North by Northwest quotes

View Quote Roger: And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Vandamm: Games, must we?
Roger: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theatre this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of unreasonable about things like that.
Vandamm: With such expert play-acting, you make this very room a theatre. My secretary is a great admirer of your methods, Mr. Kaplan. Elusiveness, however misguided ...
Roger: (interrupting) My name is Thornhill, Roger Thornhill! It's never been anything else ... So obviously, your friends picked up the wrong package when they bundled me out here in the car.

View Quote Roger: I don't like the games you play, Professor.
The Professor: War is hell, Mr. Thornhill, even when it's a cold one.
Roger: If you fellas can't lick the Vandamms of this world, without asking girls like her to bed down with him and fly away with him and probably never come back, perhaps you ought to start learning how to lose a few cold wars!
The Professor: I'm afraid we're already doing that.

View Quote Roger: If we ever get out of this alive, let's go back to New York on the train together, all right?
Eve: Is that a proposition?
Roger: It's a proposal, sweetie.
Eve: What happened to the first two marriages?
Roger: My wives divorced me.
Eve: Why?
Roger: Well, I think they said I led too dull a life.

View Quote Roger: To a long and lasting friendship, meaning from now on, I'm not going to let you out of my sight, sweetheart.
Eve: I'm afraid you'll have to.
Roger: Oh no.
Eve: I do have plans of my own, you know, and you do have problems.
Roger: Well, wouldn't it be nice if my problems and your plans were somehow connected? Then we could always stay close to each other and not have to go off in separate directions. Togetherness, you know what I mean?

View Quote Roger: You're police, aren't you? Or is it FBI?
The Professor: FBI, CIA, ONI... we're all in the same alphabet soup.
...
The Professor: [referring to Vandamm] Oh, you could say he is a sort of importer/exporter.
Roger: Of what?
The Professor: Oh, government secrets perhaps.

View Quote The Professor: If I thought there was any chance of changing your mind, I'd talk about Miss Kendall, of whom you so obviously disapprove.
Roger: Yes, for using sex like some people use a fly swatter.

View Quote Vandamm: What possessed you to come blundering in here like this? Could it be an overpowering interest in art?
Roger: Yes, the art of survival.
Eve: He followed me here from the hotel.
Leonard: He was in your room?
Roger: Sure. Isn't everybody?
...
Vandamm: Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First, you're the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he's been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn't commit. And now, you play the peevish lover, stung by jealousy and betrayal. It seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actor's Studio.
Roger: Apparently, the only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.
Vandamm: Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you.
Roger: I wonder what subtle form of manslaughter is next on the program. Am I to be dropped into a vat of molten steel and become part of a new skyscraper, or are you going to ask this female to kiss me again and poison me to death?
[Eve tries to slap him]
Roger: Who are you kidding? You have no feelings to hurt.

View Quote [Roger is wearing sunglasses to hide his identity]
Ticket Seller: Something wrong with your eyes?
Roger: Yes, they're sensitive to questions.

View Quote [sending candy to his ex-wife] Oh well, put 'Something for your sweet tooth, baby, and all your other sweet parts.'

View Quote [to Eve] You're the smartest girl I ever spent the night with on the train.

View Quote [to The Professor] Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

View Quote [to Vandamm] I didn't realize you were an art collector. I thought you just collected corpses...I'll bet you paid plenty for this little piece of sculpture...She's worth every dollar of it, take it from me. She puts her heart into her work. In fact, her whole body.

View Quote [to Vandamm] I want the girl to get what's coming to her. You turn her over to me and I'll see there's enough pinned on her to keep her uncomfortable for the rest of her life. You do that and I'll look the other way tonight.

View Quote Ah, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only the expedient exaggeration. You ought to know that.

View Quote I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.