Quotes

Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: I think you should know the truth as I see it. This mission is never designed to succeed. If they were honest, they would tell us that. They'd tell us that with this many people dying, who cares about art. They're wrong. Because that's exactly what we're fighting for. For our culture and for our way of life. You can wipe out a generation of people. You can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they'll still come back. But if you destroy their achievements and their history then it's like they never existed. Just ash floating. That's what Adolf Hitler wants. And it's the one thing we simply can't allow.

Frank Stokes: I was told that before you were sent here, you ran one of those camps.
Colonel Wegner: Who told you that?
Frank Stokes: A little bird.
Colonel Wegner: You're not Jewish, lieutenant?
Frank Stokes: No.
Colonel Wegner: Then you should thank me.
Frank Stokes: You know, I don't smoke either. My first cigarette.
[lights cigarette]
Frank Stokes: But I want to remember this moment. I'm gonna go home soon. Got a nice apartment in New York on the Upper West Side. There's a deli down the street called Sid's. Every morning, I walk there and I get a cup of coffee and a bagel, and I read the newspaper. I think about it every day here. It'll be the first place I go when I get stateside. I'm gonna be sitting there, eating one of Sid Meldman's toasted onion bagels and reading a tiny article in the New York Times, page... 18... that says you, Colonel Wegner, were hanged for your crimes you committed during the war and you were buried in an unmarked grave. And then I'll think about my cigarette... and I'll think about you sitting there with that stupid look on your face. Then I'll finish my coffee, leave the paper for Sid to wrap fish in. I'll never think of you again.

Claire Simone: [after listening to Granger attempt to communicate very badly in French] Would you stop speaking French? Or whatever language you are speaking?
James Granger: Well, if it weren't for us, you'd... you'd be speaking German.
Claire Simone: No. If it was not for you, I might be dead. But I would still be speaking French.
James Granger: [Glances away] OK.

Frank Stokes: Who would make sure that the statue of David is still standing or the Mona Lisa is still smiling? Who will protect her?

Walter Garfield: The army may not care about art, but they sure as shit care about gold.

James Granger: Stop, stop. Stop. I seem to have stepped on a land mine... of some sort.
Frank Stokes: Why d'you do something like that?
James Granger: It was a slow day.
Frank Stokes: Well, I wouldn't move.
James Granger: I'd like to at some point.

Frank Stokes: Yesterday we fond 16,000 pieces of art in a copper mine. It seems the Germans take better care of their art than people.

Richard Campbell: [after coming across an armed Nazi soldier in the night] Here's the thought. We put down our guns; you go your way, we go our way, no hard feelings.
[to Savitz about the German]
Richard Campbell: He doesn't speak any English!
Preston Savitz: Not a word.
Richard Campbell: Okay.
Preston Savitz: You're just going to sit down?
Richard Campbell: Yeah, I think - why don't we all just sit down for a sec. Okay.
Preston Savitz: Shh.
[Savitz sits down too]
Preston Savitz: [Campbell throws a pack of cigarettes to the Nazi. The Nazi takes one and then throws the pack to Savitz] I don't smoke.
Richard Campbell: Take a cigarette.
Preston Savitz: I don't smoke!
Richard Campbell: Take a goddamn cigarette.
[Savitz does and they all smoke]
German Soldier at Ghent: John Wayne!
Richard Campbell: John Wayne.

James Granger: You want to go into a war zone and tell our boys what they can and cannot blow up?

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