The 37 Best Movie Quotes of All Time

One of the ultimate pleasures of rewatching movies is quoting them back at them. (But please, don’t do that around people who haven’t seen the movie.) The “hangout” movie—whether it’s Dazed and Confused, The Big Lebowski, or Pulp Fiction—provides an opportunity to soak in your favorite characters and the lines that define them. Those lines also take us back in time to when we first got to know these people who are as real to us as friends, even if we might not want to be their friends. (Who can forget their first encounter with Jules Winnfield’s windy, God-fearing monologues?) But they also provide calling cards for some of the most memorable thrillers, horror movies and—naturally—gangster pictures to hit the big screen.

Any list of the best movie quotes is, of course, subjective. So think of this as a compilation of great movie quotes just about everyone knows as well as many you might not (or have forgotten). Any true Jaws fan knows there are many more treasures than “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” just as any camp head knows you can’t pass up the delicious delivery of Gina Gershon in Showgirls. And Matthew McConaughey is almost too quotable for his own good, but we pared his work down to one line (no, not that one). From the funny to the profound, from the foul-mouthed to the moving, here are movie quotes for the ages.