The Great Escape Quotes

I haven't seen Berlin yet, from the ground or from the air, and I plan on doing both before the war is over.

Cavendish: [Hilts has just taken some boards out of all the beds and Denys walks in after singing] 5 golds rings, 4 calling birds, bloody singing, hi Hilts.

[jumps on to bed and falls through all three]

Hendley 'The Scrounger': You know what that is?
Blythe 'The Forger': I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't Napoleon Brandy... .

Hilts: Wow!
Hendley: Wow!
Goff: ... wow...

Colin's not a blind man as long as he's with me. And he's going with me!

I'm going... out.

Hilts: Denys, wait...

Cavendish: 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge, alley-oop!

Hilts: [sees that Denys has fallen through bed] Never mind.

Ramsey: Roger's idea was to get back at the enemy the hardest way he could, mess up the works. From what we've heard here, I think he did exactly that.
Hendley: Do you think it was worth the price?
Ramsey: Depends on your point of view, Hendley.

Hilts: Wait a minute. You aren't seriously suggesting that if I get through the wire... and case everything out there... and don't get picked up... to turn myself in and get thrown back in the cooler for a couple of months so you can get the information you need?
Bartlett: Yes.

Ashley-Pitt: I didn't think he'd get caught so soon.
Bartlett: He wasn't caught.

Bartlett: Where in God's name did you get these?
Griffith: Hendley.
Bartlett: Well, where did he get them?
Griffith: Well, I asked him that.
Bartlett: What did he say?
Griffith: "Don't ask."

Hilts: How many you taking out?
Bartlett: Two hundred and fifty.
Hilts: Two hundred and fifty?
Bartlett: Yeh.
Hilts: You're crazy. You oughta be locked up. You, too. Two hundred and fifty guys just walkin' down the road, just like that?

Bartlett: Virgil, isn't it?
Hilts: Hilts. Just make it Hilts.

Hilts: Hold on to yourself, Bartlett. You're twenty feet short.
Bartlett: What do you mean, twenty feet short?
Hilts: You're twenty feet short of the woods. The hole is right here in open. The guard is between us and the lights.

One has to ask some very strange things in the job I have.
Bartlett: In the three years, seven months and two weeks that I've been in the bag, that's the most extraordinary stuff I've ever tasted. It's shattering!
MacDonald: Well, I think it's rather good... Well, with your permission, sir, I think I'll all on kives. Er, call on Ives.

Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.

There's madness in their method.