Million Dollar Baby Quotations

Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 dramatic film directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. The screenplay was written by Paul Haggis based on short stories by F.X. Toole, the pen name for fight manager and "cut man" Jerry Boyd, originally published under the title Rope Burns, which have since been republished under the movie's title.

Eddie Dupris

If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: you can't just tell 'em to forget everything you know if you gotta make 'em forget even their bones... make 'em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else... show 'em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy... how to generate momentum off their right toe and how to flex your knees when you fire a jab... how to fight backing up so that the other guy doesn't want to come after you. Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over... till they think they're born that way.

All fighters are pig-headed some way or another: some part of them always thinks they know better than you about something. Truth is: even if they're wrong, even if that one thing is going to be the ruin of them, if you can beat that last bad out of them... they ain't fighters at all.

Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act, that everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back... But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all.

There is magic in fighting battles beyond endurance.

Anybody can lose one fight, anybody can lose once, you'll come back from this you'll be champion of the world.

110, get a job punk.

Then he walked out.. I don't think he had anything left.

Maggie Fitzgerald

I saw your last fight Shawrelle. You spent so much face time on the canvas, you thought the canvas had titties.

I'm 32, Mr. Dunn, and I'm here celebrating the fact that I spent another year scraping dishes and waitressing which is what I've been doing since 13, and according to you I'll be 37 before I can even throw a decent punch, which I have to admit, after working on this speed bag for a month may be the God's simple truth. Other truth is, my brother's in prison, my sister cheats on welfare by pretending one of her babies is still alive, my daddy's dead, and my momma weighs 312lbs. If I was thinking straight I'd go back home, find a used trailer, buy a deep fryer and some oreos. Problem is, this the only thing I ever felt good doing. If I'm too old for this then I got nothing. That enough truth to suit you?

Mama, you take Mardell and J.D. and get home. 'Fore I tell that lawyer there that you're so worried about your welfare you never signed those house papers like you're supposed to. So anytime I feel like it, I can sell that house from under your fat, lazy, hillbilly asses. And if you ever come back that's exactly what I'll do.

I had what I wanted.. I had it all ..

(retreating to her corner after trading punches with her opponent. Sadly, the amount she received was more than that of which she threw) Sally, what am, I doing wrong? everytime I get close she's on me!

(Argues) I ain't doing great, I'm losing!!!

Frankie Dunn

Mo cuishle. It means my darling. My blood.

I want you to jab, right in the tits, until they turn blue and fall off.

Girlie tough ain't enough.

Well, maybe...someone ought to count to ten.

Jesus H., your left! Keep your left up!

Dialogue

Frankie Dunn: You forgot the rule. Now, what is the rule?

Maggie Fitzgerald: Keep my left up?

Frankie: Is to protect yourself at all times. Now, what is the rule?

Maggie: Protect myself at all times.

Frankie: Good. Good.

Maggie: You're gonna leave me again?

Frankie: Never.

Frankie: Father, that was a great sermon... made me weep.

Father Horvak: What's confusing you this week?

Frankie: Oh, it's the same old, 'one God-three God' thing.

Father Horvak: Frankie, most people figure out by kindergarten that it's about faith.

Frankie: Is it sort of like Snap Crackle and Pop, all rolled into one big box?

Father Horvak: You're standing outside my church, comparing God to Rice Krispies?

Frankie: How many eyes do you need to finish this fight?

Maggie: (with a black eye) One's enough.

Maggie: (getting pushed into the stool on her corner. Her opponent had just scored at least two direct punches that popped her head back) She's tough, I can't go inside, I can't get close enough to hit her.

Frankie: You know why that is?

Maggie: Why?

Frankie: Cause she's a better fighter than you are, that's why. She's younger, she's stronger, and she's more experienced. Now, what are you gonna do about it?

[Next round starts. Maggie knocks her out in few seconds]

Maggie: Working the bag, boss.

Frankie: I'm not your boss and that bag's working you.

Maggie: I've got nobody but you, Frankie.

Frankie: Then you've got me.

Quotes about Million Dollar Baby

My main objection to Million Dollar Baby always centered on its misleading marketing, and effort by Warner Brothers to sell it as a movie about a female Rocky, with barely a hint of the pitch-dark substance that led Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer (hardly a right-winger) to declare that 'no movie in my memory has depressed me more than Million Dollar Baby.
- Michael Medved, http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006305

A movie is not good or bad because of its content, but because of how it handles its content. Million Dollar Baby is classical in the clean, clear, strong lines of its story and characters, and had an enormous emotional impact.
- Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun Times)

Cast

Hilary Swank - Maggie Fitzgerald
Clint Eastwood - Frankie Dunn
Morgan Freeman - Eddie Dupris

Quoternity