Film Quotation
A remembered line of screen dialogue, credited to a character, a writer and a film.
A film quotation is dialogue lifted from a movie. Unlike a printed quotation it has three plausible owners: the character who says it, the screenwriter who wrote it, and the actor whose delivery made it memorable.
Good practice names the character and the film, and names the screenwriter when the point concerns the writing rather than the performance. Cite the release year to prevent confusion between remakes and reboots.
Screen lines drift badly in circulation, because people quote the version they half-remember. Several of the most repeated movie lines were never spoken as quoted; checking a script or the film itself is the only reliable fix.
Common mistake: attributing the line to the actor as though it were a personal statement. The actor spoke it; the character said it.
“"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." — Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind (1939)”
Keep reading the glossary
Reproducing a quote with the wording changed — even if the source is correct.
Word-for-word — quoting exactly as the original was spoken or written.
The act of naming the original speaker or writer of a quote.
A short phrase strongly associated with one speaker, character, or campaign.