John Mason Quotes in The Rock (1996)

John Mason: [while on the stairs leading to the prison morgue] Are you sure you're ready for this?

Stanley Goodspeed: I'll do my best.

John Mason: Your "best"! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.

Stanley Goodspeed: Carla was the prom queen.

John Mason: Really?

Stanley Goodspeed: [cocks his gun] Yeah.

General Hummel: Did they bother to tell you who I am and why I'm doing this or are they just using you like they do everybody else?

John Mason: All I know is that you were big in Vietnam, I saw the highlights on television.

General Hummel: Then you probably have no idea what it means to lead some of the finest men on God's earth into combat and then watch their memories get betrayed by their own fucking government.

John Mason: I don't quite see how you cherish the memory of the dead by killing another million. And, this is not combat, it's an act of lunacy, General Sir. Personally, I think you're a fucking idiot.

General Hummel: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.

John Mason: "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious," according to Oscar Wilde.

[Hummel strikes him, and he falls to his knees]

John Mason: Thank you for making my point.

General Hummel: Where are the guidance chips?

[Points his gun at Mason's head]

General Hummel: WHERE ARE THE GUIDANCE CHIPS?

John Mason: I've destroyed them.

General Hummel: That was a bad move, soldier.

[after Mason has killed a Marine, the corpse's foot twitches]

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in the prison morgue] You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?

John Mason: What, the feet thing?

Stanley Goodspeed: Yeah, the feet thing.

John Mason: Yeah, it happens.

Stanley Goodspeed: Well I'm having a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it?

John Mason: Like what, kill him again?

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in the tunnels underneath Alcatraz] You enjoying this?

John Mason: Well, it's certainly more enjoyable than my average day... reading philosophy, avoiding gang rape in the washrooms... though, it's less of a problem these days. Maybe I'm losing my sex appeal.

John Mason: [in the interrogation room] I want a suite, a shower, a shave, the feel of a suit.

Stanley Goodspeed: May I also suggest a haircut?

John Mason: Am I out of style?

Stanley Goodspeed: Unless you're a 20 year old guitarist from Seattle. It's a grunge thing.

FBI Director Womack: Just clippers, no scissors.

Paul the Hotel Barber: No scissors, you've got to be kidding me, no scissors. I mean, did they tell Picasso "no brush"?

FBI Director Womack: With scissors, this man could kill you.

John Mason: I can't cut off anyone's balls with a trimmer, now can I? Why don't we do this outside? Get some sun.

John Mason: Womack! Why am I not surprised, you piece of shit!

John Mason: [Mason and Goodspeed are defusing a poison gas rocket in the prison morgue] What exactly does this stuff do?

Stanley Goodspeed: If the rocket renders it aerosol, it could take out the entire city of people.

John Mason: Really? And what happens if you drop one?

Stanley Goodspeed: Happily, it'd just wipe out you and me.

John Mason: How?

Stanley Goodspeed: It's a cholinesterase inhibitor. Stops the brain from sending nerve messages down the spinal cord within thirty seconds. Any epidermal exposure or inhalation and you'll know. A twinge at the small of your back as the poison seizes your nervous system...

Stanley Goodspeed: [Mason has lifted the chem round to look at it] DO NOT MOVE THAT! Your muscles freeze, you can't breathe, you spasm so hard you break your own back and spit your guts out. But that's after your skin melts off.

John Mason: My God...

Stanley Goodspeed: Oh, I think we'd like God on our side at the moment, don't you?

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in a cell on Alcatraz] Why didn't you just tell them were the microfilm was and create a solution?

John Mason: The moment they had the microfilm, they'd suicide me. Some solution.

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in a cell on Alcatraz] "I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy. I'd take pleasure in guttin' you... boy." What is wrong with these people, huh? Mason? Don't you think there's a lot of, uh, a lot of anger flowing around this island? Kind of a pubescent volatility? Don't you think? A lotta angst, a lot of "I'm sixteen, I'm angry at my father" syndrome? I mean grow up! We're stuck on an island with a bunch of violence-for-pleasure-seeking psycophatic marines, SHAME-ON-THEM!

[clears throat]

Stanley Goodspeed: Anyway, I only got one chem round, and there's two left... Mason?

John Mason: Yes, I'm here. I was just thinking how wonderful it was when the inmates weren't allowed to talk in here.

Agent Paxton: [in the interrogation room] Mr. Mason, I'm Special Agent-in-Charge Ernest Paxton.

John Mason: In charge of what? Fucking me over for another three decades?

Agent Paxton: I don't know anything about your previous matters. We've brought you here because there's a situation that we think you can help us with.

John Mason: And what might that be? I've been in jail longer than Nelson Mandela, so maybe you want me to run for president.

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in a cell on Alcatraz] You broke out, let me see if I can get this straight, down the incinerator chute, on the mine car, through the tunnels to the power plant, under the steam engine - that was really cool by the way - and into the cistern through the intake pipe. But how, in the name of Zeus' BUTTHOLE!... did you get out of your cell? I only ask because in our current situation, well, it could prove to be useful information. *Maybe*!

[Mason does not answer, but opens up his prison door with an improvised tool]

Stanley Goodspeed: [Goodspeed hears noise from Mason's door opening] Mason?

[to Goodspeed's surprise, his own door suddenly opens]

John Mason: Trade secrets, my son.

John Mason: [in the interrogation room] Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

Stanley Goodspeed: "I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts."

John Mason: Ah, an educated man.

[Stanley gives a modest wave]

John Mason: That, of course, rules out the possibility of you being a field agent.

Stanley Goodspeed: [upon entering the interrogation room] Hi, I'm an agent with the federal... FBI... Well, my, I'm Stanley Goodspeed.

John Mason: But of course you are.

Agent Paxton: Well, at least he got his name right.

Stanley Goodspeed: Of course I am.

John Mason: And you have an emergency.

Stanley Goodspeed: Right.

John Mason: And you need my help.

Stanley Goodspeed: Exactly right.

John Mason: Coffee.

Stanley Goodspeed: No, I'm fine, thank you.

John Mason: Offer me coffee.

John Mason: I'm sure all this will make a great bed time story to tell your kid.

Stanley Goodspeed: You're insane, Mason. The kid'll have nightmares. I'll spend all my money on shrinks.

[about killing]

Stanley Goodspeed: How do you... do it?

John Mason: I was trained by the best. British intelligence. But in retrospect I would rather have been a poet. Or a farmer.

Stanley Goodspeed: Okay.

John Mason: [to Stanley] When all this is over, you'll go back home driving Carla and your baby insane in your beige Volvo. And I'll be dead, or back in prison which is the same thing.

John Mason: [while walking in the Palace of Fine Arts] your mother, well... she was very special.

Jade Angelou: Yes, she was. But I don't think that we should romanticize what happened between you and her. Meeting in a bar after a Led Zeppelin concert, ya know? And I was the result.

John Mason: Well, I'd like to think it would have led somewhere if only...

Jade Angelou: If only what? Six federal marshals hadn't kicked down her door and dragged you back to prison?

John Mason: [to the Navy Seals, after opening a locked door from the inside] Welcome to the Rock.

Stanley Goodspeed: Mason, you all right?

John Mason: [hanging upside down] Yes. Perfectly okay, you fucking idiot.

Hotel Barber: Oh, who did this to you? This is just not right. In fact, it's nasty...

John Mason: It's a "grunge thing".

John Mason: [in the interrogation room] The Rock has become a tourist attraction?

Stanley Goodspeed: [while in the prisoner transport van] Hi, darling, it's me. Listen, do not come, I repeat, do not come to San Francisco.

Carla: [Answers the phone] Stanley, no.

Stanley Goodspeed: Carla...

Carla: Like hell I'm not comin'!

[Hangs up]

Stanley Goodspeed: Wait, Carla...

[tries to dial again]

John Mason: Who's Carla, and why don't you want her to come to San Francisco?

Stanley Goodspeed: You're on a need-to-know basis... and you do'nt need to know.

John Mason: [to Stanley] I'm fed up saving your ass. I'm amazed you ever got past puberty.

John Mason: [to Hummel] I have a unique knowledge of this prison facility. I was formerly a guest here.

Stanley Goodspeed: [yelling to Mason] You're not leaving! There's a madman in there with his hand on a... ON A BUTTON!

John Mason: Shh!

[to himself]

John Mason: Some sniper's gonna get his ass.

John Mason: [to his daughter while walking in the Palace of Fine Arts] You know... you're almost the only evidence that I exist.

[John and Jade's conversation is interrupted by police cars converging on the Palace of Fine Arts, Jade backs away from John]

Jade Angelou: Is this about you? You broke out of prison again, didn't you?

[John gropes for a response]

Jade Angelou: Why did you come to me?

Stanley Goodspeed: [appears, showing his badge] FBI, ma'am. Your father's working with us. He's helping us to resolve a dangerous situation.

Jade Angelou: He is?

Stanley Goodspeed: Yes, ma'am. Well, gee whiz, John, I guess we'd better get going, don't you?

John Mason: Whatever you say, Stanley.

[He clasps hands with Jade, then leaves with Stanley]

John Mason: Thank you for that. You could have handled it differently.

Stanley Goodspeed: What do you say we cut the chit-chat, a-hole? You almost got me killed twice! And my jaw hurts like hell.

John Mason: ...Good.

John Mason: In my day, we did it all with a snorkel and a pair of flippers.

Stanley Goodspeed: How'd you do it?

John Mason: Nurtured the hope that there was hope. That one day I'd breathe free air. Perhaps meet my daughter. Modest hopes, but they kept a man alive.

John Mason: [over the car phone] I'm only borrowing your Hum-Vee!

John Mason: [to Stanley] Forget Maui.

Stanley Goodspeed: You're shooting too close to the rocket! Him, but not the rocket!

John Mason: Any other news, professor?

John Mason: [in the interrogation room] You must see a certain pattern emerging here... Alexander Solzenhitsyn...

Agent Paxton: Yeah, I heard of him. Didn't he play hockey for the fucking Red Wings?

John Mason: That's the chap.

John Mason: [as they are escaping] Hummel won't do it, he's a soldier not a murderer. I read it in his eyes.

Stanley Goodspeed: You read it in his eyes? I'm sorry, but that's not a chance I can afford to take!

John Mason: Okay, then talk louder.

Joe Ryan: Benedict, just why are you back in town? And what are you trying to pull, up at the Mary-Ann?

Benedict: No one's been near that worthless mine for years

Joe Ryan: I'm not so sure it's worthless. You ain't hanging on here for nothing.

Benedict: Joe Ryan, your father was a bad man in this town. What are you trying to do - live up to his record?

Joe Ryan: Listen to me you old carcass, there's plenty of gold in that mine somewhere, and half of it belongs to me. And I've got a deed right here to prove it.

Benedict: Yes, and I got a pretty good idea how you got it

Joe Ryan: Why you old...

[he grabs Benedict as if to strike him]

John Mason: Just a minute...

Joe Ryan: And who invited you into this game?

John Mason: Looked to me like someone was getting a dirty deal. Just thought I'd cut in.

Joe Ryan: Cutting in here ain't the healthiest thing you could do.

John Mason: Well, I'll take that chance. You boys better get moving.

John Mason: [responding to a threat from Ben] You and whose army?

John Mason: You must be the joker in the deck.

Ben McClure: Well, one things for certain. I ain't the queen.

John Mason: Well, I'm not so sure. You're acting like an old woman.