- Eli Cross: [after a cameraman says cut because there's only 22 seconds of film left] In 22 seconds, I could break your fucking spine. In 22 seconds, I could pinch your head off like a fucking insect and spin it all over the fucking pavement. In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut. What I seem unable to do in 22 seconds is to keep you from fucking up my film!
- Eli Cross: Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray's belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man!
- Eli Cross: Oh Burt, stop this worrying. You must have heard surely of movie magic. You should be a stunt man, who is an actor, who is a character in a movie, who is an enemy soldier. Who'll look for you amongst all those? People like to believe in things, and policemen are just people. Or so I'm told. Frankly, our problem is so simple it's almost beneath us. Now listen to me: that door is the looking glass, and inside it is Wonderland. Have faith Alice! Close your eyes and enjoy.
- Eli Cross: I know a man who made an anti-war movie... a good one. When it was shown in his home town, army enlistment went up six hundred percent. I'm trying to convince the world with my movie that there is a reasonable and better way of getting home for Thanksgiving.
- Eli Cross: If you cooperate, you'll receive a first-class ticket to Amsterdam where you can stick your finger in a dike.
- Eli Cross: Nina the actress so fair / Who fancied a man with blond hair. / But Raymond discovers / As he lifts up the covers / That his double - young "Lucky"- is there
- Man watching second unit stunt shot: [after corpse-strewn scene turns out to be faked] Great, but why do they always use so much blood? Ruins the realism, don't you think?
- Cameron: Asshole.
- Cameron: [after completing stunt] That was the hardest thousand dollars I ever earned.
- Eli Cross: [Later... Starts to turn away, then turns back] Thousand dollars? What thousand dollars?
- Cameron: [curt] The stunt.
- Eli Cross: The stunt pays six-fifty.
- Cameron: [angrily] No. Chuck said the stunt paid a thousand dollars.
- Eli Cross: [dismissing him] Chuck could have promised you the Nobel Prize. The stunt pays six-fifty.
- Cameron: [shouting] The stunt pays a thousand dollars. Chuck told me. You insulted me again.
- Sam: [his madhouse scene having been replaced with a brothel scene] Eli, do you know that when I read the insane asylum scene to my family, do you know that my oldest son shook my hand for the first time in his whole life? So why is it, Eli, why is it that your vulgar little scene turns out to be so much more moving? So much more impassioned?
- Eli Cross: Ah, I don't know, Sam. Possibly because we realize that our friend, the enemy, may just be a poor horny slob, like yourself, falling into the nearest whorehouse.
- Eli Cross: [to Cameron, who has completed the car stunt] Oh, God. I don't believe it's breathing. There are some days in which I can't do one thing right. I hope this doesn't fuck up our relationship, you being alive and all.
- Chuck Barton: You know a good falling horse makes more in 4 minutes than a bank president does in a year?
- Chuck Barton: Done any stuntwork?
- Cameron: Not really.
- Chuck Barton: Not really? You have or you haven't.
- Cameron: I got out of 'Nam in one piece. That's a helluva stunt.
- Chuck Barton: Ancient history.
- Cameron: Seems like yesterday to me.
- Cameron: [after demonstrating a leap for Chuck] My specialty's the broad jump.
- Chuck Barton: [angrily] And Burt's specialty was drowning!
- Sam: What's wrong, Eli?
- Eli Cross: Wrong? The scene's wrong. That's what's wrong.
- Sam: The scene plays like a dream. Plays like "Marat/Sade."
- Eli Cross: It was shit.
- Sam: Shit? Shit, huh? Who was that that called me on the phone when he first read it, woke me up in the middle of the goddamn night, raving about the magical madhouse scene? Who was that? My upstairs maid, Eli?
- Eli Cross: Still shit.
- Eli Cross: [after an effects shot involving a dummy has gone wrong] It's so awful, it's beautiful. I do wish I could use it.
- Sam: That's all we need.
- Eli Cross: Well, we need something, Sam, and damn well you know it. Something better.
- Sam: Better? How better?
- Eli Cross: Something less boring. Something crazier.
- Sam: A dead man's boots are dropped over his own airfield out of chivalry. That's not crazy enough for you, huh?
- Eli Cross: They did it in a film called "Wings." Even the dummy was bored.
- Eli Cross: Well, talking of jail, would you be very upset if I asked just how many policemen are after you?
- Cameron: Me? I don't know what you are talking about.
- Eli Cross: The way you ran from the bridge, and the look on your face, and your charm bracelet. That's what I'm talking about. I suppose care to tell me what it is that you did?
- Eli Cross: Now don't be hasty and remember your arse. It's just like mine. Maybe I can save it for you.
- Chuck Barton: You know, one daredevil on this picture was enough! The hell is Eli thinking? Sending me a smartass, cocky, amateur kid when I need a stuntman! A little different when you're running across those roofs and they're pumping tracer bullets over your head.
- Cameron: I was running for 26 months with guys shooting *at* my head, not over my head. I'm here. I'm alive. I knew daredevils, and I ain't got nothing against 'em, it's just they're all dead. So how about giving me break! You putting me on? Huh?
- Chuck Barton: Me? I wouldn't know how to do that.
- Chuck Barton: [indicating distance of about 4 feet] You think you can jump from there to there?
- Cameron: [wondering if he's joking] From there to there?
- Chuck Barton: Umm hmm.
- Cameron: [before easily jumping the distance] Okie dokie.
- Chuck Barton: Oh, very good... except you're dead. Your brains are scattered all over the pavement. You should land in a tuck and then roll.
- Cameron: Show me, Sargeant.
- Police Chief Jake: Hey Bert, it's amazing you're still alive, considering who you are working for.
- Eli Cross: Come on Bert. We've time to kill you yet.
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