- Johnny Caspar: Friends is a mental state. Wuddya say, kid?
- Tom Reagan: I'll think about it.
- Johnny Caspar: He'll think about it. Hear that, Bluepoint? That's terrific. The kid's a thinker.
- Frankie: Does he want a pillow for his head?
- Johnny Caspar: Okay kid, think about it. It's a mental state. But make it quick, my family's waitin'.
- Tom Reagan: I'll think about it and tell you later.
- Frankie: He needs to think in the thinking room.
- Johnny Caspar: Kid, if it'll help you think, you should know that if you don't do this you won't be in any shape to walk outta here.
- Tom Reagan: Would that be physically... or just a mental state?
- Tom Reagan: If you want me to keep my mouth shut, it's gonna cost you some dough. I figure a thousand bucks is reasonable, so I want two.
- Johnny Caspar: I'm talkin' about friendship. I'm talkin' about character. I'm talkin' about - hell. Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word - I'm talkin' about ethics.
- Tom Reagan: Think about what protecting Bernie gets us. Think about what offending Caspar loses us.
- Leo O'Bannion: Oh, come on, Tommy. You know I don't like to think.
- Tom Reagan: Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.
- Tom Reagan: All in all not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count.
- Verna: You better hope they don't.
- [Tom holds Bernie at gunpoint, and walks him out deeper into the forest]
- Bernie: Tommy, you can't do this! You don't bump guys! You're not like those animals back there. It's not right, Tom! They can't make us do this. It's the wrong situation, they can't make us different people than we are. We're not muscle, Tom. I... I... I... never killed anybody. I used a little information for a chisel, that's all. It's my nature, Tom! I... I... I... can't help it, somebody gives me an angle, I play it. I don't deserve to die for that. Do you think I do?
- [Tom doesn't answer, he just keeps walking]
- Bernie: I'm... I'm... I'm just a grifter, Tom. I'm... I'm... I'm... I'm... I'm an nobody! But I'll tell you what, I never crossed a friend, Tom. I never killed anybody, I never crossed a friend, nor you, I'll bet. We're not like those animals! This is not us! Th... th... this is some hop dream! It's a dream, Tommy! I'm praying to you! I can't die! I can't die... out here in the woods, like a dumb animal! In the woods, LIKE A DUMB ANIMAL! Like a dumb animal! I can't... I can't... I CAN'T DIE OUT HERE IN THE WOODS!... like a dumb animal. I can't... die!
- [Bernie falls to his knees, praying]
- Bernie: I'm praying to you! Look in your heart! I'm praying to you! Look in your heart! I'm praying to you! Look in your heart! I'm praying to you! Look in your heart...
- [Tom slowly aims his gun at Bernie]
- Bernie: I'm praying to you! Look in your heart. I'm praying to you... look in your heart... look in your heart! You can't kill me... look in your heart.
- Johnny Caspar: You think that I'm some guinea, fresh off the boat, and you can kick me! But I'm too big for that now. I'm sick a' takin the scrap from you, Leo. I'm a' of marching into this goddamn office to kiss your Irish ass. And I'M SICK A' THE HIGH HAT!
- [Puts on his hat and coat]
- Johnny Caspar: Youse fancy pants, all a youse.
- Leo O'Bannion: Johnny, you're exactly as big as I let you be, and no bigger, and don't forget it, ever.
- Johnny Caspar: That's right, Leo. You're the big shot around here, and I'm just some schnook likes to get slapped around.
- Verna: Maybe that's why I like you, Tom. I've never met anyone who made being a son of a bitch such a point of pride. Though one day you'll pay the price for it.
- Verna: Admit you don't like me seeing Leo because you're jealous. Admit that you've got a heart, even though it may be small and feeble, and you can't remember the last time you used it.
- Tom Reagan: If I'd known we were casting feelings into words, I'd have memorized the Song of Solomon.
- Johnny Caspar: When you're right you're right, but you never say 'I told you so'.
- Tom Reagan: So what am I right about?
- Johnny Caspar: Well, I'll tell ya, but first you gotta promise not to say 'I told you so'.
- Tom Reagan: I don't say that and I don't like people who do.
- Johnny Caspar: Mink was robbin' me right along with the shmatte.
- Tom Reagan: What convinced you of that?
- Johnny Caspar: Mink Larouie took a powder. We can't find him. Bluepoint's makin' excuses for him, but personally, I think you were right. I think Mink and Bernie was in it together. I think Mink heard you'd bumped the shmatte, and lit out. The lousy sonofabitch.
- Tom Reagan: I told you so.
- Johnny Caspar: Hahahaha! You got a lip on you!
- Verna: What're you chewin' over?
- Tom Reagan: Dream I had once. I was walkin' in the woods, I don't know why. Wind came up and blew me hat off.
- Verna: And you chased it, right? You ran and ran, finally caught up to it and you picked it up. But it wasn't a hat anymore and it changed into something else, something wonderful.
- Tom Reagan: Nah, it stayed a hat and no, I didn't chase it. Nothing more foolish than a man chasin' his hat.
- Terry: Message from Leo. Leo says if you're smart, you'll sit this one out, not that he cares, one way or the other. Leo says if you're on the wrong side, you take your chances like anybody else. Leo says he gives no special favors. That's all.
- Tom Reagan: Tell Leo he's not God on the throne, he's just a cheap political boss with more hair tonic than brains.
- Verna: I thought you said you didn't care about Leo no more.
- Tom Reagan: I said we're through. That's not the same thing.
- Verna: Do me a favor and mind your own business.
- Tom Reagan: This is my business. Intimidating helpless women is part of what I do.
- Verna: Then go find one and intimidate her.
- Tom Reagan: [on finding someone sitting in the dark in his apartment] Hello Bernie.
- Bernie: Hello Tom. What's the rumpus? How'd you know it was me?
- Tom Reagan: You're the only one I know who'd knock and then break in.
- Bernie: Your other friends wouldn't break in, huh?
- Tom Reagan: My other friends want to kill me so they wouldn't've knocked.
- Leo O'Bannion: You hear about Rug?
- Tom Reagan: Yeah, RIP.
- Leo O'Bannion: They took his hair, Tommy. Jesus, that's strange, why would they do that?
- Tom Reagan: Maybe it was injuns.
- Leo O'Bannion: I-Ties, more like it.
- Tom Reagan: Leo gets your sister, what are you sellin' me?
- Bernie: Come on, Tom, it's not like that at all. It wasn't my idea. She'll sleep with anyone, you know that. She even tried to teach me a thing or two about that artistry. Can you believe that?
- [giggles]
- Bernie: My own sister. Some crackpot idea about saving me from my friends. She's a sick twist all right.
- Tom Reagan: She speaks highly of you.
- Bernie: Yeah, well, you stick by your family.
- Johnny Caspar: Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return, you gotta go bettin' on chance - and then you're back with anarchy, right back in the jungle.
- Leo O'Bannion: You haven't bought any license to kill bookies and today I ain't sellin' any. So take your flunky and dangle.
- Leo O'Bannion: Seein' you mope around here ruins my, whaddya call it, "joy de veever"?
- Tom Reagan: "Joie de vivre".
- Johnny Caspar: You got references? You been to college? We ONLY take yeggs what's been to college, ain't that right, Dane? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I'm joking, of course.
- Adolph: Hey, horses got knees?
- Tom Reagan: I don't know... fetlocks.
- Adolph: Well if I was a horse, I'd be down on my fetlocks praying you don't bet on me.
- Verna: Leo's got the right idea. I like him, he's honest and he's got a heart.
- Tom Reagan: Then it's true what they say. Opposites attract.
- Eddie Dane: Very smart. What were you doing at the club, talking things over with Leo?
- Tom Reagan: Don't think so hard, Eddie. You might sprain something.
- Eddie Dane: You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain't. I get you, smart guy. I know what you are. Straight as a corkscrew. Mr. Inside-Outski, like some goddamn Bolshevik picking up his orders from Yegg Central. You think you're so goddamn smart. You join up with Johnny Caspar, you bump Bernie Bernbaum. Up is down. Black is white. Well, I think you're half smart. I think you were straight with your frail, I think you were queer with Johnny Caspar... and I think you'd sooner join a ladies' league than gun a guy down. Then I hear from these two geniuses they never even saw this rub-out take place.
- Frankie: Boss said to have him do it. He didn't say nothing about...
- Eddie Dane: Shut up! Or maybe you still got too many teeth. Everyone is so goddamn smart. Well, we'll go out to Miller's Crossing... and we'll see who's smart.
- Eddie Dane: Where's Leo?
- Hitman at Verna's: If I tell you, how do I know you won't kill me?
- Eddie Dane: Because if you told me and I killed you and you were lying I wouldn't get to kill you *then*. Where's Leo?
- Hitman at Verna's: He's moving around. He's getting his mob together tomorrow night. Whisky Nick's.
- Eddie Dane: You sure?
- Hitman at Verna's: Check it. It's gold.
- Eddie Dane: You know what, yegg? I believe you.
- [Shoots him]
- Johnny Caspar: Ethically, he's kind of shaky.
- Leo O'Bannion: So you wanna kill him.
- Eddie Dane: For starters.
- Verna: Why don't we just pick up and leave town? There's nothing keeping you here. I know there's nothing keeping me.
- Tom Reagan: What about Bernie?
- Verna: He could go with us.
- Tom Reagan: You, me and Bernie; where would we go, Verna? Niagara Falls?
- Johnny Caspar: You can't say, "I told you so."
- Tom Reagan: I don't say that and I don't like people who do.
- Verna: What you doing?
- Tom Reagan: Walking...
- Verna: Don't let on any more than you have to.
- Tom Reagan: ...in the rain.
- Verna: That's not why you came, either.
- Tom Reagan: Tell me why I came.
- Verna: [seductively] The oldest reason there is.
- Tom Reagan: There are friendlier places to drink.
- Tom Reagan: Hello, Brian. Still fighting the good fight?
- Cop - Brian: Hello, Tom! Neither rain nor wind nor snow...
- Tom Reagan: That's the mailman!
- Tom Reagan: You don't hold elected office in this town. You run it because people think you do. They stop thinking it you stop running it.
- [Last lines]
- Leo O'Bannion: Dammit, Tom, I forgive you!
- Tom Reagan: I didn't ask for that and I don't want it. Good-bye, Leo.
- Bernie: Don't smart me! See I wanna watch you squirm; I wanna see you sweat a little, and when you smart me... it ruins it.
- Tom Reagan: [after the attempt on Leo's life] Who's winning?
- Terry: We are, for the nonce.
- Tom Reagan: What's the disposition?
- Terry: Four to one, Dana Cudahy went up with the house.
- Tom Reagan: And theirs?
- Terry: One burned...
- Tom Reagan: The other three...?
- Terry: Lead...
- Tom Reagan: Whose?
- Terry: Leo's... the old man's still an artist with a Thompson.
- Leo O'Bannion: I figure I can still trade body-blows with any man in this town.
- [Tom looks at him]
- Leo O'Bannion: Except you Tom.
- Tom Reagan: And Verna.