The Great Race

The Great Race Quotes

When a popular daredevil proposes an automobile race across three continents, his arch rival vows to beat him, while an ambitious female reporter has her own plans for victory.

Leslie: Are you a native of Burracho?
Lily Olay: I ain't no native, I was born here!
[On a melting iceberg]
Leslie: You better keep it to yourself.
Fate: Oh, of course I'll keep it to myself.
[to himself]
Fate: Until the water reaches my lower lip, and then I'm going to mention it to *somebody*!
Professor Fate: Leslie escaped?
General: With a small friar.
Professor Fate: Leslie escaped with a chicken?
Professor Fate: You cheated! Cheated! I hate you! I refuse to accept! I won't win any way but my way! You've ruined my reputation, do you hear? You I hate! You and your hair that's always combed, your suit that's always white, your car that's always clean! I refuse to accept! I challenge you to another race!
[crowd cheers]
Leslie: Get off my hood!
Professor Fate: Another race!
[gets hit in the face with a pie]
Prince Hapnick: [tastes pie] umm... brandy! Throw more brandy, throw brandy! More brandy! Brandy!
[gets hit again with a pie]
Prince Hapnick: umm... rum! I never mix my pies!
Professor Fate: What's next?
Max: Car number five, the engine falls out!
Professor Fate: Car number five! Ha ha ha ha!
[beat]
Professor Fate: Er, Max... *we're* number five.
The Baron: He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. So, until another day, Mr. Leslie.
Cowboy: He's lucky Texas Jack ain't around... he'd gun that dude for sure!
Professor Fate: Pardon me, Mr. Pahd-nuh, who is this Texas Jack?
Cowboy: WHO'S TEXAS JACK?
Professor Fate: Who?
Cowboy: The roughest, toughest gunslinger in these parts... Lilly's his girl!
Professor Fate: Whoo, hoo, hoo... Lilly's his girl.
Max: Terrific...
Prince Hapnik: Course there is one good thing, when one was young, one could play along the corridors. I used to ride my pony up and down this corridor when I was young, then I grew up, got drunk, and fell off!
[repeated line]
Professor Fate: Push the button, Max!
Prince Hapnick: You! You're the cause of it all! It was your idea!
General: No, no your highness... Baron von Schtupp
Prince Hapnik: I don't care, I don't care! You're banished. I'm getting a new tucker-inner! Banished, banished, banished!
Max: Red sky. Gonna be a storm.
Professor Fate: What are you babbling about?
Max: Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.
Professor Fate: Why, you simple-headed gherkin, do you know the chances of a storm in this part of the world at this time of the year?
Max: No, what?
Professor Fate: Hundred to one.
[a great thunderclap; it begins to pour rain]
Max: Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning!
Professor Fate: Why you idiot!
[on the iceberg]
Fate: You're wasting your time!
Leslie: Perhaps.
Fate: We're melting!
Leslie: Slowly.
Max: We're gonna sink!
Leslie: Eventually.
Fate: Then you're wasting your time!
Max: Rise and shine, Professor.
Professor Fate: You rise! You shine!
[On a melting iceberg]
Max: We gotta do something.
Professor Fate: Oh, don't worry. Before this iceberg melts and we drown like rats, we're going to do plenty.
Max: Yeah? What?
Professor Fate: We're gonna starve!
Leslie: It's just that you bear an uncanny resemblance to someone we both know.
Prince Hapnick: Someone who looks like me?
Leslie: Yes, sir.
Prince Hapnick: [laughing, then comes silent pause] Poor fellow.
Maggie DuBois: And because I consider myself sexually free and morally emancipated, I am still a responsible, discriminating woman who does not intend to jump into bed with the first wavy-haired, muscle-bound, egocentric male who thinks he can seduce me by agreeing with some of the things I believe in.
Leslie: I only wanted to kiss you!
Maggie DuBois: Why?
Leslie: Because I love you, that's why!
Maggie DuBois: Ha!
Leslie: You don't believe me, huh?
Maggie DuBois: I do not!
[Leslie stops the car, inches from the finish line]
Maggie DuBois: What are you doing?
Leslie: Proving that I love you.
Maggie DuBois: But you'll lose the race!
Leslie: Can you think of a better way to prove it?
[Leslie kisses Maggie]
Professor Fate: [after a disaterously failed stunt] I'd like to see the great Leslie try *that*!
Maggie DuBois: I want to thank you again for this opportunity, Mr. Goodbody.
Henry Goodbody: I had very little choice after your conversation with my wife.
Hester Goodbody: Henry, if you can't be more gracious, shut up!
Maggie DuBois: You lost.
Leslie: Only the race.
Professor Fate: What is the word for "friends"?
Maggie DuBois: Professor...
Professor Fate: Shut up!
Max: I don't know the language.
Professor Fate: Well, get the dictionary!
Max: Dictionary. Right.
[Max flips through the pages]
Max: I got it, I got it.
Professor Fate: What is it, what is it?
Max: [frowns] I can't pronounce it.
[Fate grabs the dictionary]
Professor Fate: Very simple. Dru... Druz...
Maggie DuBois: Druzya.
Professor Fate: Druzya...
[Fate and Max stare at Maggie]
Maggie DuBois: I speak, read, and write French... Russian... and Arabic.
Maggie DuBois: You mean amazing because I'm a woman.
Max: Here come the Marines!
Professor Fate: What'd I tell you? I said she'd win the race for us, the bubble-headed vixen!
[last lines]
Max: C'mon Professor. Go, Go!
Fate: Relax. This time I'm going to win it my way. Push the button Max!
[cut to shot of Eifel Tower collapsing]
[Leslie encounters Maggie stranded in the desert]
Leslie: I'm offering you a lift.
[Maggie ignores him]
Leslie: Or would you prefer an engraved invitation?
Maggie DuBois: I might consider an apology.
Leslie: An apology? For what? It's twenty miles back to Borracho, you'd never make it.
Maggie DuBois: Well, that's your fault.
Leslie: MY fault?
Leslie: It's been my experience, General, that there is little advantage to winning if one wins too easily.
Prince Hapnik: Rah! Oh oh, rah! Oh rah! Oh rah ah ah! What do you think of that, General?
General: An admirable point of view, for anyone but a soldier. In my profession, to win is imperative. To win easily is a blessing.
Professor Fate: The world is mine!
Max: The world is ours!
Baron von Stuppe: Well, Mr. Leslie. I had expected to see you again, but... eh... Not with a sword in your hand. Are you partial to the foil?
Leslie: Not particularly. It happened to be convenient.
Baron von Stuppe: I presume you know how to use one.
Leslie: I hope that won't be necessary.
Baron von Stuppe: I'm sure you do.
Leslie: Will you release Ms. Dubois and the others?
Baron von Stuppe: No...
Leslie: I'm afraid this will be necessary.
Baron von Stuppe: You're being very foolish, Mr. Leslie.
Leslie: That's an assumption, Baron. You make me the victim even before we start!
Baron von Stuppe: [shrugs] It's your life...
Leslie: [gestures with sword] You're assuming again.
[repeated line]
Professor Fate: [shouts] Maaaax!
General: When we get back to the palace, you must trim your mustache. You must look exactly like the prince. Can you laugh?
Fate: What do you mean, can I laugh?
General: Well, the prince has a very individual laugh.
Fate: Like what?
General: Uh... ah ha HA ha ha.
[Fate tries to leave, but the General stops him and demonstrates again]
General: Ah ha HA ha ha.
Fate: HA HA HA HA HA.
General: No, that's too much bass. The prince is more of a soprano.
Fate: I am Professor Fate!
Fate, Max: A Parachute?
Professor Fate: Sh-sh-sh-sh-shut up!
Texas Jack: Now, can I get me some fightin' room?
Fate: I won't do it!
General: Then you leave us no alternative.
[He draws a gun and points it at him]
Fate: I'll do it!
Professor Fate: She's his Achilles heel, she's our ace in the hole - she must not be left behind!
Max: [talking to Fate, referring to Fate's bandaged hands] Would you like me to feed you?
[Fate's car is met by a group of austere villagers]
Max: You give 'em beads, that makes 'em friendly.
Professor Fate: Obviously, they don't know who I am.
[Fate stands up]
Professor Fate: I AM PROFESSOR FATE!
[the crowd is silent. Fate slinks back into his seat]
Max: Wanna try the beads?
Maggie DuBois: Max, you little rat! I'll get you for this!
Leslie: Minutes have made the difference in survival, Miss DuBois.
Max: [stumbling about in a blinding snowstorm] Professor, where are you?
Professor Fate: Behind the rock!
Max: Behind which rock?
[trips over Professor Fate]
Professor Fate: This rock, you idiot!
Professor Fate: The eternal struggle takes time, Max.
Mayor of Boracho: Citizens of Boracho!

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