In the Line of Fire Quotes. QuotesGram

Frank Horrigan: I want you to give yourself up.
Mitch Leary: So I can live a long and fruitful life?
Frank Horrigan: Oh, we can work something out.
Mitch Leary: [laughs] Jesus, Frank don't fucking lie to me. I have a rendezvous with death, and so does the President, and so do you Frank if you get too close to me.
Frank Horrigan: You have a rendezvous with my ass, motherfucker!

Hunter: Was that you shooting?
Leary: Yes.
Hunter: That's a cool gun you got there. Could I see it?
[Leary gives him the gun]
Hunter: Shit, that's light! What's it made of?
Leary: Composite. Like plastic.
Hunter: Mind if I give it a little dance?
[Leary shrugs. The hunter shoots a duck]
Hunter: That is great! That is really really great! You wouldn't want to sell it would you?
Leary: No, I need it.
Hunter: For what?
Leary: To assassinate the president.
[Hunters laugh]
Hunter: Now what do you want to do that for, mister?
Leary: Why'd you kill that bird, asshole?
[proceeds to nonchalantly kill both of the hunters with his gun]

Frank Horrigan: [Leary is hanging from an elevator alongside a hotel building. Horrigan offers his hand to him] Take my hand. If you don't, you'll die.
Mitch Leary: [smiling] Do you want to save me, Frank?
Frank Horrigan: To be frank and honest with you, no. But it's my job.

[Frank watches Lilly leave from the Lincoln Memorial]
Frank Horrigan: If she looks back, it means she's interested. Come on, give me a look back now. Just give me that smug expression and be on your way.
[Lilly looks back]
Frank Horrigan: Well, Abe? Damn... wish I could have been there for you, pal.

Frank Horrigan: So you had an affair with an agent, and it came out badly.
Lilly Raines: He wasn't an agent.
Frank Horrigan: But he left you because you wouldn't quit your job. You were broken-hearted.
Lilly Raines: I left him, Frank, because I wouldn't quit my job for him. And it did break my heart.
Frank Horrigan: You vowed never again to ever let a man come between you and your career.
Lilly Raines: No...
Frank Horrigan: Except... now you're in love with me, and it screws your little head up.
Lilly Raines: Frank, blow your nose. Here.
Frank Horrigan: Sorry. What were to happen if I, uh, gave up my job for you?
Lilly Raines: Why would you do that?
Frank Horrigan: Well, maybe I vowed to never again let my career come between me and a woman.

Al D'Andrea: I don't know, maybe I'm... maybe I'm just wrong for the job.
Frank Horrigan: You're a good man, Al. You'll make a good agent.
Al D'Andrea: How do you know? This is the longest conversation we've ever had.
Frank Horrigan: I know things about people.

Frank Horrigan: I've never worked with a female agent before. How many are there?
Lilly Raines: About 125.
Frank Horrigan: Mm. Pure window dressing.
Lilly Raines: Excuse me?
Frank Horrigan: Window dressing. About 125 out of a little over 2,000. They have you all around so that the President can look good to his feminist voters.
Lilly Raines: Do you make an effort to be obnoxious, or is it a gift?
Frank Horrigan: It's a gift. Let's face it, half the things we do are window dressing. Take running alongside that limousine: it'd take an anti-tank missile to put a dent in that damn thing. There we are, out for show, trying to make the President look more presidential.

Lilly Raines: The President was humiliated.
Frank Horrigan: He's alive, isn't he?
Lilly Raines: Yeah, well, we're here to safeguard his dignity as well.
Frank Horrigan: I'm not paid for that.
Lilly Raines: What about the time Kennedy's girlfriend was caught in the White House and you said she was with you?
Frank Horrigan: Don't you go believing every rumor someone tells you.
Lilly Raines: Frank, Wilder told me the whole story. About how you were suspended a month without pay. I'd say that was safeguarding his dignity.
Frank Horrigan: That was different. *He* was different.
Lilly Raines: Maybe you were different.
Frank Horrigan: I was different. The whole damn country was different. Everything would be different right now too if I'd been half as a paranoid as I am today. Fuck.

[last lines]
Frank Horrigan: I'll bet you that brown pigeon down there flies off before the white one.
Lilly Raines: How do you know?
Frank Horrigan: I know things about pigeons, Lilly.

[Lilly's wearing an evening dress]
Lilly Raines: What are you looking at?
Frank Horrigan: I was just wondering where you hide your firearm. Don't tell me, let me guess.

Al D'Andrea: You okay?
Frank Horrigan: No, I'm not okay. I'm sick, I'm tired, and I'm armed too, so be careful.
Al D'Andrea: You're also maybe a genius.
Frank Horrigan: Huh - not to be recognized in this lifetime.

Frank Horrigan: What do you know about the guy?
Walter Wickland: Well, d'you see this wheelchair? Mitch bought it for me. Cost over $1,000. See this?
[holds up gun]
Al D'Andrea: Whoa, whoa, take it easy now...
Walter Wickland: This is in case he ever comes back.

[Leary's final words on Frank's answering machine]
Mitch Leary: Hello, Frank. By the time you hear this, it'll be over. The President is most likely dead, and so am I. I wonder, Frank, did you kill me? Who won our game? Not that it really matters, for among friends like you and me, it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game, and now the game is done and it's time to get on with your life. But I worry, Frank, that you have no life to get on with. You're a good man, and good men like you and me are destined to walk a lonely road. Goodbye, and good luck.

[Horrigan and Leary are in a glass elevator. Sharpshooters are in place to take out Leary but can't see the target because the lights in the elevator are out. Horrigan is on the floor while Leary is standing over him and pointing a gun at him. Unbeknownst to Leary, Horrigan has a microphone concealed in his hand and is transmitting]
Horrigan: Go ahead and shoot, dammit.
Lilly Raines: They can't see inside. If they fire, you'll be hit.
Mitch Leary: I want you to thank me first, Frank.
Horrigan: Shut up and shoot.
Lilly Raines: All right, Frank.
Mitch Leary: All right, Frank.
Lilly Raines: Shooters, stand by to fire. Wait for my command.
Mitch Leary: [Cocks the gun] Sleep well, my friend.
Horrigan: Just one thing: aim high.
Mitch Leary: What?
Lilly Raines: Aim high.
Horrigan: Now!
Mitch Leary: [Sees the microphone and realizes Horrigan has been talking to Raines] You bastard!
Lilly Raines: Fire.
[Glass is shattered by gunfire. Leary is forced to duck, giving Horrigan an opportunity to grapple with him]

Frank Horrigan: What to do you see when you're in the dark, and the demons come?
Mitch Leary: I see you, Frank. I see you standing over the grave of another dead president.
Frank Horrigan: That's not going to happen. I'm onto you.
Mitch Leary: Fuck you Frank. I am willing to trade my life for his. I am smart, and I am willing, and that is all it takes. That president is coming home from California in a fucking box.
Frank Horrigan: Where in California?
Mitch Leary: Uh, the address? Come on, Frank. I'll keep you in the game, but I'm not going to throw it for you.

Leary: The irony is so thick you could choke on it.
Horrigan: There's no fuckin' irony, Mitch.
Leary: Think, Frank. Think. The same government that trained me to kill trained you to protect. Yet now you want to kill me while up on that roof I protected you. They're gonna write books about us, Frank.

Mitch Leary: There's no cause left worth fighting for, Frank. All we have is the game. I'm on offense, you're on defense.
Frank Horrigan: Well, when do we start playing the game?
Mitch Leary: The clock's ticking, Frank.

Frank Horrigan: You're looking at a living legend, Lilly. The only active agent who ever lost a president.

Frank Horrigan: How's the First Lady? She ask about me?
Lilly Raines: Have you gotten to know them yet?
Frank Horrigan: Well, I normally prefer not to get to know the people I'm protecting.
Lilly Raines: Oh, yeah? Why's that?
Frank Horrigan: Well, you never know. You might decide they're not worth taking a bullet for.

Mitch Leary: Frank, you of all people, I want you to understand because we both USED to think this country was a very special place...
Frank Horrigan: You don't know what I used to think!
Mitch Leary: Oh, but you know about me? Do you have any idea what I've done for God and country? Some pretty FUCKING HORRIBLE things! I don't even remember who I was before they sunk their claws into me!
Frank Horrigan: They made you into a real monster, right?
Mitch Leary: That's right and now they want to destroy me because we can't have monsters roaming the quiet countryside, now can we?

Lilly Raines: What makes you think he'll call again?
Frank Horrigan: Oh, he'll call again. He's got, uh, "panache."
Lilly Raines: Panache?
Frank Horrigan: Yeah, it means flamboyance.
Lilly Raines: Mm, I know what it means.
Frank Horrigan: Really? I had to look it up.

Sam Campagna: Frank, The President sent his limo for you.
Lilly Raines: Well, that's the least he could do.
Frank Horrigan: Good, I love public transportation.

Mitch Leary: Watching the President, I - I couldn't help wondering why a man like you would risk his life to save a man like that. You have such a strange job - I can't decide if it's heroic or absurd.
Frank Horrigan: Now, why would a man like you want to risk his life to kill a man like that?
Mitch Leary: Don't you have a psychological profile on me yet?
Frank Horrigan: I don't put a lot of stock in them.
Mitch Leary: Nor do I. A man's actions don't equal the sum of his psychological parts. Doesn't work that way.
Frank Horrigan: Just how does it work?
Mitch Leary: It doesn't work, Frank. God doesn't punish the wicked and reward the righteous. Everyone dies. Some die because they deserve to; others die simply because they come from Minneapolis. It's random and it's meaningless.
Frank Horrigan: Well, if none of this means anything... why kill the President?
Mitch Leary: To punctuate the dreariness.

Frank Horrigan: I know who you are - Leary.
Mitch Leary: I'm glad, Frank. Friends should be able to call each other by name.
Frank Horrigan: We're not friends.
Mitch Leary: Sure we are.
Frank Horrigan: I've seen what you do to friends.
Mitch Leary: What's that supposed to mean?
Frank Horrigan: You slit your friend's throat.
Mitch Leary: You talked to Coppinger, Frank?
Frank Horrigan: Yeah, that's right.
Mitch Leary: Did you delouse? The man's a professional liar.
Frank Horrigan: I saw the photos.
Mitch Leary: No, you saw what he wanted you to see, Frank.
Frank Horrigan: I saw a picture of, uh, your friend lying on the floor with his throat cut.
Mitch Leary: What you didn't see, Frank, what you couldn't possibly know, is: they sent my best friend - my comrade in arms - to my home to kill me!

Frank Horrigan: Well, the secretaries get prettier and prettier.
Lilly Raines: And the field agents get older and older.
Sam Campagna: Lilly's an agent, Frank.
Frank Horrigan: I knew that. I just wanted to see if she had a sense of humor.

Mitch Leary: What's kept you in the game all these years?
Frank Horrigan: Why don't we get together and have a drink? We could talk about that.
Mitch Leary: Oh, I'd love to, but I think the less you know about me the better.
Frank Horrigan: Oh, why?
Mitch Leary: Because I'm planning to kill the President.
Frank Horrigan: Oh, now you shouldn't have gone and said that. It's a federal offense to threaten the President. You could go to jail, even if you don't mean it.
Mitch Leary: I mean it all right. John F. Kennedy said all someone needs is a willingness to trade his life for the President's, right?
Frank Horrigan: That's right.
Mitch Leary: I'm willing.

Mitch Leary: [speaking to Horrigan on the phone] Do you know how easily I could kill you, Frank? Do you know how many times I watched you go in and out of that apartment? You are still alive because I have allowed you to live so you show me some GODDAMN RESPECT!
[slams phone down]

Lilly Raines: I heard you and Nixon didn't get along.
Frank Horrigan: Now, that's not true. His chief of staff, though, that was a different story. I remember one time, he wanted me to go out and get rid of some anti-war protestors. I said no, talking about the Bill of Rights and so on. And he says, "look, when I'm talking to you, I am the President." I said, "The President? That's funny, you look more like a sack of shit in a cheap suit to me, sir!"
Lilly Raines: [laughs] Well, I like the "sir." It's a classy touch.
Frank Horrigan: I thought so.

Leary: [Horrigan is hanging from a roof] Take my hand, Frank. Take it, if you don't you'll die.
Leary: [Horrigan does and then pulls his gun out] You're gonna shoot me Frank after I saved your life? The only way to save the president is to shoot me. Are you willing to trade your life for his or is life too precious?

[second phone call]
Leary: I was worried about you with the motorcade today. You looked like you were going to faint. You really should get into shape for that type of job.
[about 15 minutes later into the film when the Secret Service is looking through the park]
Leary: [sees Frank exhuasted through binocoluars and mutters] I told you to get into shape.

Frank Horrigan: The number of that San Diego office?
Agent Chavez: Uh, 619-UKELELE.
Frank Horrigan: Ukulele?
Agent Chavez: That's how I remember it, you know, 7 numbers, 7 letters? You just push U-K-E-L-E-L-E. Easy.
Frank Horrigan: Uh, wait a minute, isn't "ukulele" spelled U-K-U-?
Agent Chavez: I dunno... but the phone number's U-K-E-L-E-L-E.

Horrigan: [after someone called the paramedics] Okay, who's the joker?
Lilly Raines: It may not have been a joke, you were looking kind of peaked out there.
Horrigan: Well, when I find out who it was, I'm gonna pay him back in spades.
Lilly Raines: What makes you think it was a *him*?
[walks away]

[in the elevator]
Frank Horrigan: Ok, now what?
Mitch Leary: Do you believe in the nobility of suicide?
Frank Horrigan: No. But if you wanna blow your goddamn head off, go ahead, be my guest.
Mitch Leary: Nicely put, Frank, but I don't want to leave this miserable world alone.

Mitch Leary: What did happen to you that day? Only one agent reacted to the gunfire, and you were closer to Kennedy than he was. You must have looked up at the window of the Texas Book Depository, but you didn't react. Late at night, when the demons come, do you see the rifle coming out of that window, or do you see Kennedy's head being blown apart? If you'd reacted to that first shot, could you have gotten there in time to stop the big bullet? And if you had - that could've been your head being blown apart. Do you wish you'd succeeded, Frank? Or is life too precious?

[Assassination attempt botched, Leary takes Horrigan hostage onto a hotel elevator]
Leary: [removing facial disguise] So, you have the guts, Frank. You took the bullet.
Frank Horrigan: [holding his chest] I think you broke my damn ribs.
Leary: Sorry, I wasn't aiming at you.

Leary: Do you have what it takes to take a bullet, or is life too precious?
Frank: Well I'll be thinkin' about that when I'm pissin' on your grave.

[On the phone]
Mitch Leary: Trying to trace me, Frank?
Frank Horrigan: Heh, now why didn't I think of that?
Mitch Leary: You did, or you're not the adversary I'd hoped for.

[first lines]
Al D'Andrea: [running late] Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, Frank, thank God. Thank God. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead.

Lilly Raines: Well, time flies when you're being annoyed.

Frank Horrigan: You know, for years now I've listened to all these idiots on barstools, with their pet theories on Dallas. How it was the Cubans, or the CIA, or the white supremacists, or the Mob. Whether there was one weapon, or whether there was five. None of that's meant too much to me. But Leary... he questioned whether I had the guts to take that fatal bullet. God, that was a beautiful day. The sun was out, been raining all morning, the air was... First shot sounded like a firecracker. I looked over, I saw him, I could tell he was hit. I don't know why I didn't react. I should have reacted. I should have been running flat-out. I just couldn't believe it. If only I'd reacted, I could have taken that shot. And that would have been alright with me.

[Leary makes the first of a series of taunting phone calls]
Frank Horrigan: McCrawley?
Mitch Leary: Why not call me Booth?
Frank Horrigan: Why not Oswald?
Mitch Leary: Because Booth had flair, panache - a leap to the stage after he shot Lincoln.

White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: The election's in three weeks. You're asking me to commit political suicide.
Sam Campagna: I'm asking you to stay out of California.
White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: If this guy's so smart, he's not gonna come out and tell you where he's gonna make an attempt.
Frank Horrigan: I don't think he'd lie to me.
White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: Well, isn't that sweet? You've become that close, have you? Look, people, California is the key to the whole damn race. We've narrowed the gap to five points. We can't let up now.
Frank Horrigan: Then we'll have to change our procedures. Move him around in unmarked cars. Uh... frisk everyone within fifty yards.
White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: Frisk people going into $10,000 a plate dinners? You're overreacting again, Horrigan.
Frank Horrigan: If I don't overreact, the president's dead.

C.I.A. Agent David Coppinger: Leary is what we nowadays call a wet boy.
Al D'Andrea: What's a wet boy, Frank?
Frank Horrigan: Leary's an assassin.
Al D'Andrea: Oh, Jesus.
C.I.A. Agent David Coppinger: In Leary's case, that's putting it too gently. He's more like a predator.

Leary: The world can be a cruel place to an honest man, Frank.

Al D'Andrea: Leary, don't FUCKING move!

[after saving the president]
Reporter at Dulles Intl. Airport: Why are you retiring from the Secret Service?
Horrigan: Well, because I hate desk work and I'm too old to go running along the limousines, and thanks to you people plastering my picture up everywhere I'm no good for undercover work.

Leary: You shouldn't have been from Minneapolis.

Frank Horrigan: If she looks back, that means she's interested. Come on now give me a little look, a little glance back. Give me a small look and be on your way!

Mendoza: What do you think I ought to do here, Frank?
Frank Horrigan: Make sure the body doesn't wash up on shore.
Mendoza: I want you to pop him for me, ok? See I think maybe you're with him.
Frank Horrigan: Look, you came to me remember?
Mendoza: So pop him, show me I'm an asshole.
Frank Horrigan: I'm just a business man.
Mendoza: So pop him. And let's do some business.

Horrigan: [Spots Leary at the fundraiser about to shoot the president] GUN!

White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: [Frank is arguing with the Chief of Staff] This a just a big joke to you, Horrigan?
Horrigan: No, YOU'RE a joke to me, Harry! You have no idea what we do around here!
Bill Watts: That's enough, Horrigan!
White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent: By God, if you call me Harry once more, you'll be busting counterfeiters in Alaska!

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