The Shawshank Redemption Quotes

She was beautiful. God I loved her. I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. I killed her, Red. I didn't pull the trigger, but I drove her away. And that's why she died, because of me.

Bad luck, I guess. It floats around. It's got to land on somebody. It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the tornado. I just didn't expect the storm would last as long as it has.

District Attorney: And that also is very convenient, isn't it, Mr. Dufresne?
Andy Dufresne: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found.

Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within.

I understand you're a man who knows how to get things.

or come to think of it, I suppose I could set it up for you. That would save you some money. I'll write down the forms you need, you can pick them up, and I'll prepare them for your signature... nearly free of charge... I'd only ask three beers apiece for my co-workers, if that seems fair. I think a man working outdoors feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds. That's only my opinion.

It's my life.

Same old shit, different day
Andy Dufresne: What about you? What are you in here for?
Red: Murder, same as you.
Andy Dufresne: Innocent?
Red: Only guilty man in Shawshank.

Forty years I been asking permission to piss. I can't squeeze a drop without say-so.

I don't know; every man has his breaking point.

His first night in the joint, Andy Dufresne cost me two packs of cigarettes. He never made a sound.

Andy was as good as his word. He wrote two letters a week instead of one. In 1959 the state senate finally clued in to the fact they couldn't buy him off with just a two-hundred-dollar check. Appropriations committee voted an annual payment of five hundred dollars just to shut him up. And you'd be amazed how far Andy could stretch it.

I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Warden Samuel Norton: Well?
Red: Well what?
Warden Samuel Norton: I see you two all the time, you're thick as thieves, you are. He musta said something.
Red: Honest, Warden, not a word.
Warden Samuel Norton: Lord, it's a miracle! Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind! Nothing left but some damn rocks on the windowsill. And that cupcake on the wall! Let's ask her, maybe she knows.
Warden Samuel Norton: What say you there, fuzzy-britches? Feel like talking? Aw, guess not. Why should she be any different?
Warden Samuel Norton: This is a conspiracy, that's what it is.
Warden Samuel Norton: One... big... damn conspiracy! And everyone's in on it, including her!

Salvation lies within.

I want him found. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast - now!

I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.

Warden Samuel Norton: Do you enjoy working in the laundry?
Andy Dufresne: No sir, not especially.

I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.

Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Sometimes it makes me sad, though... Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

Andy Dufresne: If they ever try to trace any of those accounts, they're gonna end up chasing a figment of my imagination.
Red: Well, I'll be damned. Did I say you were good? Shit, you're a Rembrandt!
Andy Dufresne: Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.

Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.

It's my life. Don't you understand? IT'S MY LIFE!

Bogs Diamond: Now, I'm gonna open my fly and you're gonna swallow what I give ya to swallow. And after you swallow mine you're gonna swallow Rooster's cause ya done broke his nose and I think he oughta have something to show for it.
Andy Dufresne: Anything you put in my mouth you're gonna lose.
Bogs Diamond: Naw, you don't understand. You do that and I'll put all eight inches of steel in your ear.
Andy Dufresne: All right. But you should know that sudden serious brain injury causes the victim to bite down hard. In fact, I hear the bite reflex is so strong they have to pry the victims jaws open with a crowbar.
Bogs Diamond: Where do you get this shit?
Andy Dufresne: I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?

Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.