The Third Man (1949) quotes

Director
Carol Reed.

Cast
Orson Welles.
Joseph Cotten.
Alida Valli.

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.
– Harry Lime

Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don’t know what you’re mixing in, get the next plane.
– Calloway
As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’ll get the next plane.
– Martins
Death’s at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.
– Calloway
Mind if I use that line in my next Western?
– Martins

Have you ever seen any of your victims?
– Martins
You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax – the only way you can save money nowadays.
– Harry Lime

A person doesn’t change just because you find out more.
– Anna Schmidt

You were born to be murdered.
– Calloway

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs – it’s the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.
– Harry Lime
You used to believe in God.
– Martins
Oh, I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. But the dead are happier dead. They don’t miss much here, poor devils.
– Harry Lime

We should have dug deeper than a grave.
– Calloway

I was going to stay with him, but he died Thursday.
– Martins
Goodness, that’s awkward.
– Crabbin
Is that what you say to people after death? “Goodness, that’s awkward”?
– Martins

I’d make comic faces… and stand on my head and grin at you between my legs… and tell all sorts of jokes. I wouldn’t stand a chance, would I?
– Martins

What did you want me to do? Be reasonable. You didn’t expect me to give myself up… ‘It’s a far, far better thing that I do.’ The old limelight. The fall of the curtain. Oh, Holly, you and I aren’t heroes. The world doesn’t make any heroes outside of your stories.
– Harry Lime

It had meningitis. They gave it some of Lime’s penicillin. Terrible pity isn’t it.
– Calloway

I told you to go away, Martins. This isn’t Santa Fe. I’m not a sheriff and you aren’t a cowboy. You’ve been blundering around with the worst bunch of racketeers in Vienna, your precious Harry’s friends, and now you’re wanted for murder.
– Calloway
Put down drunk and disorderly too.
– Martins
I have.
– Calloway

Oh, Anna, why do we always… have to quarrel?
– Martins
If you want to sell your services, I’m not willing to be the price. I loved him. You loved him. What good have we done him? Love. Look at yourself.They have a name for faces like that.
– Anna Schmidt

You know, you ought to get yourself a girl.
– Anna Schmidt