Memorable quotes for
A Life Less Ordinary (1997) More at IMDb Pro »

Celine: Remember what they didn't teach you at Harvard Business school.
Robert: I didn't go to Harvard Business school!
Celine: That's a figure of speech, Robert.

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Celine: Despite your crummy poem, I came to see you and all you could do was humiliate me and turn me away. I thought you were decent, but it turns out you're just a lying, cheating bastard like all the rest.

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Celine: If word got around that I had been liberated for half a million dollars, I could never show my face in polite society again. Diamonds have no value except that which is placed upon them.

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Tod: Do you think that I'd talk to a dog? Do you think I'd ask a dog whether you're good or evil? What do you think I am? Some kind of crazy backwoods lunatic with a barn full of human skulls and a scythe that I sharpen every day in readiness for Armageddon?
Robert: No, no, not at all, I'm sure you're just a regular kind of guy.
Tod: Right, I'm regular, I am a regular man. I want... but that's not the point! The point is, who are YOU? WHO ARE YOU?

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Celine: I'd like to make a withdrawal.
Robert: I thought we agreed there'd be no cliches.

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Celine: "Kill me but don't touch the girl." You should be on television.

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Robert: Of course it's obvious, guys, it's a trash novel. You buy it at the airport, you take it on holiday.

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Celine: "Kidnap For Beginners", Chapter One. Have you even asked for a ransom yet?

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Jackson: Have you ever felt like you're not in control of your life?

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Robert: Right, you daughter! I have your asshole here!

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Robert: [practicing his ransom demand] Right, you asshole, I've got your daughter here, and I'm gonna cut her up, and post her home to you in boxes! *Small* boxes!

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Robert: Right you asshole, I've got your daughter here, and I'm gonna send her back in pieces if... OH! I'm sorry, madam. No, I haven't got your daughter here, I've got someone else's. No, we're not married. Yes, I've read the same thing, it's very hard to find suitable young men these days. Well, I'm sure your daughter's very nice, in principle I've got no objection to meeting her...
[Celine hangs up the phone]
Robert: What is the problem?

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Robert: You... you're going to kill me?
Jackson: Yeah.
[Robert cries hysterically]
Robert: Well then I don't see why I should dig!
Jackson: If you dig, I promise you when the time comes I'll shoot you through the head.
[Robert laughs bitterly]
Jackson: Now look, you don't like that? I can just shoot you through the testicles right now, you can bleed to death, I'll dig the grave, it's up to you.

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Jackson: What the hell did you do to her?
Robert: I punched her in the face.
Jackson: Oh, you punched her in the face. She's half your size and you punch her in the face?
Robert: She had a gun!
Jackson: Oh, she had a gun! So that makes everything all right, does it?
Robert: No, I'm not saying it makes everything all right. I'm just trying to explain to you that for all I knew, she could have been a karate expert or something.
Jackson: With a broken arm? WITH A BROKEN ARM?
Robert: O.K., I'm sorry.

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Celine's Mother: Remember my dear, they only want one thing. Maybe they want it more than once, but it's still only one thing.

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O'Reilly: Our fee for the recovery of your daughter is... one hundred thousand dollars.
Naville: That's a lot of money.
O'Reilly: Five thousand in advance. The rest is cash on delivery - no daughter, no dough.
Jackson: And naturally we'd operate a sliding scale, whereby if we only bring back part of your daughter, we only get part of the money.
O'Reilly: That's enough, Jackson.
Jackson: No, I mean if he's cut her ears off and we can't find them, we'll knock a couple thousand off the tariff. More for a limb, obviously.
O'Reilly: Jackson.
Jackson: Sorry.

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Robert: Are you taking me to a hospital? Because I don't want to die in a hospital.
Celine: I'm not going to take you to a hospital.
Robert: WHAT? What do you mean you're not taking me to a hospital? I demand to be taken to a hospital!

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O'Reilly: We can do this with or without violence, it's up to you. The client pays our medical bills but not yours. Well?
Robert: Oh, without, please.

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Al: Nice-looking woman.
Robert: She isn't my type.
Al: What are you talking about? Look at yourself. You're nothing. You're nobody. You're wanted in connection with a violent crime. You're cleaning the floor of a diner. She is an intelligent, passionate, beautiful, rich woman. The issue of whether or not she's your type is not one that you're likely to have to resolve in this world... or, indeed, the next, since she will be going to some heaven for glamorous pussy, and you will be cleaning the floor of a diner in hell.
Robert: I guess so.
Al: So why are you even thinking about it?

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Celine: You're in a lot of trouble, you know. My father's gonna have you killed. You realize that? Tortured first, naturally. Then he's gonna have you killed.

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Jackson: I hate it down here. I hate the air, I hate the food, I hate the plumbing. I ache all over. I sweat in the heat and I ache in the cold. And why can't we stay someplace decent?
O'Reilly: Budget doesn't cover that.
Jackson: Exactly. Why not?
O'Reilly: You know those mysterious ways you keep hearing about, Jackson? Well, this is one of them.

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Gabriel: [picks up his office phone] This is Gabriel. Get me God.

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Gabriel: [on the phone with God] In all due respect, Sir, how could anything be beyond Your control?

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Celine: Look, they weren't trying to kill you. They were trying to confuse you, and scare you.
Robert: Yeah, before they killed me.

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Naville: You'll die for this, I swear to God, you will die for this!

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Celine: You have the demeanor of a man whose partner has left him for an aerobics instructor.

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Jackson: I remember the good old days. All you had to do was introduce a man and a woman, Nature did the rest. Doesn't work like that anymore. Men and women, it's all gone to shit.
O'Reilly: Sure has.

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O'Reilly: Human fucking beings. What do you have to do?

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O'Reilly: Jeopardy, Jackson, always works.

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Gabriel: [reading Jackson and O'Reilly's case file] Divorce. Miserable Marriage. Wedding Canceled. Remarried, Divorced Again. Divorce. Ah, Irreconcilable Sexual Disharmony. Divorce, Divorce, Divorce, Divorce, Divorce, Divorce!

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Naville: Mayhew? Not with the ax.

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O'Reilly: Jeopardy, Jackson. Always works.

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Celine: What's wrong?
Robert: What's wrong, you crazy bitch, is I thought you were gonna shoot me! THAT'S what's wrong!

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Elliot Zweikel: I wish you hadn't done that. Now I have to have to hurt you, which is inconvenient and undignified.

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Robert: I'm writing a novel myself, a lot of people say that, but in my case it's true.

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Celine: I'm not interested in you, or your novel, or any other pathetic ambition you have to change your miserable, mundane existence.

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[about to execute Robert]
Jackson: I commit you to His mercy.

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Robert: And don't ask where I'm going.
Celine: Don't even imagine that I care.
Robert: Exactly the problem!

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Naville: Celine, why don't you give me the gun?
Celine: Because as he dreamt, I shall save his life with an arrow, an arrow of my love for him.
[she shoots Robert in the heart]

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[Knock on the hideout's door]
Jackson: What is that?
O'Reilly: Answer it, Jackson.
Jackson: I can't do that. We're playing blackjack, she might cheat while I'm out of the room.
[Celine, who's bound and gagged, rolls her eyes]
O'Reilly: Fine. I'll answer the door, you play blackjack with the hostage.

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Celine: So you're telling me that successful relationships... are made in heaven? Notfounded on the daily practicality... of two people being prepared... to tolerate the imperfections of one another?
Robert: It's not successful relationships, Celine. It's love. And it comes from a strange and wonderful place... that we don't know about.
Celine: So you also reject the idea... that love is merely an emotional adaptation... to a physical necessity?
Robert: Completely.
Celine: Are you serious?
Robert: Fate intervenes in people's lives. In ours, for instance. Fate brought us together. It kept us together. We were destined for one another.
Celine: Fate had a pretty strange way of making its point.
Robert: But that's part of the beauty of it. It's inexplicable, unpredictable... and absolutely beyond control or understanding.
Celine: But you nearly got killed.
Robert: But I didn't... and here we are.
Celine: Do you have any substantial evidence to back all this?
Robert: None at all.
Celine: And you realize that it's absurd and irrational?
Robert: I know that.
Celine: Then why do you believe it?
Robert: Because, Celine, I'm a dreamer.
Celine: Well, I guess that makes two of us.
Robert: Are you ready?
Celine: As I'll ever be.
Robert: Then let's go.

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Naville: I want her back.
O'Reilly: Don't worry, we'll get her.
Naville: And I want him dead.
O'Reilly: That's understood, Mr. Naville.
Naville: Good.
[He places the suitcase with the ransom cash on the desk. Jackson starts to take it, but Naville slaps a hand down on it]
Naville: And when it's over, I want *this* back.

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[Naville's car, parked outside the cabin, rocks violently and banging is heard from inside the trunk]
Celine: Someone let me out of this trunk! Robert, he's going to kill you! He doesn't want the money, okay? He's going to kill you! Just run, Robert, run!

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[Robert desperately searches the cabin for the ransom cash to hold off his own execution]
Naville: We're just gonna have to face the truth, Robert, you don't have my money! And frankly, I don't care. It's just a detail.
[as Mayhew drags an axe across the floor]
Naville: As long as you understand, that it isn't the money, it's the principle.

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