Top 30 Quotes From Ray Kinsella

Annie: If you build what, who will come?
Ray: He didn't say.

Mark: And who is this?
Ray: That's Terence Mann.
Mark: Hi. How're you doing? I'm the Easter Bunny.

[Mark goes out to the field, where Ray and Karin are watching the players]
Mark: So, I thought you were going to watch some game?
Ray: Well, it's more of a practice since there's only eight of them.
Mark: Eight of what?
Ray: [motioning toward the players] Them.
Mark: [looking around at the field, unable to see the players] Who them?
Ray: [emphatically, not realizing that Mark can't see the players] Them them.

Ray: My name's Ray Kinsella. You used my father's name in one of your stories: John Kinsella.
Terence: You're seeing a whole team of psychiatrists, aren't you?

Ray: This is my corn. You people are guests in my corn.

Annie: [trying to understand the situation] I mean, Shoeless Joe...
Ray: He's dead. Died in '51; he's dead.
Annie: He's the one they suspended, right?
Ray: Right.
Annie: He's still dead?
Ray: Far as I know.

Ray: The Voice is back.
Annie: Oh, Lord. You're supposed to build a football field now?

Ray: Where'd they come from?
Shoeless: Where did WE come from? You wouldn't believe how many guys wanted to play here. We had to beat 'em off with a stick.
Archie: Hey, that's Smokey Joe Wood. And Mel Ott. And Gil Hodges!
Shoeless: Ty Cobb wanted to play, but none of us could stand the son-of-a-bitch when we were alive, so we told him to stick it!

Ray: [being rushed out of Mann's loft] You've changed - you know that?
Terence: Yes - I suppose I have! How about this: "Peace, love, *dope*"? Now get the *hell* out of here!

John: Is this heaven?
Ray: It's Iowa.
John: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
[starts to walk away]
Ray: Is there a heaven?
John: Oh yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.
[Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch]
Ray: Maybe this is heaven.

Terence: I'm going to beat you with a crowbar until you leave.
Ray: You can't do that.
Terence: There are rules here? No, there are no rules here.
[advances with crowbar]
Ray: You're a pacifist!
Terence: [stops] Shit.

[Ray explains Terence Mann's "pain" to Annie]
Ray: The man wrote the best books of his generation. And he was a pioneer of the Civil Rights and the anti-war movement. I mean, he made the cover of Newsweek. He knew everybody. He did everything. And he helped shape his time. I mean, the guy hung out with The Beatles! But in the end, it wasn't enough. What he missed was baseball.
[Annie looks at Ray's notes]
Annie: Oh, my God!
Ray: What?
Annie: As a small boy, he had a bat named Rosebud.

Ray: I think I know what "If you build it, he will come" means.
Annie: Ooh... why do I not think this is such a good thing?
Ray: I think it means that if I build a baseball field out there that Shoeless Joe Jackson will get to come back and play ball again.
Annie: [staring in disbelief] You're kidding.
Ray: Huh-uh.
Annie: Wow.
Ray: Yeah.
Annie: Ha. You're kidding.

Ray: Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within... y-you came this close. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they'd consider it a tragedy.
Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham: Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.

[first lines]
Ray: [voice over] My father's name was John Kinsella. It's an Irish name. He was born in North Dakota in 1896, and never saw a big city until he came back from France in 1918. He settled in Chicago, where he quickly learned to live and die with the White Sox. Died a little when they lost the 1919 World Series. Died a lot the following summer when eight members of the team were accused of throwing that series. He played in the minors for a year too, but nothing ever came of it. Moved to Brooklyn in '35, married Mom in '38. He was already an old man working at the naval yards when I was born in 1952. My name's Ray Kinsella. Mom died when I was three, and I suppose Dad did the best he could. Instead of Mother Goose, I was put to bed at night to stories of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the great Shoeless Joe Jackson. Dad was a Yankees fan then, so of course I rooted for Brooklyn. But in '58, the Dodgers moved away, so we had to find other things to fight about. We did. And when it came time to go to college, I picked the farthest one from home I could find. This, of course, drove him right up the wall, which I suppose was the point. Officially, my major was English, but really it was the '60s. I marched, I smoked some grass, I tried to like sitar music, and I met Annie. The only thing we had in common was that she came from Iowa, and I had once heard of Iowa. After graduation, we moved to the Midwest and stayed with her family as long as we could... almost a full afternoon. Annie and I got married in June of '74. Dad died that fall. A few years later, Karin was born. She smelled weird, but we loved her anyway. Then Annie got the crazy idea that she could talk me into buying a farm. I'm thirty-six years old, I love my family, I love baseball, and I'm about to become a farmer. And until I heard the Voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole life.
Voice: If you build it, he will come.

Ray: The only thing we had in common was that she was from Iowa, and I had once heard of Iowa.

Terence: Oh, my God.
Ray: What?
Terence: You're from the sixties.
Ray: [bashfully] Well, yeah, actually...
Terence: [spraying at Ray with a insecticide sprayer] Out! Back to the sixties! Back! There's no place for you here in the future! Get back while you still can!

Ray: I did it all. I listened to the voices, I did what they told me, and not once did I ask what's in it for me.
Shoeless: What are you saying, Ray?
Ray: I'm saying, what's in it for me?

[on who the Voice meant by "Ease his pain."]
Ray: It was you...
Shoeless: No, Ray. It was YOU.

Mark: Admit it, Ray. You've never liked farming.
Ray: That's not true.
Mark: It is true. You don't know the first thing about farming.
Ray: Yes I do. I know a lot about farming. I know more than you think I know.
Mark: Then how could you plow under your major crop?
Ray: [feigning puzzlement at this word] What's a crop?

Ray: [about the reclusive Terence Mann] OK, the last interview he ever gave was in 1973. Guess what it's about.
Annie: Some kind of team sport.

[as the players disappear into the cornfield]
Eddie: I'm melting. I'm melting.
[fades away laughing]
Ray: That is so cool.

Ray: So what do you want?
Terence: I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.
Ray: No, I mean, what do you WANT?
[Gestures to the concession stand they're in front of]
Terence: Oh. Dog and a beer.

Ray: I bet it's good to be playing again, huh?
Shoeless: Getting thrown out of baseball was like having part of me amputated. I've heard that old men wake up and scratch itchy legs that been dust for over fifty years. That was me. I'd wake up at night with the smell of the ball park in my nose, the cool of the grass on my feet... The thrill of the grass.

Ray: Don't we need a catcher?
Shoeless: Not if you get it near the plate we don't.

[Shoeless Joe Jackson walks into the cornfield and disappears. Ray turns to his wife]
Ray: We're keeping this field.
Annie: You bet your ass we are!

Annie: Hey, what if the Voice calls while you're gone?
Ray: Take a message.

Ray: Don't you miss being involved?
Terence: I was the East Coast distributor of "involved." I ate it, drank it, and breathed it... Then they killed Martin, Bobby, and they elected Tricky Dick twice, and people like you must think I'm miserable because I'm not involved anymore. Well, I've got news for you. I spent all my misery years ago. I have no more pain for anything. I gave at the office.

Ray: Are you Moonlight Graham?
Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham: No one's called me Moonlight Graham in fifty years.

[last lines]
John: Well, good night Ray.
Ray: Good night, John.
[They shake hands and John begins to walk away]
Ray: Hey... Dad?
[John turns]
Ray: [choked up] You wanna have a catch?
John: I'd like that.