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Quotes Submission Guide

This section is maintained by Tim Norris

The web interface provides a very easy to use and convenient interface to the IMDb additions system. Please click the button labelled "Update" near the bottom of every IMDb name/title page to access that interface. This page describes how to update quotes information directly via e-mail; it also provides an explanation for the formats generated by the web updates system.

We recommend all contributors use the web based update system and avoid the complexities of the direct email interface described below.

The Quotes List, as all of the IMDb, depends on contributions from its users. If you decide to contribute, the whole Internet thanks you, as do I; but there are some guidelines that I'd like you to follow which will make my job easier and will keep the quality of the Quotes List high. This document describes those guidelines.

Be accurate, word-for-word, in quotes you submit. This is often harder than you think. Include the title of the movie and the names of characters. It minimizes my work load if you submit your entries in this format:
```
# Attack of the Bad Dialog, The (1954)

{Nielsen, Leslie@Commander Evans}: What is it with this movie?
{Borgnine, Ernest@Jonesy}: Beats me, skipper.
```
Submit suitable quotes; ones which can be appreciated when taken out of the context of the movies they came from.
Keep quote lengths reasonable.
Broadcast television, screenplays, and especially novelizations of movies are poor sources for authentic quotes.

I'll try to be fair and impartial when incorporating contributions into the Quotes List; I expect that most submissions will make it in. Occasionally, though, I'll exercise my prerogative not to include a suggested quote. Any such decision I make can be explained by these guidelines, which follow without further ado.

Accuracy and completeness

We want the Quotes List to be authoritative. That means no matter how much we love a given quote, we can't use it if we're not sure of its accuracy. Sometimes there is the urge to think, ``Having a slightly inaccurate version of this awesome quote is better than having no version of it at all,'' but I don't buy it. The Quotes List is getting along just fine even though it's missing the vast majority of Hollywood's classic lines; and I'm gratified whenever I can turn to the Quotes List and cite something with confidence. In other words, having no version of a quote is better than having a slightly inaccurate version.

Title and year

Every quote must include the title of the movie it came from. It's also helpful to include the year the movie was released; if you don't supply it, I have to look it up. There are many cases where the same title was used for two different movies in different years, so sometimes including the year is the only way for me to know which movie you mean.

If there's a single quote that was used in multiple movies, attribute each source that you'd like to see listed; don't just submit something like this:

[This quote appears in a lot of movies; I think it's originally from something Mel Brooks did.]
Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

Again, that's an example of what not to do. Here's the right way to submit that quote:

# Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
{Bedoya, Alfonso@Gold Hat}: Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges.

Character names

For each speaker, you must supply the character's name and/or the performer's name. Both pieces of information go in the Quotes List, and I can usually look up one from the other. In a pinch---i.e., when you can remember neither the character nor the performer, and you can't wait to recheck your source---describe the character in your quote (``the maid hired by Salieri to spy on Mozart'' or ``Julia Roberts' college friend in The Pelican Brief''). I may be able to draw on my vast amount of wasted mental capacity to fill in the character information (``Lorl'' and ``Alice Stark,'' respectively [both played by Cynthia Nixon]).

Missing and guessed-at words

Which is the correct quote from Casablanca?

All the gin joints in all the towns in all the world and she walks into mine.
All the lousy gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she has to walk into mine.
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

Can you pick the right version of this Dirty Harry quote?

Now I'm gonna ask you one question: Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?
Now, you're asking yourself one question: ``Do I feel lucky?'' Well, do you, punk?
Now, you must ask yourself one question: ``Do I feel lucky?'' Well, do you, punk?
Now, I just wanna ask you one question: Do you feel lucky, punk?

Granted, the differences are subtle, but we're after fanatically precise wording, here. The human mind is a funny thing: the way it remembers spoken language is highly associative, as opposed to the way, say, computers record written language, as a series of literal words. Because our memories are associative, it's easy to replace one word with another when recalling an ``exact'' quote. If the meaning doesn't change---if the recalled quote still occupies the same associative slot in our minds---the mistake can go completely undetected.

Nevertheless, we're not revisionists---we don't presume that any alteration we make can improve the nuggets of verbal art with which we're concerned---and for purity's sake we care that each quote in the Quotes List is worded precisely as in the original.

If you're trying to remember a quote and you're not sure of a word, don't submit a guess. Hold off until you can confirm the correct wording. At worst, you can send me a quote that might be imprecise, but you should label it as such, saying, ``I don't remember whether Leia addresses him as `Darth Vader' or `Lord Vader' in this scene.'' Be as precise about your imprecision as possible. In cases like this, I will put the quote in a ``holding area'' until I can confirm the correct wording.

Most often, though, quotes you submit will be from movies I haven't memorized or haven't even seen, and I'll have to add the quote as-is. I'm counting on you to help me keep this list accurate. Incidentally, the correct Casablanca quote is ``Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,'' and the correct Dirty Harry quote is ``Now, you must ask yourself one question: `Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?'' Did you guess right?

Suitability

What makes one or more lines of dialogue from a movie a ``quote''? You can't take just any random dialogue and enshrine it. Most of it isn't especially memorable. What is memorable? Obviously, it's subjective. Here are my thoughts.

Context

I believe that a good movie quote doesn't require much context.

In my experience, there are two schools of thought on this subject. One of them---the one that includes me---says that what makes a quote memorable is that it says something interesting which is largely independent of the context in which it's said. Maybe the quote is an interesting comment on human nature; maybe it's a hilarious non-sequitur; maybe the quote itself contains enough context to stand alone. Here are some examples, with explanations of why I think they're good. Please forgive the pedantry.

Lady Marian Fitzwalter: Why, you speak treason!
Sir Robin of Locksley: Fluently.
This is a good context-free quote. It's memorable because in a mere five words, we sense the outrage of Marian and the audacious wit and courage of Robin. The setting isn't important, nor is the larger story, nor is being able to visualize the scene in which this exchange took place. To put it another way, from now on, thanks to the concise brilliance of Robin's riposte, if anyone ever said to you, ``Why, you speak treason!'' you'd want to respond, ``Fluently.'' (If you're like me, you'd say something unclever and later think, ``Damn, why didn't I say `Fluently'?'')
Mr. Miyagi: No such thing, bad student. Only bad teacher.
This happens to be one of my all-time favorite quotes. It's a concise summing-up of a whole egalitarian philosophy (in which I either believe or would like to believe, I'm not sure which).

The other school of thought says that memorable movie quotes are those that evoke the scenes in which they were spoken; that the importance is the memorability of the scene, not necessarily the words. Examples:

Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat.
This line, from Jaws, was spoken after Brody got his first clear view of the shark that he, Hooper, and Quint had been hunting. The scene is certainly among Hollywood's most memorable: Brody, startled to suddenly find himself scooping ``chum'' right into the mouth of an unexpectedly enormous and terrifying fish, backs slowly and rigidly into the cabin of the small fishing boat and calmly delivers this line to the skipper.
But: What does it mean? Taken out of context---as IMDb quotes sometimes are---and read, perhaps, by someone who's never seen Jaws or doesn't remember it, what is the entertainment value of ``You're gonna need a bigger boat''? The line can be comic: I can imagine a character saying it to a pleasure-boat operator when he gets a gander at the crowd lined up at the pier. It can be sardonic: picture the exec of a battleship which has just disabled an enemy aircraft carrier, saying this line to his captain as they start to take prisoners aboard. The point is, it can mean anything at all. By itself, it's not funny, clever, deep, moving, or interesting in any other way.
That said, I'll back off a bit and say that this particular quote is a suitable one because it's a bona fide classic; but that description applies to a very select set of quotes.
Kent Gregory: Hey everybody. Drinks are on me.
So what?

Another sign that a quote needs too much context is that it begins with a lot of narration. A little narration is OK and can aid in the appreciation of a perfectly memorable quote, such as:

[Lieutenant Gorman orders the troops to unload all their weapons before the first alien encounter]
Private Frost: What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?

but too much narration turns the quote into a shaggy-dog story:

[The heroes have found the bank with the gold, but there is still one lone German Tiger Tank to be reckoned with. Supply Sergeant Crapgame (a notorious hustler) makes the following suggestion to Infantry Sergeant Big Joe concerning the commander of the Tiger Tank]
Crapgame: Try making a DEAL!
Big Joe: What kind of DEAL?
Crapgame: A DEAL, deal! Maybe he's a Republican. You know, "Business is Business".

In a case like this, the problem isn't that the quote requires too much narration; it just happens to have too much at the moment. It can get by just fine with a little less:

[The lone obstacle to the sought-after gold is a solitary tank guarding the bank.]
Crapgame: Try making a DEAL!
Big Joe: What kind of DEAL?
Crapgame: A DEAL, deal! Maybe he's a Republican. You know, "Business is Business".

Arguably, this quote would do just fine with no narration at all. But then there are quotes that just drag too much context around with them to be appreciated at all:

[When Ace enters a thrash concert and asks a headbanger]
Ace Ventura: Excuse me, can you tell me where Greg is... Thank you!!!

To be honest, I don't think even this is enough context to justify this quote. Maybe it would be funny if I had seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but I haven't (yet) and I just don't see the point. And finally, this one:

[Benjy Stone and a very drunken Alan Swann are up on a roof as Swann attempts to shimmy down the side of the building]
Benjy Stone: Let's *not* do this - it's too dangerous!
Alan Swann: Nonsense! It worked perfectly well in "A Slight Case of Remorse"!
Benjy Stone: That was a movie! This is real life!
Alan Swann: What is the difference?

works even better as a contextless quote, turning it into an ironic comment suitable for any occasion:

Benjy Stone: That was a movie! This is real life!
Alan Swann: What is the difference?

Tag lines

I'm not a big fan of catchy tag lines with little else to recommend them as quotes, such as ``Hasta la vista, baby'' or ``Trust me,'' but I recognize the need to preserve them as something that at least the studio's PR department thought would be memorable.

Length

``Begin at the beginning,'' the King said, gravely, ``and go on till you come to the end: then stop.''
-- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

A quote should be exactly as long as it needs to be, no more, no less. The Quotes List contains very short quotes, very long quotes, and everything in between. That said, I think long quotes are seldom worthwhile. (Not never, just seldom.) If you feel the urge to submit a memorable soliloquy, it's often better to split out the few memorable sayings contained within the soliloquy into separate, pithier quotes, rather than keep the whole speech as a single quote.

Authentication

Many movies can be seen on broadcast television, but in many cases they're butchered by censors to remove something offensive, or by a station or network to make a long movie fit in a time slot, or by some studio hack who figures more people will tune in if they show a "special television edition" with previously cut scenes restored. (Personally, when I erase a mistake, I like it to stay erased.) So if you hear a quote in a broadcast version of a theatrical release, it may not be the same thing that paying audiences heard. Naturally, being purists, we're only interested in the latter.

Some people seem to think that combing through the book version of a movie is a good way to get accurate quotes from the movie. Not so. The correlation between movie dialogue and book dialogue is usually extremely low (sometimes the same is true of the characters and the plot!). Similarly, even screenplays (such as can be found on the Net or bought in book or video stores) must be treated with suspicion, because the final cut of the film may have diverged from whatever version of the screenplay you have. For the purposes of the Quotes List, a quote is only authentic if it is a transcript of the spoken dialogue in the final cut of the film.

Mechanics

This section describes the mechanics of getting your Quotes List submissions to the Internet Movie Database team, and is identical to the instructions that can be found in the ASCII version of the Quotes List.

Here are the instructions specific to the Quotes List.

Additions

Address a mail message to adds@imdb.com
In the body of the message, preceding any quotes, include a line containing the keyword "QUOTES".
Include the title of the movie and, if possible, the year it was released. (Many titles have been reused over the years, so if you say a quote is from "Heaven Can Wait," for example, I may not know which "Heaven Can Wait" you mean.) If you don't know the year, include some other distinguishing information; e.g. "The Michael Keaton Batman (as opposed to the Adam West Batman)". Make sure that the information really is distinguishing, though; for instance, it wouldn't be enough to say "The Alfred Hitchcock version of `The Man Who Knew Too Much.'" There were two of them.
The preferred format for the title information is
```
# Chorus Line, A (1985)
```
Write the quote like a movie script; i.e., with the speaker's name preceding each line. Include at least one of the performer's name and the character's name. If you know both, it's easiest on me if you write it like this: {Last, First@Character}. Example:
{Liotta, Ray@Shoeless Joe Jackson}: Is this heaven?
{Costner, Kevin@Ray Kinsella}: No, it's Iowa.
Each quote contains one or more lines of dialog. If you're submitting more than one quote, separate each quote with a blank line. Example:
# Fletch (1985)
{Matheson, Tim@Alan Stanwyck}: You do own rubber gloves?
{Chase, Chevy@Fletch}: I rent 'em. I have a lease with an option to buy.
{French, Bruce@Pathologist}: Ever seen a spleen that large?
{Chase, Chevy@Fletch}: No, not since breakfast.

Similarly, if you're submitting quotes from more than one movie, include the "# Title (Year)" before each movie's block of quotes.
Be accurate and complete. If you don't know a quote verbatim, don't submit it. Don't guess at words or use ellipses to indicate a section of the quote you don't remember.
Choose suitable quotes. A quote is suitable if it can be appreciated out of context, if it isn't overly long, if it's meaningless but exceptionally classic (like "Play it, Sam"), and so on. I reserve the right to make all final editorial judgments.
If the additions include a title that is new to the database, please also include a section of the form:
```
TITLE
<title>|<year>|
```
Example:
```
TITLE
North by Northwest (1959)|1959|
Silence of the Lambs, The (1990)|1990|
```
Mark the end of your data with the word
```
END
```
on a separate line.
Mail the data to adds@imdb.com. The mail-server will mail a receipt back to you and place the data in the queue for processing by the list managers in the next update.

Quotes from non-English-language films are accepted, but they must be in English (ideally, as translated in the subtitles).

Corrections

You can also use the keyword-based mail interface to submit corrections to existing quotes.

Address a mail message to adds@imdb.com
In the body of the message, preceding any corrections, include a line containing the keyword "CORRECT-QUOTE".
Include the quote that is in error. You must give the movie title, year, and text of the quote.
Write a comment to the effect that the quote is in error, and, being very specific, describe how to correct the quote. It's best to include a complete version of the corrected quote. Here's an example:
```
CORRECT-QUOTE

  # Cool Hand Luke (1967)

  Captain: What we have here is a failure to communicate.

This should read,

  Captain: What we've got here is failure to communicate.
```
Mark the end of your data with the word
```
END
```
on a separate line.
Mail the data to adds@imdb.com. The mail-server will mail a receipt back to you and place the data in the queue for processing by the list managers in the next update.