The Exorcist quotes

View Quote " You're sorry, Jesus Christ 88 Doctors and all you can tell me with all of your bullshit is??!!!"

View Quote Father Dyer: My idea of Heaven is a solid white nightclub with me as a headliner for all eternity, and they LOVE me.

View Quote Lt. Kinderman: If certain British doctors never asked "What is this fungus?" we wouldn't today have penicillin, correct?

View Quote Chris: [about a Ouija board] Wait a minute, you need two.
Regan: No ya don't. I do it all the time.
Chris: Oh yeah. Well let's both play.
...
Chris: You really don't want me to play, huh?
Regan: No, I do. Captain Howdy said no.
Chris: Captain who?
Regan: Captain Howdy.
Chris: Who's Captain Howdy?
Regan: You know, I make the questions and he does the answers.

View Quote Chris: How do you go about getting an exorcism?
Karras: I beg your pardon? Well, the first thing - I'd have to get into a time machine and get back to the 16th century...Well, it just doesn't happen any more, Mrs. MacNeil...since we learned about mental illness, paranoia, schizophrenia...Since the day I joined the Jesuits, I've never met one priest who has performed an exorcism. Not one.

View Quote Chris: She doesn't remember any of it.
Father Dyer: That's good.

View Quote Chris: Someone very close to me is probably possessed and needs an exorcism. Father Karras, it's my little girl.
Karras: The Catholic Church insists on proof that the devil is really in a person. Then that's all the more reason to forget about exorcism...To begin with, it could make things worse. Secondly, the church before it approves an exorcism conducts an investigation to see if it's warranted. That takes time...I need church approval and that's rarely given. I will see her as a psychiatrist.
Chris: Oh, not a psychiatrist. She needs a priest. She's already seen every ****ing psychiatrist in the world and they sent me to you. Now you're gonna send me back to them? Jesus Christ! Won't somebody help me?...Can't you help her, just help her?

View Quote Chris: Well give me an example, like what specifically did she say?
Dr. Klein: Specifically Mrs. MacNeil she advised me to keep my fingers away from her goddamned ****.

View Quote Chris: What made you say that, Regan? Do you know, sweetheart?
Regan: Mother? What's wrong with me?
Chris: It's just like the doctor said. It's nerves, and that's all. OK? You just take your pills and you'll be fine, really. OK?

View Quote Chris: Would you like some bourbon in that, father?
Merrin: Well, my doctor says I shouldn't but thank God my will is weak.

View Quote Chuck: I suppose you heard.
Chris: Heard what?
Chuck: You haven't heard. Burke's dead. He must have been drunk. He fell down from the top of the steps right outside. By the time he hit M Street, he broke his neck.

View Quote Dr. Barringer: There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside chance...Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's been pretty much discarded these days except by the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact, although not for the reasons they think, of course. It's purely a force of suggestion. The victim's belief in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear.
Chris: You're telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor? Is that it?

View Quote Dr. Klein: It's a symptom of a type of disturbance in the chemical-electrical activity of the brain. In the case of your daughter, in the temporal lobe - it's up here - in the lateral part of the brain. It's rare, but it does cause bizarre hallucinations and usually just before a convulsion...the shaking of the bed. It's doubtless due to muscular spasms.
Chris: Oh no. No, no. That was not a spasm. Look. I got on the bed. The whole bed was thumping and rising off the floor and shaking - the whole thing, with me on it!
Dr. Klein: Mrs. MacNeil, the problem with your daughter is not her bed, it's her brain.
Chris: So, uhm, what causes this...?
Dr. Klein: A lesion. A lesion in the temporal lobe. It's a kind of seizure disorder.
Chris: Now look Doc, I really don't understand how her whole personality could change.
Dr. Klein: The temporal lobe is very common...It could last for days or even weeks. It isn't rare to find destructive, even criminal behavior.
Chris: Hey, do me a favor, will ya? Tell me somethin' good.
Dr. Klein: Don't be alarmed. If it's a lesion, in a way she's fortunate. All we have to do is remove the scar.

View Quote Dr. Klein: She's heavily sedated. She'll probably sleep through tomorrow.
Chris: What was going on in there? How could she fly off the bed like that?
Dr. Klein: Pathological states can induce abnormal strength. Accelerated motor performance. Now, for example, say a 90 pound woman sees her child pinned under the wheel of a truck. Runs out and lifts the wheels a half a foot up off the ground - you've heard the story - same thing here. Same principle, I mean.
Chris: So what's wrong with her?
Dr. Klein: We still think the temporal lobe.
Chris: Oh what are you talking about, for Christ's sakes? Did you see her or not? She's acting like she's ****ing out of her mind, psychotic, like a... split personality or ...
Dr. Klein: There haven't been more than a hundred authentic cases of so-called split personality, Mrs. MacNeil. Now I know the temptation is to leap to psychiatry. But any reasonable psychiatrist would exhaust the somatic possibilities first.
Chris: So, what's next?
Dr. Klein: A pneumoencephalogram, I would think. Pin down that lesion. It will involve another spinal.
Chris: Oh, Christ!
Dr. Klein: What we missed in the EEG and the arteriograms could conceivably turn up there. At least, it would eliminate certain other possibilities.

View Quote Karras: Hello, Regan. I'm a friend of your mothers. I'd like to help you.
Regan: Why not loosen the straps then?
Karras: I'm afraid you might hurt yourself, Regan.
Regan: I'm not Regan.
Karras: I see. Well then, let's introduce ourselves. I'm Damien Karras.
Regan: I'm the devil. Now kindly undo these straps!
Karras: If you're the devil, why not make the straps disappear?
Regan: That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.
Karras: Where's Regan?
Regan: In here - with us.
Karras: Show me Regan and I'll loosen one of the straps.
Regan: Can you help an old altar boy, Father?... Your mother's in here with us, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it.
Karras: If that's true, then you must know my mother's maiden name. What is it? What is it?
[Regan vomits onto Karras]