Mendoza Quotes in In the Line of Fire (1993)

Mendoza: [as Al is tied up and gagged on his boat] What do you think I ought to do here, Frank?

Frank Horrigan: Make sure the body doesn't wash up on shore.

Mendoza: I want you to pop him for me, ok? See I think maybe you're with him.

Frank Horrigan: Look, you came to me remember?

Mendoza: So pop him, show me I'm an asshole.

Frank Horrigan: I'm just a business man.

Mendoza: So pop him. And let's do some business.

Mendoza: Until your dying day I will be grateful.

[draws cutlass]

Mendoza: I regret to inform you, *this* is your dying day!

Mendoza: I pledge on the soul of my madre to catch you, Silver, and when I do the death you face will make men's blood run cold for a hundred years.

Mendoza: Though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth and love is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. But now abideth faith, hope, love... these three. But the greatest of these is love.

Mendoza: For me there is no redemption, no penance great enough.

Gabriel: There is. But do you dare to try it?

Mendoza: Do you dare to see it fail?

Mendoza: Are you laughing at me?

Gabriel: I am laughing because what I see is laughable. I see a coward, a man running from the world.

Gabriel: So you're hunting above the falls now, Captain Mendoza?

[pauses]

Gabriel: We're building a mission here. We're going to make Christians of these people!

Mendoza: If you have the time.

Mendoza: Father, I've come to ask you to bless me.

Gabriel: No. If you're right, you'll have God's blessing. If you're wrong, my blessing won't mean anything.

Mendoza: Leave me alone. You know what I am.

Gabriel: Yes. You are a mercenary. You are a slave trader. And you killed your brother. I know. And you loved him... although you chose a strange way to show it.

Mendoza: I want to renounce my vows of obedience.

Gabriel: Get out.

Mendoza: I want to explain...

Gabriel: Get out, Rodrigo. I won't listen to you.

[pause]

Gabriel: Just you?

Mendoza: No, it's Ralph and John too.

Gabriel: What do you want captain, an honorable death?

Mendoza: They want to live, Father. They say that God has left them, He's deserted them. Has He?

Gabriel: You shouldn't have become a priest.

Mendoza: But I am a priest, and they need me.

Gabriel: Then help them as a priest! If you die with blood on your hands, Rodrigo, you betray everything we've done. You promised your life to God. And God is love!

Cabeza: I cannot and will not accept a challenge from a priest. His cloth protects him.

Mendoza: My cloth protects *you*!

Gabriel: So, you're hunting above the falls now, Captain Mendoza? We're building a mission here! We're gonna make Christians of these people.

Mendoza: If you have the time.

Mendoza: For me, there is no redemption.

Gabriel: God gave us the burden of freedom. You chose your crime. Do you have the courage to choose your penance? Do you dare do that?

Mendoza: I'm sorry, I was trained as a mercenary, not as a cook.

Mendoza: Hey hombre, he don't even trust his mother. Why he gonna trust you?

Bernie LaPlante: Because I'm not his mother.

Sarchie: You see, Father, as we speak every day, out there, someone's getting hurt, ripped off, murdered, raped. Where's God when all that's happening? Hmm?

Mendoza: In the hearts of people like you, who put a stop to it. I mean, we can talk all night about the problem of evil, but what about the problem of good? I mean, if there's no God, if the world is just "survival of the fittest," then why are all the men in this room willing to lay down their lives for total strangers? Hmm?

Mendoza: [notices waitress]

Sarchie: So you're not all pedophiles, huh?

Mendoza: Any other stereotypes you want to hit while I'm here?

Sarchie: I've met a lot of priests. You don't seem the type.

Mendoza: And I've known a lot of cops, and you're exactly the type.

Mendoza: A saint is not a moral exemplar. A saint is a life-giver.

[last lines]

Mendoza: Ralph Sarchie, do you renounce Satan and all of his works?

Sarchie: I do renounce him. All his works, and all his ways. I renounce all evil.

Mendoza: Savior.

Torquemada: What are you doing here? Why don't you go torture some heretics!

Mendoza: He says the medals belong to him... he stole them himself.

Brett Stanton: Well, tell him the next time to steal something with some gold in it.