Jaws quotes

View Quote "Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit. [the shark suddenly appears, causing Brody to recoil in shock] You're gonna need a bigger boat. Note: the bolded line is ranked #35 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote Ben Gardner: [referring to the out-of-town fishermen, hoping to catch the shark] Wait'll we get them silly bas**** down in that rock pile. There'll be some fun. They'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start takin' their bottoms out and slammin' into them rocks, boy. Get away from there, ya goddamn fool, you! What's the matter with you? You wanna swamp us, ya crazy son of a bitch?

View Quote Mrs. Kintner: My Alex was a beautiful little boy and you killed him. Did you know that? You knew there was a shark out there. You knew a girl got killed here last week. I just found that out. But you knew. You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway. You knew all those things, and still my boy is dead now and there's nothing you can do about that. My boy is dead. I wanted you to know that.

View Quote Reporter: Amity Island has long been known for its clean air, clear water, and beautiful white sand beaches. But in recent days, a cloud has appeared on the horizon of this beautiful resort community - a cloud in the shape of a killer shark.

View Quote Brody: [after Quint smashed the radio] That's great! That's just great! Now where the hell are we, huh? You're certifiable, Quint, do you know that?!
Quint: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hooper: Boys! Oh boys? I think he's come back for his noon feeding!

View Quote Brody: [pointing at Quint's tattoo scar] What's that one?
Quint: Oh, that's a tattoo. I got that removed.
Hooper: Let me guess. Mother! [laughs]
Quint: Hooper, that's the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
[Hooper's face drops]
Hooper: You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody: What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

View Quote Brody: It doesn't make any sense when you pay a guy like you to watch sharks.
Hooper: Well, uh, it doesn't make much sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island either.
Brody: It's only an island if you look at it from the water.
Hooper: That makes a lot of sense.

View Quote Brody: Take this stuff back to the office and get to work on those signs. "Beaches Closed - No Swimming. By the Order of the Amity PD". And let Polly do the printing.
Hendricks: What's the matter with my printing?

View Quote Brody: This is a Great White, Larry, a big one. And any shark expert in the world'll tell ya it's a killer. It's a man-eater.
Hooper: Look, the situation is that apparently, a Great White Shark has staked a claim in the waters off Amity Island, and he's going to continue to feed here as long as there is food in the water.
Brody: And there's no limit to what he's gonna do. I mean, we've already had three incidents. Two people killed inside of a week, and it's gonna happen again. It happened before. The Jersey beach. [He points at Hooper]...1916 - there were five people chewed up in the surf -
Hooper: - in one week.
Brody: Tell him about the swimmers.
Hooper: A shark is attracted to the exact kind of splashing and activity that occurs whenever human beings go in swimming. You cannot avoid it.
Brody: You open the beaches on the 4th of July, it's like ringing the dinner bell for Christ's sakes.
Hooper: Look, Mr. Vaughn. Mr. Vaughn, I pulled a tooth the size of a shot glass out of the wrecked hull of a boat out there, and it was the tooth of a Great White.
Brody: It was Ben Gardner's boat. It was all chewed up. I helped tow it in. You should have seen it.
Vaughn: Where, where is that tooth? Did you see it, Brody?...[To Hooper] And what did you say the name of this shark is?
Hooper: Carcaradon carcharias. A Great White.
Vaughn: But you don't have the tooth. Look, we depend on the summer people here for our very lives.
Hooper: You are not going to have a summer unless you deal with this problem.
Vaughn: And if you close those beaches, we're finished.
Brody: We're not only gonna have to close the beach, we're gonna have to hire somebody to kill the shark...
Vaughn: I don't think either one of you are familiar with our problems.
Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass...There are two ways to deal with this problem: you're either going to kill this animal or you're gonna cut off its food supply.
Brody: Larry, we have to close the beaches!
Vaughn: [Pointing at graffiti showing a dialogue balloon with the words "Help!! SHARK" coming from the mouth of the swimmer on a surfboard] Look at that. Sick vandalism! This is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message. Now I want those little paint-happy bas**** caught and hung up by their Buster Browns!
Hooper: I'm not gonna waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch...Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine - uh, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all! Now why don't you take a long, close look at this sign. Those proportions are correct.
Vaughn: Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name into the National Geographic.
[Hooper walks away chuckling]
Brody: Larry, we can re-open the beaches in August.
Vaughn: August! Tomorrow is the 4th of July, and we are going to open for business. It's going to be our best summer in years. If you're so concerned about the beaches, you two, you do whatever you have to to keep them safe, but with you or without you, those beaches will be open for this weekend.

View Quote Brody: We're gonna put on the summer, the extra summer deputies as soon as possible. And then we're gonna try and use shark spotters on the beach.
Motel Owner: Are we going to close the beaches?
Brody: [after a long pause] Yes, we are. [There is loud grumbling in the audience.] We're also planning to bring in some experts from the Oceanographic Institute on the mainland.
Vaughn: Only 24 hours.
Brody: I didn't agree to that.

View Quote Brody: We've got to close the beach. Call the mayor.
Hooper: You've got a bigger problem than that, Martin. You've still got a hell of a fish out there with a mouth about this big [gesturing].
Brody: How do we confirm that by morning?
Hooper: If he is a rogue, and there's any truth to territoriality at all, we've got a good chance of spotting him between Cape Scott and South Beach.
Brody: Where are ya going?
Hooper: I'm gonna find him right now. He's a night feeder.
Brody: On the water?
Hooper: Well, if we're lookin' for a shark, we're not going to find him on the land.
Brody: Yeah, but I'm not drunk enough to go out on the boat.
Hooper: Yes, you are.
Brody: No, I'm not.
Hooper: Yes, you are.
Brody: I can't do that.
Hooper: Yes, you can.

View Quote Brody: What are you doing? These are your people out there.
Hendricks: Those aren't my people. Did you see all the license plates out in the parking lot? Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey... I'm all by myself out there.

View Quote Brody: What day is this?
Hooper: Wednesday...No, it's Tuesday, I think.
Brody: Think the tide's with us?
Hooper: Just keep kicking.
Brody: Y'know, I used to hate the water....
Hooper: I can't imagine why.

View Quote Ellen: I just want to know one simple thing. When do I get to become an islander?
Friend: Ellen, never. Never. You're not born here, you're not an islander. That's it.

View Quote Ellen: Martin, it's his birthday tomorrow.
Brody: I don't want him on the ocean.
Ellen: He's not on the ocean. He is in a boat. He's not gonna go in the water. I don't think he'll ever go in the water again after what happened yesterday.
Brody: Now don't say that. You know I don't want that. I just want him to read the boating regulations, make sure he understands before he takes it out..
[While Brody is talking, Ellen glances into the shark book with an illustration of a shark biting the side of a rowboat.]
Ellen: Michael! Did you hear your father? Out of the water now! NOW!