Joe Banks Quotes in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)

Joe Banks: Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life.

Joe Banks: What's that? A teddy bear?

Waponi Chief: It's my soul.

Joe Banks: Oh, I hope you don't lose it.

Waponi Chief: Me too.

Marshall: They just pay me to drive the limo, sir. I'm not here to tell you who you are.

Joe Banks: I didn't ask you to tell me who I am.

Marshall: You were hinting around about clothes. That happens to be a very important topic to me, sir. Clothes, Mr...

Joe Banks: Banks.

Marshall: Banks. Clothes make the man. I believe that. You say to me you want to go shopping, you want to buy clothes, but you don't know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I'm going to fill in the blank, that to me is like asking me who you are, and I don't know who you are, I don't want to know. It's taken me my whole life to find out who I am, and I'm tired now, you hear what I'm saying?

Waponi Chief: Do you want to marry him?

Patricia: Yes.

Waponi Chief: Do you want to marry her?

Joe Banks: Yes.

Waponi Chief: Good. You're married.

Joe Banks: [shaking the Chief's hand] Thank you, Chief.

Patricia: Thank you, Chief.

Waponi Chief: I'm going now.

Angelica: Would you like to hear one of my poems?

Joe Banks: Sure.

Angelica: Long ago, the delicate tangles of his hair... covered the emptiness of my hand... Would you like to hear it again?

Joe Banks: Ok.

Angelica: Long ago, the delicate tangles of his hair... covered the emptiness of my hand.

Joe Banks: I have less than six months to live. The Waponis believe they need a human sacrifice or their island is going to sink into the ocean. They have this mineral your father wants so he hired me to leap into their volcano.

Patricia: What?

Joe Banks: You're not going to make me say that again, are you?

Joe Banks: You look terrible, Mr. Waturi. You look like a bag of shit stuffed in a cheap suit. Not that anyone could look good under these zombie lights. I, I, I, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeball. Suck, suck, suck, SUCK...

[makes a sucking noise]

Joe Banks: For 300 bucks a week, that's the news. For 300 bucks a week, I've lived in this sink, this used rubber.

Mr. Waturi: You watch it, mister! There's a woman here!

Joe Banks: [shouting] Don't you think I know that, Frank? Don't you think I am aware there is a woman here? I can smell her, like, like a flower. I can taste her, like sugar on my tongue. When I'm 20 feet away I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair!

[Joe is about to jump into the volcano]

Patricia: I love you!

Joe Banks: I love you, too! I've never been in love with anybody before, either! It's great! I'm glad! But the timing stinks.

[kisses her on the cheek]

Joe Banks: I've gotta go.

Luggage Salesman: Have you thought much about luggage, Mr. Banks?

Joe Banks: No.

Luggage Salesman: It's the central preoccupation of my life.

Luggage Salesman: This is our premier steamer trunk, it's all handmade, only the finest materials. It's even watertight, tight as a drum. If I had the need, and the wherewithal, Mr. Banks, this would be my trunk of choice.

Joe Banks: I'll take four of them.

Luggage Salesman: May you live to be a thousand years old, sir.

Angelica: So, what did you do before you signed on with Daddy?

Joe Banks: I was an advertising librarian for a medical supply company.

Angelica: Oh, I have no response to that.

Dr. Ellison: And what did you do in the fire department?

Joe Banks: Well... I put out fires.

Joe Banks: And why, I ask myself, why have I put up with you? I can't imagine, but now I know. Fear. Yellow freakin' fear. I've been too chicken shit afraid to live my life so I sold it to you for three hundred freakin' dollars a week!

Joe Banks: I still have a problem. I have a brain cloud.

Patricia: A brain cloud... what is a brain cloud?

Joe Banks: It's - well, maybe I should get a second opinion.

Patricia: You didn't get a second opinion on something called a brain cloud? I mean what are you, a hypochondriac?

Joe Banks: And Frank, the coffee. It stinks. It tastes like arsenic. These lights give me a headache; if they don't give you a headache, you must be dead, so let's arrange the funeral!

Patricia: I wonder where we'll end up?

Joe Banks: Away from the things of man, my love. Away from the things of man.

Marshall: What kinda clothes do you got now?

Joe Banks: Well, I got the kinda clothes I'm wearing.

Marshall: So you got no clothes.

[Joe and Marshall are both wearing Armani tuxedos]

Joe Banks: Feel like I'm getting married.

Marshall: I feel like I'm giving you away.

Joe Banks: I've never been to L.A. before.

Angelica: What do you think?

Joe Banks: It looks fake. I like it!

Patricia: That outfit's wearing you, Felix.

Joe Banks: Why are you calling me Felix. My name is Joe.

Patricia: I am calling you Felix because I do what I want.

Joe Banks: And then I'll be staying on a tiny island and I don't know if I'll be living in a hut, or what.

Luggage Salesman: Very exciting... as a luggage problem!

Joe Banks: I bribed them to sing a song that would drive us insane and make our hearts swell and burst.

Angelica: You must be tired.

Joe Banks: I don't mind talking.

Angelica: Well, I do! This is one of those typical conversations where we're all open and sharing our innermost thoughts and it's all bullshit and a lie and it doesn't cost *you* anything!

Joe Banks: What's the matter?

Angelica: Did you ever think about killing yourself?

Joe Banks: What... Why would you do that?

Angelica: Why shouldn't I?

Joe Banks: Because some things take care of themselves. They're not your job; maybe they're not even your business.

Joe Banks: I saw the moon when we where out there on the ocean. Shinning down on everything. I've been miserable for so long. Years of my life wasted. For you. Been a long time comin' here to met you. A long time, on a crooked road.

Joe Banks: So I'm not sick? Except for this terminal disease?

Joe Banks: I tell you one thing, though. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we're gonna take this luggage with us!

Joe Banks: Marshall?

Marshall: Yeah.

Joe Banks: I was wondering if you'd have dinner with me tonight.

Marshall: I can't do that; I got the wife and kids at the end of the day.

Joe Banks: Yeah...

Marshall: Listen, ain't you got nobody?

Joe Banks: No. But there are certain times in your life when I guess you're not supposed to have anybody, you know? There are certain doors you have to go through alone.

Marshall: ...You're gonna be all right.

DeDe: Hi Joe, what's with the shoe?

Joe Banks: I'm losing my sole.

DeDe: Yeah.

Joe Banks: Who am I? That's the real question, isn't it? Who-who am I? Who are you! What other questions are there? What other questions are there, really! You want to understand the universe? Embrace the universe. The door to the universe is you.

Joe Banks: [shouting] Take me... to... the volcano!

Joe Banks: So, what are we hoping for here?

Patricia: A miracle.

Samuel Harvey Graynamore: You got any whiskey?

Joe Banks: No.

Samuel Harvey Graynamore: I want to hire you Joe Banks. I want to hire you - to jump into a volcano.

Joe Banks: Eh - you don't - I do have some whiskey.

Samuel Harvey Graynamore: There's an island in the South Pacific called Waponi Woo. The name means little island with a big volcano. Now, the Waponis are a cheerful people who live a simple existence, fishing in the lagoon, picking fruit. Their one fear is that big volcano. They call it the big Woo. They believe, that an angry fire god in the volcano will sink the island! Unless, once every 100 years he is appeased. It's been 99 years, 11 months and 11 days since the fire god got his propers and the Waponis are scared!

Joe Banks: How is the god appeased?

Samuel Harvey Graynamore: Of his own free will, a man's got to jump into the volcano.

Marshall: Where to? Back to Staten Island?

Joe Banks: No, no. Ah, a really nice hotel. The Plaza.

Marshall: The Plaza's nice.

Joe Banks: Well, where would you go?

Marshall: I'd go to The Pierre.

Joe Banks: Then, we are off to The Pierre.

Joe Banks: Where do you get your ideas?

Angelica: You have to understand something about art. It comes from someplace.

Joe Banks: Looks a little weird today, huh?

Dagmar: There's a typhoon warning. Good morning, Mr. Banks.

Joe Banks: Good morning, Dagmar.

Dagmar: Looks like we're in for a blow.

Patricia: I wonder where we'll end up?

Joe Banks: Fell away from the things of man, Noah. Away from the things of man.