10 Movie Quotes Everybody Gets Wrong
Are you feeling pedantic, punk?
"Unbearable pedantry means never having to say you're wrong."
- Love Story (1970)
The last one hundred years or so of cinema history has proffered up oodles of memorable sayings ripe for quoting at any given moment. There's barely an occasion in life that isn't fancified by a well-placed movie quote. Weddings ("My precious!"), funerals ("Hasta la vista, baby") - and even those intimate moments between the sheets ("Say hello to my little friend!"). It's never inappropriate.
But like childhood friends and after-dinner anecdotes, many of the best film quotes are made-up. And if not completely fabricated, at least grossly mis-remembered. The more people cite these fallacious phrases, the more history revises, until the original dialogue is forgotten entirely. Sometimes, even by the actor who said it.
It's important and not at all dickish to correct people who get them wrong. Did Dracula really want to drain your crimson vein-juice, or would a fine wine have done for him? And was Ingrid Bergman actually asking for an encore? Swot up on these most frequently botched cinema citations, and impress your friends.
10. The Silence Of The Lambs
The Misquoted Line: "Hello, Clarice."
The Actual Line: "Good evening, Clarice."
Hannibal Lecter's legendarily eerie greeting to Clarice Starling is a lot less unnerving when correctly quoted. Musing over a book with his back turned on the FBI agent, our liver-loving oenophile actually utters, "Good evening, Clarice." Which is much more cordial than it is creepy.