30 Best Steve McQueen Quotes

Doug: [picks up ringing phone] Roberts.
Chief: It's out of control, and it's coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes. Now, they wanna try somethin'. They wanna blow those water tanks two floors above you. They think it might kill the fire.
Doug: [surveys room] How're they gonna get the explosives up here?
Chief: [after already having been given the task] Oh, they'll find some dumb son of a bitch to bring it up.

Chief: All right. It's your building, but it's our fire. Now, let's get these people the hell out of here.
James: Now, I don't think you're listening, Chief. There's no way for a fire on 81 to reach up here, not in this building.
Chief: OK. I'll do it.
[He prepares to announce an evacuation]
James: [stops him] Hold it, hold it. The Mayor's out there. Do you want me to pull rank on you?
Chief: When there's a fire, I outrank everybody here. Now, one thing we don't want is a panic. Now, I could tell them, but you ought to do it. Just make a nice cool announcement to all your guests and tell them the party's being moved down below the fire floor. Right now.

Captain: He let the killers in himself? Why would he do a thing like that?
Bullitt: I'm waiting to ask him.
Captain: What about the setup? What do you make of that?
Bullitt: Shotgun and a backup man. Professionals.

[Chris and Vin were just shot at, hitting the tip of Chris' cigar]
Vin: You elected?
Chris: Na. I got nominated real good.

Chris: You forget one thing. We took a contract.
Vin: It's sure not the kind any court would enforce.
Chris: That's just the kind you've got to keep.

Bullitt: Look, Chalmers, let's understand each other... I don't like you.

Vin: It took me a long, long time to learn my elbow from a hot rock. Right now, I belong back in that border town sleeping on white sheets.

Bullitt: I thought that, money didn't matter to artists.
Cathy: It costs money to have a soul.

Chief: [picking up a security phone] This is O'Hallorhan, who am I speaking to?
Flaker: [into the phone] Chief Flaker, sir. US Navy Air Rescue.
Chief: It's about time, we can use your rescue choppers.
Flaker: I've ordered them right away. I'd like to set up communications next to the forward command center.
Chief: No no, too dangerous! Stay out of those elevators!
Flaker: Well then, sir, we'll just trot right up the stairs.
Chief: Yeah, you'll just trot right up to 79, huh?
Flaker: [chastened] Standing by in the lobby, sir.
Chief: Thank you.

Vin: You know - I've been in some towns where the girls weren't all that pretty. In fact I've been in some towns where they're downright ugly. But it's the first time I've been in a town where there are no girls at all, 'cept little ones. You know if we're not careful we could have quite a social life here.

Vin: We deal in lead, friend.

James: [smiling genially, sure that he can smarm his way out of the situation] Everything under control?
Chief: You've gotta move all these people out of here.
James: Aw, now, just how bad is it?
Chief: It's a fire, mister, and all fires are bad.

Hilario: The feeling I felt in my chest this morning, when I saw Calvera run away from us, that's a feeling worth dying for. Have you ever felt something like that?
Vin: Not for a long, long time. I envy you.

[the firemen are trapped in an elevator shaft]
Chief: We'll go down by rope. We're gonna rappel down to 65, get on top of that elevator, use it as an exit.
Young: I can't make it. I'll fall. I know I'll fall.
Chief: Okay. Then you better go first. That way when you fall, you won't take any of us with you.

Chalmers: Frank, we must all compromise.
Bullitt: Bullshit.

[Bullitt and Delgetti have searched the luggage of Dorothy Simmons and her boyfriend]
Delgetti: No passports, no tickets.
Bullitt: Call Immigration in Chicago, have them wire Renick's passport application. I'll get a fingerprint check on Ross.

Bullitt: You sell whatever you want, but don't sell it here tonight.

Chico: Villages like this they make up a song about every big thing that happens. Sing them for years.
Chris: You think it's worth it?
Chico: Don't you?
Chris: It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that.
Chico: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
Vin: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids... none! Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
Chris: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
Lee: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
Chris: No enemies?
Lee: Alive.
Chico: Well. This is the kind of arithmetic I like.
Chris: Yeah. So did I at your age.

Vin: Rojas is makin' room for you in his home.
Old: Rojas? His conversation would bore me to death!
Vin: Yeah, well, maybe somebody else, huh?
Old: Hey are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertiliser and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertiliser. As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83. I am staying here.

[about setting the charges for the tanks]
Chief: How do I get back down?
[long pause]
Chief: Oh shit! Huh...

Cathy: Your world is so far from the one I know. What will happen to us, in time?
Bullitt: Time starts now.

Chief: [sighs] Architects.
Doug: Yeah, it's all our fault.
Chief: Now, you know there's no sure way for us to fight a fire in anything over the seventh floor, but you guys just keep building 'em as high as you can.
Doug: Hey. Are you here to take me on, or the fire?

Vin: You know the first time I took a job as a hired gun, fellow told me, "Vin, you can't afford to care." There's your problem.
Chris: One thing I don't need is somebody telling me my problem.
Vin: Like I said before, that's your problem. You got involved in this village and the people in it.
Chris: Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?
Vin: The reason I understand your problem so well is that I walked in the same trap myself. Yeah. First day we got here, I started thinking: Maybe I could put my gun away, settle down, get a little land, raise some cattle. Things that these people know about me be to my credit - wouldn't work against me. I just didn't want you to think you were the only sucker in town.

Chief: For what it's worth, architect, this is one building that I figured wouldn't burn.
Doug: Either did I.
[O'Hallorhan starts to walk toward Roberts's office on the 79th floor, so Roberts decides to add the kicker]
Doug: And they're celebrating! A party.
Chief: Party? What party? Where?
Doug: In the Promenade Room. 300 people.
Chief: Well, why didn't you get them the hell out of there?
Doug: Why don't you go on upstairs and talk to Duncan? He ain't exactly listening to me.
Chief: I will.

Cathy: Something exciting?
Bullitt: Go to sleep.
Cathy: Meaning you won't tell me anything.
Bullitt: It's not for you, baby.
Cathy: Anything you do is part of me.

Chalmers: Lieutenant, don't try to evade the responsibility. In your... parlance, you blew it. You knew the significance of his testimony, yet you failed to take adequate measures to protect him. So to you, it was a job, no more. Were it more, and you had the dedication I was led to believe...
Bullitt: You believe what you want. You work your side of the street, and I'll work mine.

Captain: Albert Edward Renick, used car salesman, Chicago.
Chalmers: Who's Renick?
Bullitt: He was the man who was shot at the Hotel Daniels. You sent us to guard the wrong man, Mr. Chalmers.

[last Lines]
Chief: You know, we were lucky tonight. Body count's less than 200. You know, one of these days, you're gonna kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps, and I'm gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until somebody asks us... how to build them.
Doug: [looks up at the smoky building] Okay. I'm asking.
Chief: You know where to reach me. So long, architect.

[as Chris, Vin and Chico are about to leave the village]
Old: You could a-stay, you know. They wouldn't be sorry to have you a-stay.
Vin: They won't be sorry to see us go, either.
Old: Yes. The fighting is over. Your work is done. For them, each season has its tasks. If there were a season for gratitude, they'd show it more.
Vin: We didn't get any more than we expected, old man.
Old: Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera, the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You're like the wind - blowing over the land and... passing on. Vaya con dios.
Chris: Adios.

Chief: How long before you can give me a complete list of your tenants?
Harry: Oh, you don't have to worry about that, we're moving them out right now.
Chief: Not live-in. *Business* tenants.
Harry: Well, we kind of looked up there, too. The majority of them haven't moved in yet, and those that have aren't working tonight.
Chief: I want to know *who* they are, not *where* they are.
Harry: [perplexed] But what does that got to do with anything, who they are?
Chief: [patiently] Do you have any wool or silk manufacturers? You see, in a fire, wool and silk give off cyanide gas. Do you have any sporting goods manufacturers, like table tennis balls? They give off toxic gases. Now, do you want me to keep going down the line?
Harry: [now understanding] No. One list of tenants coming right up.
Chief: Thank you.