Lightfoot Quotes in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Melody: I didn't get your name.

Lightfoot: Well, I didn't give it to ya'. My name is Lightfoot.

Melody: "Lightfoot"?

Lightfoot: That's right.

Melody: That's a dumb name. I mean, what kind of person would name a kid that, ya' know?

Lightfoot: What's your name?

Melody: Melody.

Lightfoot: "Melody"? That's not a dumb name?... Hey, maybe we had the same father?

[Lightfoot is driving a truck and he sees a woman riding a motorcycle in shorts]

Lightfoot: Hey were did you get those pants?

[the woman pulls out a hammer, pounds the truck and rides off]

Lightfoot: You freak! I love you, come back!

Lightfoot: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. That sounds like something.

Lightfoot: Hey. You stick with me kid. Your gonna live forever.

John "Thunderbolt" Doherty: What's your name boy?

Lightfoot: Lightfoot

John "Thunderbolt" Doherty: You Indian?

Lightfoot: Nope. Just American.

Lightfoot: [Hitchhiking: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot have accepted a ride from a crazy driver with a mess of a car] This guy another friend of yours?

John Doherty: Slightly advanced, isn't he?

John Doherty: [Exhaust fumes start billowing up in the back seating area] Hey, what's wrong with this wreck? We're gettin' gassed back here!

Lightfoot: This guy's a basket case. He's got the exhaust pipe in here.

Red Leary: [Lightfoot shows up with the van, newly dented by the girl on the motorcycle] Where'd you get the dents?

Lightfoot: [Nonchalantly] Progress. I dreamt about you last night.

Red Leary: What about?

Lightfoot: I dreamt you said hello to me.

Red Leary: Don't you get smart with me. I'll break both your arms.

Lightfoot: I'll keep that in mind.

Red Leary: Remember what I said. John and me go back a long way. But you don't mean nothin' to me, understand? Nothin'!

Lightfoot: What'd you try and kill him for then?

Red Leary: Because we were friends.

Lightfoot: You ain't no country preacher, Preacher.

John Doherty: You don't look so good, kid.

Lightfoot: I believe you're right.

Lightfoot: [John Doherty, aka Thunderbolt, dressed in preacher's garb, has jumped into Lightfoot's stolen Trans-Am] I thought you were the heat.

John Doherty: Do I look like heat?

Lightfoot: You look like one crazy sonofabitch for a preacher, I'll tell ya' that.

Lightfoot: Howdy. How's business?

Station Attendant: In this business, you're always one step away from bankruptcy. Funny money, credit, speculation... Somewhere in this country's a little ol' lady with $79.25. The five cents is a buffalo nickel... If she cashes in her investment, whole thing'll collapse. General Motors, the Pentagon, the two-party system and the whole shebang... We're all running downhill. Gotta' keep running faster or we'll fall down.

Lightfoot: How you feelin' today, preacher?

John Doherty: [Reciting a line of poetry] The clock uncoils the working day, and he wakes up feeling his youth has gone away.

Lightfoot: Now what the hell is that? A prayer?

John Doherty: A poem.

Lightfoot: [In a mocking tone] A poem?

John Doherty: Poetry.

Lightfoot: Ah. You stick with me, kid. You can live forever.

Lightfoot: A man can do whatever he sets his mind to. Now, me, I wanna' walk in and buy a white Cadillac convertible. Actually walk in and buy it, cash.

John Doherty: You might set your mind to gettin' us a lift. This walkin' is tough on my bad leg.

John Doherty: In small-town banks, they leave the telephone off the hook in the vault at night so the local operator can listen in.

Lightfoot: People walk into these banks with paper sacks, fill 'em with money and walk out. Anybody can do it.

John Doherty: Bullshit. The newest bank vaults have walls of reinforced concrete five feet thick, backed by six inches of steel. The vault door is stainless steel-faced. It's an inch and a half of cast steel, another 12 inches of burn-resisting steel, and another inch and a half of open-hearthed steel... A vault door has 20 bolts, each an inch in diameter. Eight on each side, two top and two bottom. This holds the door into a 16-inch steel jamb set in 18 inches of concrete. It's crosshatched by steel bars running both vertical and horizontal. This door is precision-made so you can't pour nitro between the door and the vault. If that isn't enough, there's microphones, electric eyes, pressure-sensitive mats, vibration detectors, tear gas, and even thermostats that detect the slightest rise in temperature. Still interested in banks?

Lightfoot: I *knew* you weren't a preacher!

Lightfoot: [Asking about a former heist in which Thunderbolt played a role] Montana Armored? How did you get into the vault?

John Doherty: 20mm cannon with armor-piercing shells. Wasn't too hard.

Lightfoot: [Repeated line] In for a penny, in for a pound.

Lightfoot: [Final lines] You know... you know somethin'? I don't think of us as criminals, you know? I feel we accomplished something. A good job. I feel proud of myself, man. I feel like a hero.

John Doherty: Are you all right, kid? You don't look too well.

Lightfoot: I believe you're right.

[Slumps over]

John Doherty: Lightfoot!

Lightfoot: So why did you try to kill him then?

Red Leary: Because we were friends.

Red Leary: Does he know everything?

[At the same time]

John Doherty: No.

Lightfoot: Yes.

Lightfoot: [Eyeing the clothes in the back of the car they've just stolen] Hey, look at this, man. It's like they got a whole department store back here. I like that.

John Doherty: Yeah... Those clothes and your mouth, you could be a big man.

John Doherty: Hey, why don't you take this watch, huh? I want you to have it.

Lightfoot: I don't want your watch, man... I want your friendship!

Lightfoot: [Repeated line] Red-haired women are bad luck.

Lightfoot: Thunderbolt! Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. That sounds like somethin'.

John Doherty: You're forgetting I'm a lot older than you.

Lightfoot: There are plenty of guys twice my age who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

John Doherty: I won't fault you there.

Lightfoot: [Arriving at the site of what was supposed to be the old schoolhouse, now replaced with a modern new school] Are you sure this is the spot?

John Doherty: Yeah.

Lightfoot: What? I didn't hear what you said.

John Doherty: I said, yeah, this is it.

Lightfoot: Well, what happened to it?

John Doherty: I don't know... Progress.

Lightfoot: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

John Doherty: Where do you pick up these pearls of wisdom?

Lightfoot: Books.

Red Leary: [Mockingly] You mean you can actually read?

Lightfoot: I read *you* loud and clear.

Red Leary: You better believe it.

Lightfoot: [Expressing reservations about his role in the upcoming heist] Look, I don't know if I can pull this thing off. How do I know what to do?

John Doherty: What's the matter? The job too tough for ya'?

John Doherty: Seems there was another hook-up after all.

Lightfoot: Everything I did was for nothing?

John Doherty: Seems that way, doesn't it?

John Doherty: What happened to Goody?

Red Leary: I threw that little sucker out.

Lightfoot: You prick!

Red Leary: [Knocks Lightfoot to the ground and kicks him savagely] Say somethin' funny now, smart-ass!

Lightfoot: Give me my five dollars. If you get shot tonight, I'll disappear. Oh, I'll come back and bury you... and mumble something Christian over your grave.

J.D. Cahill: Lightfoot, your kindness overwhelms me.

J.D. Cahill: Lightfoot, Amy and me tried for a lot of years to have children... but maybe they came along too late in my life.

Lightfoot: J.D.?

J.D. Cahill: Yeah?

Lightfoot: There ain't nothing too late... if you love it.

J.D. Cahill: Does it hurt?

Lightfoot: Are you asking me as an Indian or a white man?

J.D. Cahill: Both.

Lightfoot: As an Indian, I don't feel a thing. As a white man, it hurts like hell.