Cool Hand Luke (1967) quotes

Director
Stuart Rosenberg.

Cast
Paul Newman.
George Kennedy.
Strother Martin.

A laid back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.

Nothin’! A handful of nothin’. You stupid mullet head, he beat you with nothin’, just like today when he kept comin’ back at me, with nothin’.
– Dragline
Yeah, well… sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.
– Luke

Yeah, well… sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.
– Luke

That’s my darling Luke. He grins like a baby but bites like a gator.
– Dragline

Now, I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean sum-bitch.
– Captain

What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it… well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.
– Captain

Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.
– Boss
Nah – calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.
– Luke

Oh come on. Stop beatin’ it. Get out there yourself. Stop feedin’ off me. Get out of here. I can’t breathe. Give me some air.
– Luke

Why you got to go and say fifty eggs for? Why not thirty-five or thirty-nine?
– Dragline
I thought it was a nice round number.
– Luke

You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice you got yourself two sets. You ain’t gonna need no third set, ’cause you gonna get your mind right.
– Captain

He’s a natural born world-shaker.
– Dragline

He was smiling… That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker.
– Dragline

Anything so innocent and built like that just gotta be named Lucille.
– Dragline

That ditch is Boss Kean’s ditch. And I told him that dirt in it’s your dirt. What’s your dirt doin’ in his ditch?
– Boss Paul
I don’t know, Boss.
– Luke
You better get in there and get it out, boy.
– Boss Paul

You gonna get used to wearin’ them chains afer a while, Luke. Don’t you never stop listenin’ to them clinking. ‘Cause they gonna remind you of what I been saying. For your own good.
– Captain
Wish you’d stop being so good to me, Captain.
– Luke