Jacob Marley Quotes in A Christmas Carol (2009)

[from trailer]

Ebenezer Scrooge: What do you want with me?

Jacob Marley: You will be haunted by three spirits.

Ebenezer Scrooge: I'd rather not.

Fozziwig: My speech! Here's my Christmas speech. Ahem. "Thank you all, and Merry Christmas."

Jacob Marley: That was the speech?

Robert Marley: It was dumb!

Jacob Marley: It was obvious!

Robert Marley: It was pointless!

Jacob Marley: It was... short!

[turns to Robert]

Jacob Marley, Robert Marley: I loved it!

Jacob Marley: Why do you doubt your senses?

Ebenezer Scrooge: Because a little thing can effect them. A slight disorder of the stomach can make them cheat. You may be a bit of undigested beef, a blob of mustard, a crumb of cheese. Yes. There's more gravy than of grave about you.

Robert Marley: More gravy than of grave?

Jacob Marley: What a terrible pun. Where do you get those jokes?

Robert Marley: Leave comedy to the bears, Ebenezer.

Robert Marley: We were always heckling you.

Jacob Marley: It's good to be heckling again.

Robert Marley: It's good to be doing anything again.

Robert Marley: You will be haunted by three spirits.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Haunted? I've already had enough of that.

Jacob Marley: Without these visits, you cannot hope to avoid the path we tread.

Robert Marley: Expect the first ghost tonight, when the bell tolls one!

Ebenezer Scrooge: Can't I meet them all at once and get it over with?

Fozziwig: At this time in the proceedings, it is a tradition for me to make a little speech.

Jacob Marley: And it's a tradition for us to take a little nap!

Robert Marley: Look, it's Ebeneezer Scrooge!

Jacob Marley: Looking older and more wicked than ever.

Robert Marley: I knew he wouldn't disappoint us!

Jacob Marley: I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my own free will and by my own free will, I wore it!

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were an honest man of business!

Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!

Ebenezer: Who are you?

Jacob Marley: Ask me who I was.

Ebenezer: All right, all right, who WERE you then?

Jacob Marley: In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley.

Ebenezer: Well, in that case, CAN you sit down?

Jacob Marley: I can.

Ebenezer: You have my sympathy.

Jacob Marley: Ah! You do not know the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself! It was as full and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah, it is a ponderous chain!

Jacob Marley: Look to see me no more. But look here, that you may remember for your own sake what has passed between us!

Ebenezer: Why do they lament?

Jacob Marley: They seek to interfere for good in human matters, and have lost their power forever.

Ebenezer: You see that toothpick?

Jacob Marley: I do.

Ebenezer: But you're not looking at it!

Jacob Marley: Yet I see it, notwithstanding.

Ebenezer: Well, then, I'll just swallow this and be tortured by a legion of hobgoblins, all of my own creation! It's all HUMBUG, I tell you, HUMBUG!

Jacob Marley: It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men! If it goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death! It is doomed to wander through the world! Oh, woe is me! And witness what it cannot share but MIGHT HAVE SHARED on Earth and turned to happiness!

Jacob Marley: In life, my spirit never rose beyond the limits of our money-changing holes! Now I am doomed to wander without rest or peace, incessant torture and remorse!

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob!

Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business! And it is at this time of the rolling year that I suffer most!

Ebenezer: What do you want with me?

Jacob Marley: Much.

Ebenezer: [as Marley lies on his death bed] Well, Jacob! Have they seen to you properly? Last rites and such?

[Marley nods]

Ebenezer: There's nothing i can do?

[Marley nods again]

Ebenezer: Oh? What, particularly?

Jacob Marley: [rasping] While... there's still time...

Ebenezer: Time? Time for what?

Jacob Marley: [rasping] Wrong... we were wrong.

Ebenezer: Wrong? Well, we can't be right all the time , can we? Nobody's perfect. You mustn't reproach yourself, Jacob. We've been no worse than the next man, or no better if it comes to that.

Jacob Marley: [rasping] Save... yourself.

Ebenezer: Save myself? Save myself from what?

[Marley breathes his last]

Ebenezer: Speak...!

[pauses as he realizes Marley is dead]