The Caine Mutiny quotes

View Quote Capt. Blakely: Mr. Greenwald, there can be no more serious charge against an officer than cowardice under fire.
Lt. Greenwald: Sir, may I make one thing clear? It is not the defense's contention that Lieutenant Commander Queeg is a coward. Quite the contrary. The defense assumes that no man who rises to command a United States naval ship can possibly be a coward and that, therefore, if he commits questionable acts under fire, the explanation must be elsewhere.

View Quote Captain DeVriess: Disappointed they assigned you to a minesweeper, Keith?
Ensign Keith: Well, sir, to be honest, yes, sir.
Captain DeVriess: You saw yourself on a carrier, or a battleship, no doubt.
Ensign Keith: Yes, sir, I had hoped...
Captain DeVriess: Well, I only "hope" that you're good enough for the Caine.
Ensign Keith: I shall try to be worthy of this assignment, sir.
Captain DeVriess: She's not a battleship or a carrier; the Caine is a beaten-up tub. After 18 months of combat it takes 24 hours a day just to keep her in one piece.

View Quote Captain DeVriess: [Heavy with authority] Keith.
Lt. Keith: Yes sir?
Captain DeVriess: Take her out.
Lt. Keith: Aye, aye, sir! Single up all lines!
Crewman: Single up all lines!
Lt. Keith: Stand by to cast off!
Crewman: Stand by to cast off!

View Quote Captain Queeg: Anyone notice anything peculiar about Seaman First Class Urban? A shirt-tail hanging out of trousers is, I believe, regulation uniform for a bus boy, not, however, for a sailor in the United States Navy. These are some of the things we're going to start noticing again. Mr. Maryk, who is the morale officer?
Lt. Maryk: We don't have one, sir.
Captain Queeg: Who, then, is the Junior Ensign?
Lt. Maryk: Keith, sir.
Captain Queeg: Mr. Keith, you are now appointed the morale officer. In addition to your other duties, you are to see that shirttails are tucked inside trousers.
Ensign Keith: Aye, aye, sir.
Captain Queeg: If I see one more shirttail flapping while I'm captain of this ship - woe betide the sailor; woe betide the OOD; and woe betide the morale officer. I kid you not.
Lt. Greenwald: Doctor. You have testified that the following symptoms exist in Lieutenant-Commander Queeg's behavior. Rigidity of personality, feelings of persecution, unreasonable suspicion, a mania for perfection, and a neurotic certainty that he is always in the right. Doctor isn't there one psychiatric term for this illness?
Doctor Dickson: I never said there was any illness.

View Quote Lt. Greenwald: Well, well, well! The officers of the Caine in happy celebration!
Lt. Maryk: What are you, Barney, kind of tight?
Lt. Greenwald: Sure. I got a guilty conscience. I defended you, Steve, because I found the wrong man was on trial. '[pours himself a glass of wine]' So, I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.
Lt. Maryk: Okay, Barney, take it easy.
Lt. Greenwald: You know something... When I was studying law, and Mr. Keefer here was writing his stories, and you, Willie, were tearing up the playing fields of dear old Princeton, who was standing guard over this fat, dumb, happy country of ours, eh? Not us. Oh, no, we knew you couldn't make any money in the service. So who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did! And a lot of other guys. Tough, sharp guys who didn't crack up like Queeg.
Ensign Keith: But no matter what, Captain Queeg endangered the ship and the lives of the men.
Lt. Greenwald: He didn't endanger anybody's life, you did, all of you! You're a fine bunch of officers.
Lt. JG H. Paynter Jr.: You said yourself he cracked.
Lt. Greenwald: I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Paynter, because that's a very pretty point. You know, I left out one detail in the court martial. It wouldn't have helped our case any. [to Maryk] Tell me, Steve, after the Yellowstain business, Queeg came to you guys for help and you turned him down, didn't you?
Lt. Steve Maryk: [hesitant] Yes, we did.
Lt. Greenwald:[To Paynter]' You didn't approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn't worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged him. You made up songs about him. If you'd given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon? [to Maryk] You're an honest man, Steve, I'm asking you. You think it would've been necessary for you to take over?
Lt. Maryk: [hesitant] It probably wouldn't have been necessary.
Lt. Greenwald: Yeah.
Ensign Keith: If that's true, then we were guilty.
Lt. Greenwald: Ah, you're learning, Willie! You're learning that you don't work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair. You work with him because he's got the job or you're no good! Well, the case is over. You're all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. '[To Keefer]' And now we come to the man who should've stood trial. The Caine's favorite author. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell 'em, Keefer!
Lt. Keefer: No, you go ahead. You're telling it better.
Lt. Greenwald: You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg!
Lt. Maryk: Let's forget it, Barney!
Lt. Greenwald: Queeg was sick, he couldn't help himself. But you, you're real healthy. Only you didn't have one tenth the guts that he had.
Lt. Keefer: Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.
Lt. Greenwald: I'm gonna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer. '[pours wine in a glass]' From the beginning you hated the Navy. And then you thought up this whole idea. And you managed to keep your skirts nice, and starched, and clean, even in the court martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer. But you, you'll publish your novel, you'll make a million bucks, you'll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you'll live with your conscience, if you have any. Now here's to the real author of "The Caine Mutiny." Here's to you, Mr. Keefer. [splashes wine in Keefer's face] If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight.

View Quote Gentlemen, we'll be shipmates for a long time and I thought we ought to get acquainted. I've formed some good impressions. you're probably curious about me. Well, my background is simple enough. Just another naval officer. I've had seven tough years in the Atlantic. Believe you me, they made the last two mighty interesting. The way those subs ganged up on us I thought they had it in for me, personally. Now to get down to cases. Any one who knows me knows I'm a book man. I believe everything was put in it for a purpose. When in doubt, remember we do things by the book. Deviate from the book, and you'd better have good reasons and you'll still get an argument from me. And I don't lose arguments on board my ship. That's one of the nice things about being captain. I want you to remember one thing. Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard, and sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist - that, I warn you.

View Quote He was no different from any other officer in the ward room, they were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn. The crew wanted to walk around with their shirt tails hanging out, that's all right, let them. Take the tow line, defective equipment, no more, no less. But they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me, and spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles, and then old yellow-strain. I was to blame for Lt. Maryk's incompetence and poor seamanship. Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Captain Queeg. Ah, but the strawberries, that's, that's where I had them, they laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the ward room icebox did exist, and I've had produced that key if they hadn't pulled the Caine out of action. I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer. [He pauses - looked at all the questioning faces that stared back at him, and realizes that he has been ranting and raving] Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory. If I left anything out, why, just ask me specific questions and I'll be glad to answer them, one by one.

View Quote Here. Listen to this: On the Caine it's required reading. "Article 184: It is conceivable that most unusual and extraordinary cir****stances may arise, in which the relief from duty of a commanding officer becomes necessary, either by placing him under arrest or on the sick list. Such actions shall never to he taken without the approval of the Navy Department, except when it is impracticable because of the delay involved."

View Quote I suppose you're wondering why I called this meeting. As you all know we had an excellent dessert for dinner tonight: ice cream and frozen strawberries. About an hour ago, I sent Whittaker to the pantry to bring me another portion. He came back with the ice cream, all right, but he said: "Sir, there ain't no more strawberries." Now, Gentlemen, I do not believe that the officers of this ship consumed a full gallon of strawberries. I intend to prove it.

View Quote Mr. Maryk, you may tell the crew for me that there are four ways of doing things aboard my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. They do things my way, and we'll get along.

View Quote The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.

View Quote There is no escape from the Caine, save death. We're all doing penance, sentenced to an outcast ship, manned by outcasts, and named after the greatest outcast of them all.

View Quote This is the captain speaking. Some misguided sailors on this ship still think they can pull a fast one on me. Well, they're very much mistaken. Since you've taken this course, the innocent will be punished with the guilty. There will be no liberty for any member of this crew for three months. I will not be made a fool of! Do you hear me?

View Quote This is the engine room; to operate, all you need is any group of well-trained monkeys. 99 percent of everything we do is strict routine. Only one percent requires creative intelligence.