John Hancock Quotes in Hancock (2008)

John Hancock: All of you people, blocking the intersection, you're all idiots.

Rail Crossing Crowd #1: You're the one that threw the dude's car at her. And what's with the train?

Rail Crossing Crowd #2: Why didn't you just go straight up in the air with the car? You've obviously injured that poor woman.

Rail Crossing Crowd #3: She's right. She should sue you.

John Hancock: Okay. Well, you should sue McDonald's, 'cause they fucked you up.

John Hancock: [to pinned-down cop] Good job! Do I have permission to touch your body?

Female Cop: Yes!

John Hancock: It's not sexual. Not that you're not an attractive woman. You're actually a very attractive woman and...

Female Cop: [screaming] Get me the hell out of here!

Boy at Bus Stop: [hits Hancock, passed out on bench] Hancock!

John Hancock: [slowly wakes up] What, boy?

Boy at Bus Stop: [points to TV screens] Bad guys.

[pause]

John Hancock: What you want, a cookie? Get the hell out my face.

Boy at Bus Stop: Asshole.

John Hancock: What?

Boy at Bus Stop: You heard me.

Rail Crossing Crowd #2: And I can smell that liquor on your breath!

John Hancock: 'Cause I been drinking, bitch!

[repeated line]

John Hancock: Call me an asshole one more time.

Michel: Asshole.

John Hancock: [leans in close to Michel] Call me a asshole one more time.

Michel: Assho...

John Hancock: [launches Michel into the sky; turns to chubby kid] How about you, Thickness?

[chubby kid shakes his head; turns to kid with glasses]

John Hancock: Goggles?

[kid with glasses shakes his head]

John Hancock: [comes flying in a leather suit and the police men are looking at him] What? It's a little tight.

John Hancock: I'm concerned over the continued absence of 1/13th of this Congress. Where is New Jersey?

John Dickinson: Somewhere between New York and Pennsylvania.

Lewis Morris: [as John Hancock is about to swat a fly] Mr. Secretary, New York abstains, courteously.

[Hancock raises his fly swatter at Morris, then draws back]

John Hancock: Mr. Morris,

[pause, then shouts]

John Hancock: WHAT IN HELL GOES ON IN NEW YORK?

Lewis Morris: I'm sorry Mr. President, but the simple fact is that our legislature has never sent us explicit instructions on anything!

John Hancock: NEVER?

[slams fly swatter onto his desk]

John Hancock: That's impossible!

Lewis Morris: Mr. President, have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature?

[Hancock shakes his head "No"]

Lewis Morris: They speak very fast and very loud, and nobody listens to anybody else, with the result that nothing ever gets done.

[turns to the Congress as he returns to his seat]

Lewis Morris: I beg the Congress's pardon.

John Hancock: [grimly] My sympathies, Mr. Morris.

[Dickinson wants "tyrant" removed from the Declaration]

Thomas Jefferson: Just a moment, Mr. Thomson. I do not consent. The king is a tyrant whether we say so or not. We might as well say so.

Charles Thomson: But I already scratched it out.

Thomas Jefferson: Then scratch it back in!

John Hancock: Put it back, Mr. Thomson. The King will remain a tyrant.

John Hancock: The principles of independence have no greater advocate in Congress than its president. And that is why I must join those who vote for unanimity.

John Adams: Good God, John! What are you doing? You've sunk us!

John Hancock: Now, hear me out! Don't you see that any colony who opposes independence will be forced to fight on the side of England? That we'll be setting brother against brother. That our new nation will carry as its emblem the mark of Cain. I can see no other way. Either we all walk together, or together we must stay where we are.

John Adams: [throwing up his arm in frustration] The man's from Massachusetts.

John Hancock: I'm still from Massachusetts, John. You know where I stand. I'll do whatever you say.

John Adams: No. No, you're the president of Congress. You're a fair man, Hancock. Stay that way.

John Dickinson: Mr. President, Pennsylvania moves, as always, that the question of independence be postponed. Indefinitely.

James Wilson: [standing up] I second the motion.

John Hancock: Judge Wilson, in your eagerness to be loved, you seem to have forgotten that Pennsylvania cannot second its own motion!

Charles Thomson: Rhode Island. Second call Rhode Island.

McNair: Rhode Island!

Hopkins: I'm coming, I'm coming, hold your damn horses.

Charles Thomson: We're waiting on you, Mr. Hopkins.

Hopkins: Well, it won't kill you. You'd think the Congress would have its own privy. All right, where's she stand?

Charles Thomson: Five for debate, five for postponement, one abstention and one absence.

Hopkins: So it's up to me, huh? Well, I'll tell you, in all my years, I never seen, heard, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about. Hell yes, I'm for debating anything! Rhode Island says yea.

[Indistinguishable cheers and shouts]

John Hancock: McNair, get Mr. Hopkins a rum.

McNair: But you said...

John Hancock: Get him a whole damned barrel if he wants.

Roger Sherman: [Sherman stands up] Brother Dickinson, New England has been fighting the Devil for more than 100 years.

John Dickinson: And as of now, *Brother Sherman*, the Devil has been winning hands down.

John Dickinson: [the delegates murmur] Why, at this very moment, he's sitting right here, in this Congress. Don't let him deceive you, this proposal is entirely his doing! Oh, it may bear Virginia's name, but it reeks of Adams, Adams, and more Adams. Look at him, ready to lead this continent down the fiery path of total destruction!

John Adams: [Adams stands up] Oh, good God! Why can't you acknowledge what already exists? It has been more than a year since Concord and Lexington! Damn it, man, we're at war! Right now...

John Dickinson: *You* may be at war - you, Boston and John Adams, but you will never speak for Pennsylvania!

George Read: [Read stands up] Nor for Delaware!

Caesar Rodney: [Caesar Rodney stands] Mr. Read, you represent only one third of Delaware!

George Read: The sensible third, Mr. Rodney!

Col. Thomas McKean: Sit down, you scurvy dog, or I'll knock you down!

John Hancock: [Hancock bangs his gavel on the desk] Sit down, all three of you!

John Hancock: [Hancock hits the desk with his gavel] A resolve, that these united colonies are, and have a right ought to be, free and independent...

Rev. John Witherspoon: [Witherspoon knocks on the door and opens it] Excuse me, is- is this the Continental Congress? Well, yes, I- I can see that it must be.

Rev. John Witherspoon: [to the New Jersey delegates off-screen] It's all right, we've found it!

Rev. John Witherspoon: [the delegates enter] We've been looking for you everywhere, you see. Someone told us that you might be at Carpenter's Hall, and someone else suggested Library Hall, and so finally, we asked a constable.

John Hancock: Excuse me, sir, but, um... if you don't mind, the, uh... Congress is about to decide the question of American independence.

Rev. John Witherspoon: Oh, how splendid, that means we're not too late. Oh, these gentlemen are Mr. Francis Hopkinson, Dr. Richard Stockton, and I am the Reverend John Witherspoon.

[the Continental Congress is silent]

Rev. John Witherspoon: We're the new delegates from New Jersey.

[the Continental Congress greets them enthusiastically]

John Hancock: [the courier enters Independence Hall with a report from Washington; Thomson rings a bell to call the delegates to order] From the Commander, Army of the United Colonies, New York, dispatch number 1,137...

McNair: Aw, sweet Jesus!

John Hancock: [Hancock resumes reading] The honorable Congress, John Hancock president. "Dear Sirs: It is with great apprehension that I have learned this day of the sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, of a considerable force of British troops in the company of foreign mercenaries and under the command of General Sir William Howe. There can be no doubt that their destination is New York; for to take and hold this city and the Hudson Valley beyond would seriously separate New England from the rest of the colonies, permitting both sections to be crushed in turn. Sadly, I see no way of stopping them at the present time, as my army's absolutely falling apart. My military chest is totally exhausted. My commissary general has strained his credit to the last. My quartermaster has no food, no arms, no ammunition, and my troops are in a state of near mutiny. I pray God some relief arrives before the Armada but fear it will not. Your obedient..."

John Hancock: [drumroll] "G. Washington."

McNair: [bangs his desk and stands up] Mister President!

John Hancock: Colonel McKean.

Col. Thomas McKean: Sure, we have managed to promote the gloomiest man on this continent to the head of our troops. Those dispatches are the most depr-ressing accumulation of disaster, doom, and despair in the entire annals of human history!

John Hancock: [Hancock hits his desk with the gavel] Colonel McKean, please!

Col. Thomas McKean: What?

John Hancock: It's too hot.

Col. Thomas McKean: Okay, I suppose so.

John Hancock: [McKean sits down] General Washington will continue wording his dispatches as he sees fit; and I'm sure we he finds happier thoughts to convey in the near... future.