Atlantic City Quotes

  • Lou: You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean back then.

  • Chrissie: Oh, I never use seatbelts. I don't believe in gravity.

  • Lou: Don't touch the suit.

  • Lou: Yes, it used to be beautiful - what with the rackets, whoring, guns.

  • Lou: I'm a lover!

    Grace Pinza: Numbnuts!

  • Lou: A room. For me and my mother.

  • Dave: Who's the old guy?

    Fred: You mean Lou? He used run numbers for the dinosaurs.

  • Young Doctor: Mrs. Matthews, you can claim the body tomorrow.

    Sally: [walking away to the exit] I don't want the body!

  • Sally: [to Dave] You're like King Midas in reverse. I don't want you touching my stuff.

  • Fred: You look like a fire sale.

    Dave: Look, I've been on the road six weeks. Okay? You clean me up, I'm a fuckin' Prince Charles.

  • Sally: Why are you doing this for me?

    Lou: Hey, it's nothing, Sinatra gives wings to hospitals. We all do what we can.

  • Lou: I made love to this woman today.

    Sally: Daddy, please!

    Lou: I held her in my arms. I made her happy.

    Bus Driver: Let's not be naughty.

    Sally: [to Lou] It's gonna be okay.

    [to Bus Driver]

    Sally: That's alright. It's alright.

    [to Lou]

    Sally: It's gonna be alright. We'll take good care of you.

    Lou: I'm dangerous! People come to me from Las Vegas! I know Bugsy Siegel! I was his cellmate!

  • Singer in CasinoSinger in CasinoSinger in Casino: [singing] Goodbye little chicks, We are leaving the sticks, We are catching a train at a quarter to six, So if anyone should drop around, Won't you please tell them, That we can be found On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, We will walk in a dream, On the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, Life will be peaches and cream...

  • Chrissie: [fisrt lines] Oh, wow! Look, it's Ganesh! It's a sign from heaven.

  • Grace Pinza: Lou, you're late again! Peppy's very nervous. Peppy knows he's got an appointment. Here I am ringing this bell like Charles Laughton in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Is that what you want from me? To become a hunchback ringing for you?

  • Lou: That's enough!

    Grace Pinza: Nothing's enough.

  • Grace Pinza: I always wanted shoes with - clear plastic heels you could see through with - live goldfish swimming in them. Wouldn't that be swift? Have to walk so delicate.

  • Sally: Get out!

    Dave: You smell, you know that? Like a can of rotten tuna fish!

  • Joseph: Everyone, listen to me! The players are coming to the casino in teams. One sits here, one sits there. The cards are good. The player at the first base spills his drink. Your eye moves. The player at the third base triples his bets! They have a *million* clever ways of trying to cheat you. Focus! Concentrate! Concentrate. Concentrate.

  • Joseph: Did you like the music? Marvelous music - "Norma Casta Diva." The chaste goddess worshipping the moon.

  • Sally: Can I lay a hard ten on a soft three?

  • Lou: Have I got any winners?

    Fred: Better not have. I can't afford fuckin' winners.

  • Dave: I'll help your friend.

    Fred: Not lookin' like that, you won't. This is a family town. Better get yourself cleaned up. A nice leisure suit, powder blue. You don't need a tie.

  • Fred: This is a very tight town. I only do business with the people I *do* business with. If the people I do business with find out I do business with the people I don't do business with - I can't do business with you.

  • Fred: You look like a training poster from the narc squad.

  • Grace Pinza: Lou, you get back here. You've got to push the blood back in my feet.

    Lou: I'll be right back.

    Grace Pinza: Lou, come back!

  • Grace Pinza: If you leave me alone with her, I'm gonna kill you Lou.

    Lou: Grace, will you listen for just once. This is not medicine.

    [exits]

    Grace Pinza: I'm still a very important woman in this town. I'm Cookie Pinza's widow! He used to deliver coffee for Cookie. He's my servant.

    Chrissie: Do you know that your whole body ends at the bottom of your feet? You think I am just poking your feet. Well, when I touch this spot here...

    Grace Pinza: Lou.

    Chrissie: This is where your spine is.

    Grace Pinza: Lou!

    Chrissie: When I touch this spot here, this is where your tummy is.

    Grace Pinza: *Lou!*

  • Lou: It's all shit now. It's a shame you never saw Atlantic City when it had floy floy. Remember the song, "Flatfoot Floogie with the Floy Floy"?

    Dave: No.

    Lou: Hep cat and zoot suit. That was the floogie part.

    Dave: Yeah?

    Lou: The floy floy. That was something special. Atlantic City had floy floy coming out of its ears in those days. Now it's all so goddamn legal. Howard Johnson running a casino. Tutti-frutti ice cream with craps don't mix.

  • Chrissie: The only difference between Christianity and Hare Krishna is this: I mean, Hare Krishna is real. I mean, if Jesus was alive today, he'd be very much into Hare Krishna.

  • Lou: I'd feel bad for a while, but I'd jump into the ocean, swim way out. Come back in feeling nice and clean and start all over again.

    Dave: I never seen the Atlantic Ocean till just now.

    Lou: The Atlantic Ocean was something then. Yes, you should've seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days.

  • Buddy: Remember the day Nucky Johnson sent us out to buy 100 boxes of rubbers - for the party?

    [laughs]

    Buddy: The look the guy gave us! A hundred boxes of rubbers for two guys. He couldn't get over it.

  • Lou: Buddy, you live too much in the past.

    Buddy: Yeah. But them were the days.

  • President of Hospital: I have a vision of the future: This glorious island of Atlantic City - shining like a beacon whose light was nearly extinguished. If it wasn't for the casinos, we'd have been dead a long time ago. And so I accept with great pleasure this check from all the casinos. Thank you, Mr. Goulet.

    Robert Goulet: You're welcome, Doctor. I want to thank the people whose money I had for a while. Last night I was lucky at the tables but on the way home, on the boardwalk, I was mugged by my own croupier!

  • Robert Goulet: [singing] Just flew into town tonight, Lady Luck was on our flight, Had a bite to eat, At Gino's down the street, And now this welcome site, Glad to see you're born again, Atlantic City, my old friend...

  • Lou: You like Miami?

    Sally: I'm thinking of going to Monaco.

    Lou: Oh, Monaco! That's the place with that Kelly girl from Philadelphia. She's the queen of, huh?

    Sally: Yeah, they have a casino there, very elegant. No women dealers yet, but I'm hoping. Only now I'm learning about music and I'm gonna start reading books. You know, developing some style. Learning languages; because, I really want to travel.

    Lou: You - thinking of leaving Atlantic City?

    Sally: Not for a couple of years. I've got to develop my blackjack. I'm gonna deal my way to Europe, to Monte Carlo.

    Lou: A regular Princess Grace!

  • Waiter: Puligny-Montrachet 1966.

  • Sally: Teach me stuff.

    Lou: Like what?

    Sally: What you know.

    Lou: You want information or wisdom?

    Sally: Both.

  • Florist: Would you like them sent?

    Sally: Yeah. To Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

    Florist: "Moose - Jaw"?

    Sally: It's near Medicine Hat.

  • Sally: Lou, Bernie. Bernie, Lou.

  • Sally: What about Grace?

    Lou: She came down here during the war - a beauty contest.

    Sally: Oh, for Miss America?

    Lou: Nothing like that. More like - Miss Pinball Machine.

  • Lou: I watch you.

    Sally: Huh?

    Lou: The place where we live. I watch you.

    Sally: Through my window?

    Lou: You saw me?

    Sally: I figured maybe somebody was there.

    Lou: Did you know it was me?

    Sally: You were just this guy across the way.

  • Lou: Why do you use lemons?

    Sally: The fish smell. I'm embarrassed.

    Lou: Oh. I thought maybe it was for some other reasons I didn't understand. I even went to a supermarket to look at lemons.

    Sally: It's just to get the smell off. It's nothing weird.

  • Sally: What do you do when you watch me?

    Lou: I look at you. You take off your blouse, then you run the water. Then you take a bottle of gold perfume and put it on the sink. Then you slice the lemons. You open a box of blue soap. You run your hands under the water to feel the temperature. Then you take the soap in your hands and...

  • Vinnie: Are you Dave Matthew's wife?

  • Grace Pinza: You didn't protect her. What's your life worth? Cookie had more manhood in his toupee, than you've got in your fat frame.

  • Chrissie: There's nothing wrong with dope. Dope belongs to the whole world.

  • Bus Driver: Your daughter will care for you.

    Lou: I got no daughter.

    Bus Driver: Let's not be naughty.

    Sally: Come on, Pops.

  • Alfie: Hey, foxy grandpa. It's over now. I want the money. Come on. You know what I'm talking about. Give me the money. Give me the money - now.

  • Grace Pinza: I came here during the war. Betty Grable look-alike contest. The boardwalk filled with hundreds of Betty Grable look-alikes - from all over America - selling war bonds.

  • Chrissie: I don't mind that Dave's dead. It just means he'll be reincarnated sooner, that's all.

    Grace Pinza: You mean Cookie's coming back?

    Chrissie: Sure! Everything comes back.

  • Chrissie: You look after people good.

    Grace Pinza: I never had to look after anybody. I was a princess!

  • Lou: They got nice weather in Florida.

    Sally: They've got great food in France.

Extended Reading
  • Alysa 2022-04-23 07:05:22

    The ending was so similar to The Killers, yet so different - it wasn't Sally that seduced Lou, it was the passing of time. Suddenly it felt so strange to hear an old Lancaster speak in the exact same voice he had when he was young...

  • Alexandrine 2022-03-14 08:01:02

    During the viewing period, I have seen footprints

Atlantic City

Director: Louis Malle

Language: English,French Release date: April 3, 1981