Teasle Quotes in First Blood (1982)

Trautman: I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.

Teasle: Well, we all appreciate your concern Colonel, I will try to be extra careful!

Trautman: I'm just amazed he allowed any of your posse to live.

Teasle: Is that right?

Trautman: Strictly speaking, he slipped up. You're lucky to be breathing.

Teasle: That's just great. Colonel, you came out here to find out why one of your machines blew a gasket!

Trautman: You don't seem to want to accept the fact you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam his job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill! Period! Win by attrition. Well Rambo was the best.

Teasle: Are you telling me that 200 of our men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?

Trautman: You send that many, don't forget one thing.

Teasle: What?

Trautman: A good supply of body bags.

Teasle: He was just another drifter who broke the law!

Trautman: Vagrancy wasn't it? That's gonna look real good on his grave stone in Arlington: Here lies John Rambo, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, survivor of countless incursions behind enemy lines. Killed for vagrancy in Jerkwater, USA.

Teasle: Now don't give me any of that crap Trautman. Do you think Rambo was the only guy who had a tough time in Vietnam? He killed a police officer for Christ's sake!

Trautman: You're goddamn lucky he didn't kill all of you.

Rambo: There's one man dead! It's not my *fault*! I don't want anymore hurt!

Teasle: Freeze! Stand right where you are! Give yourself up!

Rambo: But I didn't do anything!

Teasle: I'm warning you boy, don't make a move or I'll blow your head off!

Rambo: [shouts] I didn't do anything!

Deputy Lester: [referring to the mistreatment of Rambo] I was just talking to Mitch, and he said that Gault and a couple of the deputies were... a little hard on the guy.

State Police Capt. Dave Kern: Assholes!

Teasle: It doesn't make one goddamn bit of difference, Dave, and you know it! If one of my deputies... gets out of line with a prisoner then the prisoner comes to me with it. And if I find out it's like he says I kick the deputy's ass! *Me*! The *Law*! People start fucking around with the law then all hell breaks loose! Whatever possessed God in heaven to make a man like Rambo?

Trautman: God didn't make Rambo, I made him!

Teasle: They found Rambo's body. As a matter of fact, it stole an army truck. Blew up a gas station the other side of town.

Trautman: The kid is resiliant. Now why don't you forget what you're thinking and clear out while you can?

Teasle: [Teasle is giving Rambo a lift] So where you heading?

Rambo: Portland.

Teasle: Portland is south! You said you were heading north.

Rambo: You got some place I can eat around here?

Teasle: Theres a diner about thirty miles up the highway.

Rambo: Is there a law against me getting something to eat here?

Teasle: Yeah! ME!

Rambo: Why you pushing me?

Teasle: [haughty] What'd you say?

Rambo: I said why you pushing me? I haven't done anything to you.

Teasle: First of all, you don't ask the questions around here. I do. Understand! Second, we don't want guys like you in this town, drifters. Next thing we know, we got a whole *bunch* of guys like you in this town. THAT'S WHY! Besides, you wouldn't like it here anyway. It's just a quiet little town. In fact you might say it's BORING. But that's the way we like it. I get paid to keep it that way.

Rambo: Yeah, boring.

Trautman: [to Teasle, who is equipping himself for a final showdown with Rambo] You're going to die, Teasle.

Teasle: Everybody dies.

Trautman: You picked the wrong man to push.

Teasle: No, Trautman. HE picked the wrong man!

Trautman: That boy's a *heart attack*! He may be the best the Special Forces ever trained. Anything *you're* gonna throw at him, he's been through a hundred times worse! In WORSE places than this!

Deputy Mitch: Why don't you let the state police handle this?

Teasle: [Grabs Mitch by the neck] Look! Look at him. Look at him! That's Art Galt, boy. He and I were friends when your mama was still wiping your nose! Now he's dead. He's dead because of that psycho out there. Now you listen, boy, and you listen to me good. I'm gonna get that son of a bitch and I'm gonna pin that Congressional Medal of Honor to his liver. And I'm gonna do it with you or without you.

State Police Capt. Dave Kern: Why didn't you leave the kid alone in the first place?

Teasle: Dammit, Dave, you think this kid just waltzed into town, announced he was a Medal Of Honor winner, and then I just leaned on him for the hell of it? I tried to do him a favor, I treated him like he was one of my neighbor's kids. I did my job, Dave, I booked him for vagrancy and resisting arrest.

State Police Capt. Dave Kern: You seem pretty motivated on this one.

Teasle: Why don't you go out there and take a look at what's left of my men? You'll see how motivated I am, Dave, and if that doesn't do it for you why don't you go have a talk with Art Gault's widow?

State Police Capt. Dave Kern: All right, Will, I read you. Listen, I got twenty-five men I can bring up from Monroe.

Teasle: [calming down] All right Dave, I can use them. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

Teasle: [after dropping off Rambo outside the city limits] If you want some friendly advice, get a haircut and take a bath. You wouldn't get hassled so much.

Teasle: [noting dirty American flag patch on Rambo's ragged military jacket] You know, wearing that flag on that jacket, looking the way you do, you're asking for trouble around here, friend.

Teasle: Goddammit, what the hell do you think this is? Some kind of a circus?