Saving Private Ryan quotes

View Quote Capt. Miller: Caparzo, get that kid back up there!
Pvt. Caparzo: Captain, the decent thing to do would be take her over to the next town.
Capt. Miller: We're not here to do the decent thing, we're here to follow ****ing orders!

View Quote Capt. Miller: I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that.
Pvt. Reiben: Sorry, sir, but let's say you weren't a Captain, or maybe I was a Major. What would you say then?
Capt. Miller: In that case, 'd say this is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir. Worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover, I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down the lives of me and my men--especially you, Reiben--to ease her suffering.

View Quote Capt. Miller: James... 'm here to tell you your brothers were killed in combat.
Pvt. Ryan: Which... Which ones, sir?
Capt. Miller: All of them.

View Quote Capt. Miller: Mike are you all right!?
Sgt. Horvath[After having received several shots to the back] I'm fine, I just got the wind knocked out of me.

View Quote Capt. Miller: Private, I'm afraid I have some bad news for ya. Well, there isn't any real easy way to say this, so, uh, so I'll just say it. Your brothers are dead. We have, uh, orders to come get you, 'cause you're going home.
Pvt. James Frederick Ryan: Oh, my God, my brothers are dead. I was gonna take 'em fishing when we got home. H-How did they die?
Capt. Miller: They were killed in action.
Pvt. James Frederick Ryan: No, that can't be. They're both-That...That can't be. My brothers are still in grammar school.
Capt. Miller: ..You're James Ryan?
Pvt. James Frederick Ryan: Yeah.
Capt. Miller: James Francis Ryan from Iowa?
Pvt. James Frederick Ryan: James Frederick Ryan, Minnesota.

View Quote Capt. Miller: Well when I think of home, I... I think of something specific. I think of my, my hammock in the backyard or my wife pruning the rosebushes in a pair of my old work gloves.
Pvt. Ryan: This, this one night, two of my brothers came and woke me up in the middle of the night. And they said they had a surprise for me. So they took me to the barn up in the loft and there was my oldest brother, Dan, with Alice, Alice Jardine. I mean, picture a girl who just took a nosedive from the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down. And... and Dan's got his shirt off and he's working on this bra and he's tryin to get it off and all of a sudden, Sean just screams out, “Danny, you're a young man! Don't do it!” And so Alice Jardine hears this and she screams and she jumps up and she tries to get running out of the barn but she's still got this shirt over her head. She goes running right into the wall and knocks herself out. So now Dan's just so mad at us. He, he starts coming after us, but... but at the same time Alice is over there unconscious. He's gotta wa... , wake her up. So he grabs her by a leg and he's drag, dragging her. At the same time he picks up a shovel. And he's going after Sean, and Sean's saying, “What are you trying to hit me for? I just did you a favor!” And so this makes Dan more angry. He tries to swing this thing, he looses the shovel, goes outta his grasp and hits a kerosene lantern. The thing explodes, the whole barn almost goes up because of this thing. That was it. That was the last, that was, Dan went off to basic the next day. That was the last night the four of us were together. That was two years ago. Tell me about your wife and those rosebushes?
Capt. Miller: No, no that one I save just for me.

View Quote Capt. Miller: Well, we could make a sticky bomb.
Corp. Henderson: Are, are you making that up, sir?
Capt. Miller: No, it's in the field manual.
Pvt. Ryan: Well, we seem to be out of field manuals, sir. Perhaps you can "enlighten" us.
Capt. Miller: You take a standard G.I. sock, cram it with as much Comp[osition] B as it can hold, rig up a simple fuse, then coat the whole thing with axle grease. Now when you throw it, it should stick. It's a bomb that sticks, a "sticky bomb." Think of a better way to knock out the tracks off a tank, 'm all ears.
Pvt. Reiben: This is great. Now we've gotta to surrender our socks.

View Quote Capt. Miller: You guys got any three star hotels around here, with clean sheets and room service?
Capt. Hamill: How about a comfy church?
Capt. Miller: That'll do.

View Quote Capt. Miller: You see, when... when you end up killing one of your men, you see, you tell yourself it happened so you could save the lives of two or three or ten others. Maybe a hundred others. Do you know how many men I've lost under my command?
Sgt. Horvath: How many?
Capt. Miller: Ninety-four. But that means 've saved the lives of ten times that many, doesn't it? Maybe even 20, right? Twenty times as many? And that's how simple it is. That's how you... that's how you rationalize on making the choice between the mission and the man.

View Quote Capt. Miller: [After the fight to take the radio nest has left Medic Wade dead] Get your gear. Let's go.
[Reiben doesn't move]
Sgt. Horvath: You heard him, gear up. Your captain just gave you an order.
Pvt. Reiben: Yeah, like the one he gave to take this machine gun. That was a real doozie, wasn't it?
Sgt. Horvath: Soldier, you are way out of line!
Pvt. Reiben: Yes, sir, that was one hell of a call, coming to take this nest, but hell, we only lost one of our guys going for it. That's right, I hope Mama Ryan's real ****in' happy knowing that Little Jimmy's life is a little bit more important than two of our guys! But then again, we haven't found him yet, have we? Have we?

View Quote Corp. Upham: "There's not a reason why, there's but to do and die."
Pvt. Mellish: La-la-la-la-la-la. What the **** is that supposed to mean, Corperal? We're all supposed to die, is that it?
Capt. Miller: Upham's talking about our duties as soldiers. We all have orders and we are to follow those orders and that supercedes everything, including your mothers.
Corp. Upham: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Pvt. Reiben: Even if you think the misson's FUBAR, Captain?
Capt. Miller: *Especially* if you think the mission's FUBAR.
Corp. Upham: What's FUBAR?
Pvt. Mellish: Oh, it's German.
Corp. Upham: [Who is fluent in German] Never heard of it.

View Quote Corp. Upham: “War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.”
Capt. Miller: I guess that's Emerson's way of finding the bright side.
Corp. Upham: You know Emerson, sir?

View Quote Corp. Upham: It's against the Goddamn rules!
Pvt. Reiben: Well, the "Goddamn rules" just walked off with your new friend!

View Quote Lt. Dewindt: FUBAR.
Pvt. Reiben: FUBAR.
Sgt. Horvath: FUBAR.
Capt. Miller: FUBAR.
Pvt. Jackson: Y'all got that right.
Corp. Upham: Hey, I looked up “fubar” in the German dictionary. There's no “fubar” in there.

View Quote Medic Wade: Actually, the trick to falling asleep is trying to stay awake.
Pvt. Mellish: How's that, Wade?
Medic Wade: Well, when my mother was an intern, she used to work late through the night... sleep through the day. So the only time we'd ever get to talk about anything is when she'd get home. So what I... I used to do, I used to lie in my bed and try to stay awake as long as I could, but it never worked, 'cause... 'cause the harder 'd try, the faster 'd fall asleep.
Pvt. Reiben: Yeah, well, that wouldn't have mattered none in my house. My ma, she would've come home, shook me awake, chatted me up 'til dawn. I swear, that woman was never too tired to talk.
Pvt. Mellish: That was probably the only time she could get a word in.