Looper (2012) quotes

In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits.

Then I saw it. I saw a mom who would die for her son. A man who would kill for his wife. A boy, angry and alone. Laid out in front of him, the bad path. I saw it. And the path was a circle. Round and round. So I changed it.
– Joe

I don’t want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we’re going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.
– Older Joe

Why the fuck French?
– Abe
I’m going to France.
– Joe
You should go to China.
– Abe
I’m going to France.
– Joe
I’m from the future. You should go to China.
– Abe

This time travel crap, just fries your brain like a egg…
– Abe

Time travel has not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been. It will be instantly outlawed, used only in secret by the largest criminal organizations. It’s nearly impossible to dispose of a body in the future… I’m told. Tagging techniques, whatnot. So when these criminal organizations in the future need someone gone, they use specialized assassins in our present called “loopers.” And so, my employers in the future nab the target, they zap him back to me, their looper. He appears, hands tied and head sacked, and I do the necessaries. Collect my silver. So the target is vanished from the future, and I’ve just disposed of a body that technically does not exist. Clean.
– Joe

This is a Remington 870. One blast could cut you the fuck in half.
– Sara
In half. Yeah, that’s telling. You’re holding a gun, I say I’m not afraid, so you describe the gun to me. It’s not the gun I’m not afraid of.
– Joe

There’s a reason we’re called loopers. When we sign up for this job, taking out the future’s garbage, we also agree to a very specific proviso. Time travel in the future is so illegal, that when our employers want to close our contracts, they’ll also want to erase any trace of their relationship with us ever existing. So if we’re still alive 30 years from now, they’ll find our older self, zap him back to us, and we’ll kill him like any other job. This is called closing your loop. Eh, you get a golden payday, you get a handshake, and you get released from your contract. Enjoy the next 30 years. This job doesn’t tend to attract the most forward-thinking people.
– Joe

My great-grandfather told my grandfather, “Men are like spiders. It’s the little ones you’ve got to be careful of.”
– Abe
Don’t know I agree with that.
– Joe
Yeah? Huh. What the fuck did my great-grandfather know?
– Abe

Listen up, fucker! I have shot and buried three vagrants in the past year! So I don’t care what hobo sob story you’ve got. I get a dozen a week, pal. It cuts no cash for me. But if you show your face here again, I will cut you the fuck in half!
– Sara

Your face looks backwards.
– Joe

You’re a liar, you’re gonna get killed ‘cuz you won’t stop lying.
– Cid

This is a piece of indentifying information on the Rainmaker. He’s here. He lives here now. In this county. And I’m gonna use this to find him. And I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna stop him from killing my wife.
– Older Joe
Fuck you. And your wife. None of this concerns me.
– Joe
This is gonna happen…
– Older Joe
It happened to you. It doesn’t have to happen to me. You got a picture right there in my watch? Let me see. Show me the picture. As soon as I see her, I walk away. I’ll fucking marry someone else. Promise. So when I see that picture, that fog inside your brain should just swallow up all the memories, right? She’ll be gone. If you give her up, she’ll be safe.
– Joe
Give her up?
– Older Joe
Yeah, give her up. You’re the one who got her killed. She never meets you, she’s safe.
– Joe
You don’t understand. We don’t have to give her up. I’m not gonna give her up. I’m gonna save her.
– Older Joe

My memory’s cloudy. It’s a cloud. Because my memories aren’t really memories. They’re just one possible eventuality now. And they grow clearer or cloudier as they become more are less likely. But then they get to the present moment, and they’re instantly clear again. I can remember what you do after you do it. And it hurts.
– Older Joe
So even when we’re apart, you can remember what I do after?
– Joe
Yes, but this is a precise description of a fuzzy mechanism. It’s messy.
– Older Joe

Where’s Joe?
– Cid
He had to go away, baby.
– Sara

Ask yourself: who would I sacrifice for what’s MINE?
– Abe

Kid, cut it out. Don’t blow your other foot off.
– Joe

I guess everything comes back around. Like your goddamn ties.
– Abe