The Hustler quotes

View Quote Sarah: How did you know my name is Sarah?
Eddie: You told me last night.
Sarah: I always lie when I drink.
Eddie: Okay, so what is your name today?
Sarah: Sarah.

View Quote Sarah: Leave now.
Eddie: Grow up.
Sarah: Why should I?
Eddie: Sarah, I'm going to Kentucky to play pool with a guy by the name of Findlay. Now I need the action and I need the money. I told ya I'd be back.
Sarah: If you were going to come back, you wouldn't have taken me out tonight, you wouldn't have bought this dress. You're hustling me, Eddie. You've never stopped hustling me.
Eddie: No, I never hustled you, even when I thought I was, and you know it.
Sarah: What do you want me to do, just sit here and wait, your faithful looking Sarah. Pull all the shades down and sit. When you feel like coming back, you'll come back and you'll love me, and then you'll go away again. Is that your idea of love?
Eddie: I got no idea of love. Neither of you, I mean, neither one of us would know what it was if we saw it comin' down the street.
Sarah: I'd know it, Eddie. I'd know it. For God's sakes, what are you trying to do to me? I love you.
Eddie: Well, what's your idea of love - chains?
Sarah: I made you up, didn't I, Eddie? You weren't real. I made you up, like everything else. There was no car crash, Eddie. When I was five, I had polio. I was never an actress. The 'rich old man' is my father. He walked out on us when I was seven. He sends me a check every month. That's how he buys his way out of my life. The men I've known - after they've left, I'd say they weren't real. I made them up. But you, Eddie, I wanted you to be real. I'm so scared. I'm scared.

View Quote Sarah: What else have we got? We never talk about anything. We stay in this room and we drink and make love. We're strangers. What happens when the liquor and the money run out, Eddie? You told Charlie to lay down and die. Will you say that to me too? What happens, Eddie?
Eddie: Just buy yourself another rich old lover.
Sarah: That's right, and I'm sure you'll help me.
[Eddie viciously slaps her across the face.]
Sarah: You waiting for me to cry? You bum. You pool-room bum.

View Quote Sarah: Where do you live?
Eddie: Around.
Sarah: I know where you live. In a locker in the bus station. What's it like living in a locker?
Eddie: Cramped. Do you always drink like this so early in the morning?

View Quote [about Minnesota Fats] He is great! Geez, that old Fat Man. Look at the way he moves, like a dancer...And those fingers, them chubby fingers. And that stroke, it's like he's uh, like he's playin' a violin or somethin'.

View Quote [After discovering that Charlie held some money out on him] With that fifteen hundred, I could have beat him. That's all I needed Charlie...You'd love to keep me hustlin' for ya, huh, wouldn't ya? I mean, a couple more years with me scufflin' around, in them little towns and those back alleys, you might make yourself enough to get a little pool room back in Oakland - six tables and a handbook on the side...Lay down and die by yourself.

View Quote [explaining his pool cue case] This guy told me when I came to the big city, I'd have to have a machine gun, so I bought one.

View Quote [to Eddie, about Sarah] She come in here Eddie and asked me for a drink. I give her one. We had a few more. Eddie, she came in here.

View Quote [to Eddie, stumbling after some drinks at the bus terminal] I'm not drunk. I'm lame.

View Quote [to Eddie] ...you start drinking whiskey gambling - it gives you an excuse for losing. That's something you don't need, an excuse for losing.

View Quote [to Eddie] James Findlay is a very rich man. His grandfather left him twenty-five percent of his tobacco company...He's a gentleman. Gentlemen gamble. He gets his kicks playin' a hustler. He's got an old Southern mansion with a pool table in the basement, drinks eight year-old bourbon, smokes a hawk-tipped cigarette...I never saw him play. They say he's one of the best...I've got confidence in Findlay...That means I've got confidence that he's a loser, all the way a loser. You happen to be about only one-half loser, the other half winner.

View Quote [to Eddie] We have a contract of depravity. All we have to do is pull the blinds down.

View Quote [to Eddie] Why me? [Without answering, he hungrily kisses her. She pushes him back.] Please, please, you're too hungry.

View Quote Boy! Everybody, everybody wants a piece of me.

View Quote How much am I gonna win tonight? Ten grand, I'm gonna win ten grand in one night. Well, who's gonna beat me?...I mean, what other pool room is there in the country where a guy can walk out with ten grand in one night