratic fools!

Marion: What'd they say?

Indiana: They don't know what they've got there.

Marion: Well, I know what I've got here. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. You know, a drink?

Indiana: [Indy's first lines] This is it... This is where Forrestal cashed in.

Satipo: A friend of yours?

Indiana: A competitor... he was good. He was very good.

Omar: This were the old way, this says "six Kadan height - "

Indiana: About seventy-two inches.

Omar: Wait!

[turns medallion over]

Omar: "And take back one Kadan, to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is."

Dietrich: Doctor Jones, surely you don't think you can escape from this island?

Indiana: That depends on how reasonable we're all willing to be. All I want is the girl.

Dietrich: [looks at Belloq. Belloq shakes his head] And if we refuse?

Indiana: Then your Führer has no prize.

Indiana: I knew the Germans had hired you, Sallah. You're the best digger in Egypt.

Sallah: My services are entirely inconsequential to them. They hired or shanghaied every digger in Cairo. The excavation is enormous. They hire only strong backs and they pay pennies for them. It's as if the pharaohs have returned.