The Best Ricky Jay Quotes

Kurt: Little Bill.
Little: Hey. Kurt. What's up?
Kurt: What's wrong with you?
Little: Ah... my fuckin' wife, man, she's over there... she's got some idiot's dick in her, people standing around watching - it's a fuckin' embarassment.
Kurt: Yeah. Yeah. I know. Anyway, listen...
Little: Yeah?
Kurt: For the shoot - I wanna talk about the look. I wanted to see about getting this new zoom lens...
Little: Right.
Kurt: I wondered if we'd be able to look into getting some more lights, too, y'know...
Little: Jack wants a minimal thing...
Kurt: Right, well, very often, minimal means a lot more photographically than I think, well... than I think most people understand...
Little: I understand.
Kurt: No, no. Hey. I know you understand, I was talking about some other people.
Little: Well, I think what Jack is talking about is minimal, not really "natural", but minimal...
Kurt: Okay... fine... I was just saying...
Little: I understand...
Kurt: 'Cause I'm trying to give each picture it's own look...
Little: Can we talk about this later?
Kurt: Oh, yeah... you have to go somewhere... or...?
Little: Well, no, yeah... I mean...
Kurt: 'Cause I was hoping to, y'know, for the shoot tomorrow, we could send Rocky down and he could pick it up...
Little: Kurt.
Kurt: No. Hey. Gotcha. You've gotta go somewhere so - hey - what the fuck? It's only the fucking photography of the movie we're talking about.
Little: My fucking wife has an ass in her cock over in the driveway, alright? I'm sorry if my thoughts aren't with the photography of the film we're shooting tomorrow, Kurt, OK?
Kurt: OK. No big deal. Sorry.

Milton: If you would tie her wrists.
- Bind her feet around the ankle.
- Are either of you two gentlemen sailors?
- No.
- No.
Milton: I'm sure you can both tie a strong knot.

Narrator: And there is the account of the hanging of three men, and a scuba diver, and a suicide. There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it." Someone's so-and-so met someone else's so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

[first lines]
Narrator: In the New York Herald, November 26, year 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men. They died for the murder of Sir Edmund William Godfrey; Husband, Father, Pharmacist and all around gentle-man resident of: Greenberry Hill, London. He was murdered by three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery. They were identified as: Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill. Green, Berry, Hill. And I Would Like To Think This was Only A Matter Of Chance. As reported in the Reno Gazette, June of 1983 there is the story of a fire, the water that it took to contain the fire, and a scuba diver named Delmer Darion. Employee of the Peppermill Hotel and Casino, Reno, Nevada. Engaged as a blackjack dealer. Well liked and well regarded as a physical, recreational and sporting sort, Delmer's true passion was for the lake. As reported by the coroner, Delmer died of a heart attack somewhere between the lake and the tree. A most curious side note is the suicide the next day of Craig Hansen. Volunteer firefighter, estranged father of four and a poor tendency to drink. Mr. Hansen was the pilot of the plane that quite accidentally lifted Delmer Darion out of the water. Added to this, Mr. Hansen's tortured life met before with Delmer Darion just two nights previous. The weight of the guilt and the measure of coincidence so large, Craig Hansen took his life. And I Am Trying To Think This Was All Only A Matter Of Chance. The tale told at a 1961 awards dinner for the American Association Of Forensic Science by Dr. Donald Harper, president of the association, began with a simple suicide attempt. Seventeen-year-old Sydney Barringer. In the city of Los Angeles on March 23, 1958. The coroner ruled that the unsuccessful suicide had suddenly become a successful homicide. To explain: The suicide was confirmed by a note, left in the breast pocket of Sydney Barringer. At the same time young Sydney stood on the ledge of this nine-story building, an argument swelled three stories below. The neighbors heard, as they usually did, the arguing of the tenants and it was not uncommon for them to threaten each other with a shotgun, or one of the many handguns kept in the house. And when the shotgun accidentaly went off, Sydney just happend to pass. Added to this, the two tenants turned out to be: Faye and Arthur Barringer. Sydney's mother and Sydney's father. When confronted with the charge, which took some figuring out for the officers on the scene of the crime, Faye Barringer swore that she did not know that the gun was loaded. A young boy who lived in the building, sometimes a visitor and friend to Sydney Barringer, said that he had seen, six days prior, the loading of the shotgun. It seems that the arguing and the fighting and all of the violence was far too much for Sydney Barringer, and knowing his mother and father's tendency to fight, he decided to do something. Sydney Barringer jumps from the ninth floor rooftop. His parents argue three stories below. Her accidental shotgun blast hits Sydney in the stomach as he passes the arguing sixth-floor window. He is killed instantly but continues to fall, only to find, three stories below, a safety net installed three days prior for a set of window washers that would have broken his fall and saved his life if not for the hole in his stomach. So Faye Barringer was charged with the murder of her son, and Sydney Barringer noted as an accomplice in his own death. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just "Something That Happened." This cannot be "One of Those Things... " This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can't. This Was Not Just A Matter Of Chance. Ohhhh. These strange things happen all the time.

- You see, this water tank...
- ...was of particular significance to these two men.
- Particularly awful significance.
Milton: Which of you brave souls is willing to bind this lovely young woman?
- If you would tie her wrists.
- Bind her feet around the ankle.

- ...describes a show at the Orpheum Theater.
- That was just days after he first met me.
- BORDEN: We were two young men at the start of a great career.
- Two young men devoted to an illusion.
- Two young men who never intended to hurt anyone.
Milton: Which of you brave souls is willing to bind this lovely young woman?

Vic: I think, right now, we should focus on the positive. Tonight was good.
Capt. Amazing: Yeah? You think so? Cause I was worried it was, um, I don't know... PATHETIC! "Amazing triumphs at a nursing home"? That's great copy, Vic!
Vic: Look, I'm a publicist, not a magician. You want big news, you have to have big fights. A superhero needs a supervillain - and thanks to you, we've got none left.
Capt. Amazing: Then get... the Death Man!
Vic: Death Man is dead.
Capt. Amazing: Okay... Father Doom!
Vic: Life without parole. Apocalypto's doing fifty years. Armagezzmo's in exile. Baron von Chaos got the chair...
Capt. Amazing: Really?
Vic: Casanova Frankenstein is locked up in a nut-house.
Capt. Amazing: Casanova Frankenstein - now there was a supervillain! You know, he just... he's got those eyes, you know? I can't do it, but... and that voice! Such pure evil! The battles we used to have - extraordinary!
Vic: "Used to." That's the problem, Captain. "Used to."