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    : Press -Escape From New York Quotes

Plissken: I don't give a fuck about your war... or your president.

President: God save me, and watch over you all.

Bob Hauk: I'm not a fool, Plissken!

S.D. "Snake" Plissken: Call me Snake.

Bob Hauk: Remember, once you're inside you're on your own.
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: Oh, you mean I can't count on you?
Bob Hauk: No.
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: Good!

Bob Hauk: It's the survival of the human race, Plissken. Something you don't give a shit about.

Girl in "Chock Full O'Nuts": You're a cop!
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: I'm an asshole...

The Duke: They sent in their best man, and when we roam out the 69th street bridge tomorrow, on our way to freedom, we're going to have their best man leading the way from the neck up!

Brain: They're savages, Mr. President.

Hauk: You going to kill me, Snake?
Plissken: Not now, I'm too tired.
[pause]
Plissken: Maybe later.

Bob Hauk: We'd make one hell of a team, Snake!
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: The name's Plissken!

[Last line]
The President: Good evening. Although I shall not be present at this historic summit meeting, I present this in the hope that our great nations may learn to live in peace...

Hauk: Plissken? Plissken what are you doing?
Plissken: Playing with myself, I'm going in.

[The offer: Snake gets the president, and he gets his freedom.]
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: Get a new president.
Hauk: That your answer?
S.D. "Snake" Plissken: Thinking about it.

Bob Hauk: I'm ready to kick your ass off of the world, war hero...

   : Escape From L.A. Quotes

[the Surgeon General gropes Taslima's breasts]
Surgeon General of Beverly Hills: My God, they're real!

Snake Plissken: I got just one question. Which one of you assholes gets to die trying to stick me?

President: What's it going to be, Plissken? Them or us?
Snake Plissken: I shut down the third world, you win they lose. I shut down America, they win you lose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Snake Plissken: Sad story. You got a smoke?

[to the crowd]
Cuervo Jones: I give you the death of SNAKE PLISSKEN!

Snake Plissken: Let's say I come back and I have your black box. Who'll give me the antiode to the virus?
Malloy: A medical team will be standing by.
Snake Plissken: Neither one of you will be there?
Malloy: No.
Snake Plissken: Good!
[Snake opens fire on them with his machine gun, but to no effect]
Malloy: Ha! Figured you might try that, hotshot. That's why the first clip is loaded with blanks. Bye bye, Snake. Good luck!

Snake Plissken: Who are you?
President: I'm your President.

President: Man is too dumb to survive L.A.
Malloy: We're holograms, Plissken.

Malloy: For God sakes, don't do it Snake!
Snake Plissken: My name's Plissken.
[Pushes the button]

Hershe Las Palmas: What's in it for me?
Snake Plissken: I know that voice. You're Carjack Malone.

Snake Plissken: Got a smoke?
Malloy: The United States is a non-smoking nation! No smoking, no drugs, no alcohol, no women - unless you're married - no foul language, no red meat!
Snake Plissken: Land of the free.

Cuervo Jones: You might have survived Cleveland. You might have escaped from New York. But this is L.A., vato. And you're about to find out that this fucking city can kill anybody!

[From the trailer]
Snake Plissken: Your rules are really beginning to annoy me.

[last lines]
[after having shut down all machinery in the world]
Snake Plissken: Welcome to the human race.

Taslima: What are you doing here in LA?
Snake Plissken: Dying.

President: You'll be given a full pardon for every moral crime you've committed in the United States.
Snake Plissken: Sounds familiar.

Snake Plissken: You'd better hope I don't make it back!

Snake Plissken: [to the President] I can see you're real concerned about your daughter.

[Snake is racing in a submarine]
Malloy: Slow down, Snake!
Snake Plissken: You slow down, dickhead! I'm the one dying!

Duty Sergeant: What would you say to all of us who believed in you, who looked up to you, who thought you stood for right over wrong, good over evil? Be my guest. What do you have to say, Plissken?
Snake Plissken: Call me Snake.

[explaining the basketball rules to Snake]
Cuervo Jones: Two hoops, full court. Ten-second shot clock. Miss a shot, you get shot. Shot clock buzzer goes off before you shoot, you get shot. Two points for a basket, no three-point bullshit. All you gotta do is get ten points. That's it.
[pause]
Cuervo Jones: By the way, nobody's ever walked off that court alive. Nobody.

[facing four gunmen at once]
Snake Plissken: I'm gonna give you assholes a chance. What do you say we play a little Bangkok Rules?
[picks up a tin can. The four gunmen back up and get ready]
Snake Plissken: Nobody draws until this hits the ground.
[throws the can high into the air, then pulls his revolvers and kills all four gunmen before the can lands. Can hits the ground]
Snake Plissken: Draw.

Malloy: This is your last chance, hotshot.
Snake Plissken: For what?
Malloy: Freedom.
Snake Plissken: In America? That died a long time ago.

[seeing the crowd chanting Snake's name after he's beaten the basketball shots]
Map to the Stars Eddie: Gee, L.A. just loves a hero.

Snake Plissken: You know where I can find Cuervo Jones?
Skinhead: What do I look like a fuckin' tourist guide?

John on EFNY:

"It's both our fears and what we would like to happen"
- John Carpenter "From the Director's Edition interview"

"Good science-fiction has to have an element of truth, there's something about it you have to believe..."
- John Carpenter "From the Director's Edition interview"

"I first wrote the screenplay in the mid-70's, during the time of Watergate, the whole feeling in the country was one of real cynicism about our president... No studio wanted to make it. They all said: We can't have this kind of dark view"
- John Carpenter "The John Carpenter Web Page Web Page on Escape From New York"

""When I first wrote the script, I set it in 1982. But i've since realized I was being premature, so I moved it ahead 17 years from today. Go back 17 years to 1963 and think how the world has changed. It's been subtle but significant"
- John Carpenter, "High Adventure in the Future", STARLOG, number 41, 1980

"Actually, I wrote Escape From New York way back in 1974. I believe I was inspired by the movie Death Wish (about a vigilante killer), that was very popular at the time, I didn't agree with the philosophy of it, taking the law into one's own hands, but the film came across with the sense of New York as a jungle, and I wanted to make a sci-fi film along those lines."
-John Carpenter "On the set for Escape From New York", STARLOG, number 45, 1981

"I had just made Dark Star, but no one wanted to hire me as a director. So I thought: Well, then, I'm going to write screenplays and work my way in. I scripted Escape, only to discover no studio was interested because they felt a: it was to strange b: it was to violent or c: we're not thrilled with the idea of NYC as a prison"
-John Carpenter "On the set for Escape From New York", STARLOG, number 45, 1981

Kurt on Snake:

"I've been fortunate to be able to play a gamut of characters in different situations. Snake Plissken is the one who has been my favorite, I find him endlessly fascinating. He is a visceral character, one that you feel, not one you figure out. I feel he got to a point very early on his life where he realizes that it's about just making it another 60 seconds. Nobody has ever been as socially- Unredeemable as Snake Plissken"
- Kurt Russell "EFLA article by Cinema 1"

"I think he's unique. Most of these characters who are Žon the edgeŽ as it were, doing all these disputable things, explain why their character got his wag. In other words they have a socially redeemable manner. What I like about Snake is that he doesn't. He's a sociopath. And it is a challange to make people understand that, but at the same time to
root for the guy to pull through"
- Kurt Russell

John on Snake:

"He's Americas perfect antihero. He's only involved in his own survival. He's kind of psychopath, in a way - he's like an old fashioned gunfighter"
- John Carpenter

He's a guy I knew at high school who went to 'Nam and came back and had changed. He was Snake. He's also and archetypal Western character; he's a bad guy from ther Old West, a hired gun. He's also a part of me that's distrustfuk and dislikes authority. He's also part of Kurt; Kurt's a tough guy. Snake is a sociopath and doesn't give a shit about anyone. All he cares about is living for the next 60 seconds. He doesn't want to hurt you, but don't screw with him. He'll get you back,
- John Carpenter "Point Blank: The Total Film Interview, 1997"

Adrienne on Maggie:

"I don't think my character is nasty, she is just keeps blowing people away! I guess you can say I'm sort of a 1997 gun-moll"
- Adrienne Barbeau "On the set for Escape From New York", STARLOG, number 45, 1981