100 Best The Stand Quotes

[In a dream-vision, Nick finds himself in a cornfield in Nebraska]
Nick: I can hear! I can talk!
[He approaches the porch of Mother Abigail, who is strumming a guitar and singing]
Nick: I can hear. I can talk.
Mother: I know, Nick. Praise God.
Nick: [grinning] How did you know my name?
Mother: Come to me in a dream, I reckon.
Nick: Is this a dream?
Mother: Mayhap it is, mayhap it ain't.
Nick: Who are you, ma'am?
Mother: Abigail Freemantle. But most round these parts just call me Mother Abigail. I'm a hundred and six years old, and I still make my own bread.
[Nick smiles]
Mother: I've been living right here in Hemmingford Home, Nebraska, all my life. You come see me, Nick. You and all your friends. You got to hurry, though.
[Nick turns and Abigail looks up as the sky darkens and lightning flashes]
Mother: There's a storm coming! HIS storm!
[She points, and Nick sees, in the cornfield, a pitch-black figure with glowing red eyes. Nick is so startled that he wakes up]

Glen: Kojak, say hello to Stuart Redmen,
[laughs]
Glen: worthless dog.
Stu: Don't be too hard on him, he's the first dog I've seen in... well, since about the third week in June.

Nadine: They're coming for you, you know. The old woman sent them before she died.
Randall: Get your ass back in here.
Nadine: Everything you've made here is falling apart. They're saying a simple retarded boy outwitted Randall Flagg. They're saying Judge Ferris got away from your men in Idaho.
Randall: He's as dead as Judas Iscariot.
Nadine: They're asking questions about Dayna too it's all slipping through your fingers. And they're whispering, Randy, I can see them, leaving their posts in the dead of night and your eye can't see them. And when they come here, Stu, and Ralph, and Glen, and La... when they get here, your time will end, and I'll be watching, I'll be watching from Hell with your baby in my arms.

Nadine: I waited so long.
Randall: The waiting's over.

Tom: M-O-O-N, that spells "deaf and dumb".

Mother: I'm 106 years old, and I still makes my own bread.

Randall: [threatening Dayna Jurgens] You tell me what I wanna know. Before I'm through with you, you'll BEG to tell me!

Randall: Liars sit in chairs, you know. Truth tellers just sort of hunker down.

Mother: I have sinned in pride. So have you all. But that's past now. It's time now to give over your will to the will of God. It's time, to make your STAND.

[repeated line]
Trashcan: My life for you!

Harold: [drinking beer] Not bad, it's cold.
Stu: Enjoy it while it lasts, I have a feeling there's going to be a shortage of cold beer this summer.

Larry: [into the phone] I love you, Arlene!
Arlene: [into the phone] Aw, don't I wish?
Larry: [into the phone] Listen, I'm gonna try to get the afternoon flight back to L.A. I want you to put on your sexiest number and I'll take you out to dinner, then I'll take you out dancing and maybe... I'll just take you.
Arlene: [into the phone] You might want to consider delaying your trip back a few days.
Larry: [into the phone] Why? What's the problem?
Arlene: [into the phone] Things are weird here in L.A. There's hardly anyone here at the nightclub. People are really scared about this Captain Trips thing.
Larry: [into the phone] Yeah, but the radio here says it's all just bull...
Arlene: [into the phone] I know, but the radio here says that all of the hospitals are filling up with sick people... and some of them are dying.
Larry: [into the phone] What? People are dying of the flu?
Arlene: [into the phone] And there's a lot of soldiers around. Suddenly, L.A. is a really creepy place to be, Larry.
Larry: [into the phone] Maybe I'll stick around New York for a couple more days.
Arlene: [into the phone] Yeah, but remember what you promised me when you get back: dinner, dancing and all the paparazzi I can smile at!
Larry: [into the phone] Okay. Bye, now.
[hangs up]

Maj. Jalbert: We have a rather large problem in Wyoming, sir.
Gen. Starkey: What large problem is that?
Maj. Jalbert: A TV news team got out of the small town of Pine Bluff with some potentially damaging videotape, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Flu victims? Body dumps?
Maj. Jalbert: A little of both... and our ops I'm told.
Gen. Starkey: Well... we can't have that. Showing that footage would not be in the national interests of this country!
Maj. Jalbert: No, sir. It's not.
Gen. Starkey: Do we know where this news team is right now?
Maj. Jalbert: Yes, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Then do what it takes. Get that videotape and destroy it. Do whatever you have to do.

Larry: We have to get out of the city. It's not just the odds of getting shot. Do you know what it's going to smell like in two weeks? Five million dead people rotting in the July sun?

Nadine: Did you know the supermarket is full of deer?
Harold: No, I didn't.
Nadine: Since the produce is gone, they're mainly sticking to the cereal.

Stu: [Tom is hypnotized] Tom, are you asleep?
Tom: Yes, Tom's asleep.
[singing]
Tom: Rock a bye baby.

Randall: Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.

NY: [voice-over] Reports of this supposedly lethal flu epidemic continue to spread. Many downtown shopping areas in southern Florida are virtually empty this morning and rumors of this "superflu" virus appears to be gaining momentum despite denials from CDC health officials in Atlanta and Vermont. In Vermont, Dr. Herbert Denninger of the CDC at a press conference regarding the events happening in east Texas quoted to reporters: "let me put this in five simple words: Captain Trips does not exist."

[to a military doctor]
Stu: I ain't gonna resist. Country don't mean dumb.

Stu: [on surprising Glen] I'm a friend.
Glen: [eying Stu's M16] I certainly hope so.
Stu: [holding up the gun] Think of it as home defense... while on the road.

Harold: [about the wine] It looks like blood.
Nadine: Must be why they serve it at communion.

Lloyd: If black powder were brains, that guy couldn't blow his nose.

Larry: [sees Nadine] She's so gray, Stu.
Stu: Who?
Larry: I know her.

Teddy: Ma'am, are you okay?
Nadine: Fine, why?
Teddy: Well you were having a bad dream, must've been a real wowzer from the sounds you were making. Dream about the walking man?

Stu: Well, say... if it isn't the man with the little clipboard and the armed escort.
[Stu approaches Dr. Denninger to shake his hand]
Dr. Herbert Denninger: No, no, n-no, no, we don't shake hands here, just a precaution, hmm.
Stu: A precaution, uh-huh.
Dr. Herbert Denninger: Patty Greer says you've given her quite a bit of trouble. She's quite upset!
Stu: Well, that makes two of us! Being hijacked by a bunch of government sons-a-bitches in space-suits does that to me every time! So, if you don't wanna see how quick I can rip a hole in that thing 'fore you can get outa here, you're gonna give me a little information. You tell me why I'm not sick!
Dr. Herbert Denninger: Mr. Redman, I hardly think that...
Stu: Talk to me, dammit!
Dr. Herbert Denninger: I'm sorry, but you...
[Stu grabs Dr. Denninger]
Dr. Herbert Denninger: ... Mr. Redman, be reasonable.
Stu: Just get outa here, ya little weasel!... You send me someone who'll give me some answers!
Dr. Herbert Denninger: I don't think that you quite appreciate your position, Mr. Redman!
Stu: You're wrong about that... I do... go on, get out!

Larry: [to Nadine] I am not going to stand here in the midst of 5 million dead bodies and watch you commit suicide!

Dayna: You have just seen me naked for the last time.

Stu: [coughs] I'm getting worse, Kojak... gonna wind up dying from the flu after all.
[laughs and coughs]
Stu: It's kind of funny when you think about it.
[coughs more, tosses his meat to Kojak]
Stu: Here you go, I lost my appetite all of a sudden.

Stu: Where's your buddy, Denninger?
Dr. Dietz: [points a gun at Stu] Well, he's dead... They're all dead... everybody except for me and thee.
Stu: And you're here to take care of me. Is that it?
Dr. Dietz: Hole in one!
Stu: Why?
Dr. Dietz: Why? Because I've decided a piece of country fried crap like you doesn't deserve to live, not with so many good men dying.
Stu: Those "good men" caused this mess!

Mother: You done good, boys, come on home.

Teddy: I don't know how to tell you this, Stu, but...
Stu: What is it?
Teddy: The baby's come early, and it's got the flu.

Frannie: Am I dead?
Mother: No child, you ain't dead.
Frannie: Then why am I here?
Mother: You're here to do God's will, child, just like everyone else. God didn't bring you together to make a committee, or a 'Free Zone'. He brought you together to send some of you further. It's Stuart who must lead now that Nick's gone.
Frannie: Lead? Lead where?
Mother: Why west, little girl. You're not to go, only these 4: Stuart, Ralph, Larry and Glen. You abide.
Frannie: No, Stuart's not going anywhere! He's going to stay with me when I have my baby. Neither one of us is going to have anymore to do with your killer God!
Mother: The devil's imp has called his bride to put her with child. Will he let YOUR child LIVE, little girl?

Harold: Nadine... we're damned.

Tom: [to Nick] We going to Kansas City?
[Nick shakes his head]
Tom: To go see the old black lady?
[Nick does a take, mimicks playing a guitar]
Tom: That's right, she lives out in the corn and she sits out on her front porch and plays the guitar. I wouldn't mind seeing her, but we won't see the other one, will we? The one that turns into a crow? He scares me.

Mother: [upon seeing Fran for the first time] You with child, little girl!
Frannie: How did you know that?

Charlie: You can't outrun The Dark Man.

Rat: Disco's dead!
[smashes Larry's guitar]

Tom: M-O-O-N! That spells NEBRASKA!

Harold: [firmly] Let me make a suggestion, Nadine, take a walk.
Nadine: A *walk*?
Harold: Yes, a walk. This stuff is very old, I don't know how strong it is, but I do know that old dynamite sweats pure nitroglycerin. So why don't you take a walk? And if you hear a big boom, that'll probably be me heading straight to that disco inferno in the sky.

Stu: I think we're in big trouble.

Harold: Don't screw with my disco, Nadine!

Frannie: Are you the same Tom that Nick met in Oklahoma?
Tom: Yes... no. I'm God's Tom.

Nadine: You said it yourself, Harold, we're damned.

[after being shot]
Glen: It's okay Mr. Henreid, you don't know any better.

Judge: [Discussing the spy mission Larry has just reluctantly recruited him for] I'll leave tomorrow, in that 4-wheel drive of mine. North to Wyoming, then due west. I'll be cold. I'll be lonely. My bowels will not work properly. But also... I will be clever.
Larry: [smiles sadly] I bet you will.

Barry: [Larry refers to Flagg as a tin god] Tin god? Tin god? That's funny, I spent 22 years in the Santa Monica P.D., and I know what happens when guys like you end up running the show. We haven't got a single addict in Vegas, can your people say the same?
Glen: Mr. Dorgan, even a man of your apparently limited intelligence should be able to see that your experiences with a few battered babies and drug abusers doesn't excuse your embrace of a monster.

Susan: If I can't go, what about asking Dayna?
Larry: You can't be serious.
Stu: Well you better get serious.
Larry: I can't believe we're doing this!
Stu: Hey, if you didn't want to get your hands dirty, you should've stayed off the committee in the first place. We're probably sending people off to get killed. Yeah that's right, making decisions like that is what being in charge is all about, either grow up and do it or get out!
Larry: ...You're awful cute when you're angry, Stu.

Nadine: Is everything all right?
Harold: [has dynamite in his hand] No. If I had dropped this, you would be washing my guts out of your pretty white hair for the next two weeks!
Nadine: I'm sorry.

Dr. Herbert Denninger: Mr. Redman, I suggest you cooperate and get in the vehicle or...
Stu: [interrupting] Or what? You'll shoot me? That don't scare me. If we got what that guy Campion had... we're dead already. Right?

Stuart: [Tom Cullen is under hypnosis] What does Flag intend to do about the Freezone?

Nadine: I think you're right. The Big Apple is baked.

Tom: M-O-O-N; that spells X!

Sheriff: When I was a boy, we killed ourselves a mountain lion up in the hills, gutted it, and dragged it back to town. What was left of that critter was the sorriest sight I ever seen. You the second sorriest, boy.

Randall: [seeing the dead rat under Lloyd's pillow] Bre'er Rat. How'd he taste?

Barry: I'm Barry Dorgan, chief of Vegas security. What kind of accident?
Larry: He stubbed his toe. Look Mr. Drogan, chief, Dragon, captain, Drugen, whatever you want to call yourself, why don't we just get on with this?

Stu: Going to Stovington would be a waste of your time.
Harold: [scoffs] I hardly think you're the best judge of that.
Glen: He was there, and he knows, they tried to kill him.

[Stu is lazily listening to the old men chatter at Hap's gas station when he sees a car driving crazily toward them in the night]
Stu: Hap. Hap! Shut off the pumps!
[Campion's car smashes into the gas pumps]

Larry: [his last words] Amazing grace...

Nadine: We... are... dead... and... this... is... Hell!

Mother: [her last words] Be true. STAND!

Randall: Pleased to meet you, Lloyd. Hope you guessed my name.
Lloyd: Huh?
Randall: Oh. Nothing. Just a little classical reference.

Glen: You're quite a piece of work Mr Cockroach. We could learn a lesson from you, especially in light of recent events. I have an idea come this time tomorrow I'll be gone, but you'll still be trucking, running little roach errands.
Randall: [stomps on the roach] That's a wrap on the roach.

Larry: [to Nadine] I don't need this prima donna act! You have fun getting raped and murdered back on 7th Avenue, sweetheart!

Dr. Dietz: Patty Greer says you've given her quite a bit of trouble, she's quite upset.
Stu: Well, that makes two of us. Being hijacked by a bunch of government sons of bitches in space suits does that to me every time. So if you don't want to see how quick I can rip a hole in that thing 'fore you can get outta here, you better give me a little information. You tell me why I'm not sick.

Mother: Mayhap!

Stu: I was faking.

Frannie: [riding a motorcycle] Harold, I don't think I'm ever gonna get these calluses off my fanny.

Randall: Just one more thing... the moon man, dear. Who is he?
Dayna: I don't know.
Randall: I think you do.
Dayna: No, really, I don't know. I didn't even know about the Judge, until I heard Lloyd talking about him with some guy in Idaho.
Randall: That makes perfect sense. Nevertheless you DO know. You know and you'll tell me, do you understand?
Dayna: Why don't YOU know? Why don't you know already?
Randall: I DON'T KNOW!

Russ: You know, I thought there'd be whores, I haven't seen any whores.
Rich: Man don't even want you to have a drink, and dope, pfft, forget about it. I've been thinking, I might not go back to Vegas after all. Mexico ain't but 300 miles in that direction.
[Tom steps on a branch]
Russ: [pops up with gun] What was that?
Rich: Just a deer, they're all over.
Russ: Maybe we should go look.
Rich: Go ahead, why should I be out there wandering around in the dark, maybe break my leg for that freak in cowboy boots?
Russ: You ought to watch it, Rich, man has a way of hearing things, seeing things.
Rich: Ah Flagg don't scare me.

Carl: You're real! You're really real!
Mother: Get up, I ain't no God and I ain't gonna be no golden calf.

Mother: Once in every generation, the plague shall fall among them. That's what it says in the Book. Seems like maybe you went a little too far this time,

Ralph: What if this other guy we've been dreaming about is... well, not real, like a boogeyman?
Mother: You dreamed of me, am I the boogeyman?
Ralph: [laughs] No ma'am.

Larry: [addressing Flagg's crowd at Vegas before their execution] I don't expect you to stop this, but you better take a good look, because the next time this happens, you'll find yourselves in this position instead.

Stu: We'll try to find the old black woman, assuming she's real...
Glen: Folks around these parts call me Mother Abigail, I'm 106 years old and I still make my own bread.
Stu: That's her.

[Larry has returned to New York to see his mother, who assumes he is a failure, despite his flashy car]
Alice: Don't lie. I've seen your car.
Larry: [sullenly] About forty thousand.
Alice: Jesus wept.
Larry: But the record's number 21 this week, Ma! With a bullet. Bam! The album hasn't hit the hot 100 yet, but it will. Forty thousand's nothin'. Nothin'! And I'm not gonna let them make me a one-hit wonder, either. Your son's here to stick around! I'm gonna be famous, Ma. Even better. I'm gonna be rich.

Mother: I hear you, Lord, and I'm in the way of doing your will, but I don't much like it!

[looking at the images of the virus outbreak]
Gen. Starkey: Look at that. It killed 'em in a hurry down there. Telemetry reports suggest that even the ones that managed to get their respirators on died within 12 minutes after exposure. The rest were gone in less than five. Do you believe that?
Maj. Jalbert: Do I have a choice?
Gen. Starkey: No. Apparently none of us do. This 'Project Blue', it's nothing but a souped up version of the flu. Herbert Denninger of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the Pentagon's bright boy of the week, says that once we find Campion, we'll only know if it's going to jump to the outside. He says the virus will probably mutate as it passes from person to person, but that's not gonna help the people who catch it.
Maj. Jalbert: Sir, I have information that...
Gen. Starkey: [interrupting] It'll just take 'em longer to die, that's all. Most people that get infected with this thing are gonna think they have the plain old non-lethal flu... right up to the very end, and that's the biggest break we've had so far. Now it's loose out there all because a gate malfunctioned and some idiot, glorified TV repairman grabbed his family and ran for the hills. What I'd like to do more than anything else is get that coward and...
Maj. Jalbert: Sir, we found him. We located Campion. He crash-landed late last night at a gas station on the outskirts of a one-stoplight town in east Texas.
Gen. Starkey: He made it halfway across the country in only 12 hours? How the hell did he do that?
Maj. Jalbert: I don't know. But right now, we have a shot at containing this.
Gen. Starkey: Is he alive or dead?
Maj. Jalbert: He's dead.
Gen. Starkey: Oh my God. Denninger says that this stuff has a communicability level of 99.4%! You know what that means? Any chance we had at containing by the book went out the window when Campion stopped to buy gas or his first take-out hamburger!
Maj. Jalbert: We can't think that way, General.
Gen. Starkey: Well... you're right, I guess not. What about the rest of his family? His wife and baby daughter?
Maj. Jalbert: They're dead, sir. Contact with townspeople was minimal.
Gen. Starkey: That doesn't matter. We've got to shut that town down, lock it up, dig a moat around it.
Maj. Jalbert: That operation is already on the launching pad, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Good. What kind of cover did you come up with?
Maj. Jalbert: Anthrax. A new strain.
Gen. Starkey: [laughs] Yeah, it's very new! It's real good at its job.
Maj. Jalbert: It's bad General, but it could be worse.
Gen. Starkey: [scoffs] Yeah? How so?

Mother: Who this woman that comes?
Nadine: I'm Nadine Cross.
Mother: Well, mayhap you is and mayhap you ain't.
Nadine: I'm from New York.
Mother: Mayhap you are.
Nadine: Mayhap I ain't.

"The: He's coming for YOU, Larry! The man with no face!

Lucy: Oh, thank god! I'm so happy... we're so happy to see someone else. Aren't we, Joe?
Larry: Yeah, same here, believe me.
[to Joe]
Larry: How ya doing, son?
[Joe goes at Larry with a knife]
Lucy: [pulling Joe back] Put that away!
Larry: Nice kid. Has he had his rabies shots yet?
Lucy: I'm sorry! He's been... traumatized.
Larry: Haven't we all?
Lucy: I suppose so.

Susan: You're the perfect American male, Stu, we get the power back on and you decide to barbecue.
Stu: Yeah, soon as they bring back pork rinds and Monday night football, I'm in redneck heaven.

Trashcan: My life for him. Yes. My life for him!
Rat: The dude's crazy.
Lloyd: Like we're not.

Larry: So why'd you have to kill Glen?
Barry: He tried to escape.
Larry: You know, one of these days you're gonna get shot trying to escape, Dorgan, you too, Ratty.
Ralph: Yeah, one less Rat Man in the world.
Rat: Shut up that honky voodoo.
[cocks gun]

Rat: [to Larry] The Rat Man will forgive you this time!

Biker: [dying after a crash, scribbles "Sorry, I was misled" on a scrap of paper]

Tom: [Nick pulls a price tag off his shirt] Thanks, I'm always forgetting stuff like that... I hate being retarded.

Glen: The name of the man in the desert is Flagg, and I think he's crucifying anyone who gets in his way.

Nadine: I'll see you in hell, Randall, holding your baby in my arms.

Tom: Stu, if you don't eat... you'll die, and I'll be all alone. You gotta eat for me, Stu.

Gen. Starkey: I don't know how many times I have to say this but this so-called "superflu" does... not... exist!
Reporter: [voice] Then what is it? Why are people talking about it?
Gen. Starkey: I don't know why people are talking about it. I don't know where the rumors are coming from. It must be from somebody's imagination. I don't know why I'm up here answering questions I don't have the answer to. There is NO superflu virus!

[His dying lines, spoken to Stu Redman]
Charlie: There was a man with us some of the time; he was a dark man. I was looking through the rear-view mirror and I'd see him just sitting there, grinning at me. I thought I could outrun him.
[He laughs, sickly]
Charlie: You can't outrun the dark man.

Tom: M-O-O-N, that spells Tom Cullen.

Tom: M-O-O-N. That spells moon.

Mother: Doctor told me to cut out the coffee, I only have one cup a day... no, two cups a day
[laughs and drinks it]
Mother: Besides, he's dead and I'm still living.

Rat: [Regarding the Trashcan Man] Dude's crazy.
Lloyd: Like we're not?

Stu: Country don't mean dumb.

Glen: Nick's proposal is that we send at least 3 people west to Las Vegas, which we all feel is this Flagg's base of operations. The purpose is to try and find out what Flagg's plans are for us. Anyone want to kick it around a little bit?
Larry: We haven't even been elected for one whole day yet and we've managed to reinvent the CIA. Who needs Monday Night Football?
Ralph: Well what the hell else we gonna do? All he needs is one guy to target some scud missile with an a-bomb on it.
Larry: And if he's got one, what then?
Stu: Somebody will have to try and stop him from using it.

Rat: [welcoming Flagg and Nadine] Welcome to Vegas, ma'am.

Nick: [Standing up and walking through a cornfield] I can hear! I can talk!

Larry: You're awful cute when you're angry, Stu.