Quotes

The Horse's Mouth

Gulley Jimson: Go and do something sensible, like shooting yourself! But don't be an artist!

Gulley Jimson: What are your feet like?
Charwoman: Why?
Gulley Jimson: If they're really old, trampled feet - as I suspect - I'd like to draw them.
Charwoman: Draw your own feet!
[she leaves]
Gulley Jimson: Old women's feet... thin, flat, long, clinging to the ground like reptiles.

Gulley Jimson: Go away. Scram. Tie lead weights to your feet, fireworks in your hair, kiss your mother goodbye and jump in the river. I don't know you. I don't want to know you. Buzz off! Explode!

Gulley Jimson: [to Nosey] Now see what you've done. Got me locked out for life.
[Referring to prison]

Nosey: My bike! Bring it back. My bike!
Man in the Street 1: Stop, thief! Stop, thief!
Man in the Street 2: Stop, thief!
Man in the Street 1: Stop, thief! Stop, thief!
Bobby: [Blows his whistle]
Nosey: No, no no. It's all right. He's - he's a not a theif. He's a friend of mine.
Bobby: You start yelling "stop, thief" at innocent people...
Nosey: I never did.
Bobby: ...and you'll find yourself in hot water. Now, be off with you. And pull your socks up.

Constable: Mr. Jimson?
Gulley Jimson: No. That's my first cousin, once removed, an artist who's always getting into trouble with the police. He just went up the road. Shall I call him back?
Constable: Have you just sent a telephone message of a threatening character to Mr. Hickson of Portland Place?
Gulley Jimson: I only said I'd burn his house down and cut his liver out.
Constable: Now he doesn't want to prosecute, but if you go on making a nuissance of yourself, well, he's gonna have to take steps.
Gulley Jimson: Would he rather I cut his liver out without phoning?
Constable: Now, come now, Mr. Jimson. Put yourself in his place.
Gulley Jimson: I wish I could. It's a very nice place.

Gulley Jimson: Of course you want to be an artist. Everybody does, once. But they get over it, like measles and chicken pox.
Nosey: But there have to be artists!
Gulley Jimson: And lunatics too! But why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for?

Miss D. Coker: Excuse me, Mrs. Monday, I'm Miss D. Coker, a friend of Mr. Jimson's and we want a few words with you, and not in the street, if you please.

Gulley Jimson: I like it here: bricks and broken glass, and an old garbage can. It's the story of my life.

Gulley Jimson: It could happen to anyone, dear. All the greatest artists got their squares wrong. Numbers were invented by Arabs who hate art.

Gulley Jimson: Thirty seconds of revelation is worth a million years of know-nothings.

Painter at side of ship: Where do you think you're goin', dad? What's the big idea?
Gulley Jimson: [Final Lines] Ah, 'there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green'
[quoting final lines of G.K. Chesterton's 'The Rolling English Road.']

Gulley Jimson: It's the kind of face you want to throw a brick at, don't you think?

Sara Monday: [Introduces Jimson to Dicky] This is Mr. Jimson. He's an artist.
Gulley Jimson: Since when?
Sara Monday: [to Dicky] You've never seen a real artist before, have you?
Constable: [Dicky sticks out tongue to Jimson]
Gulley Jimson: You've got the right idea, son. Why don't you bite me? That's the way to treat strangers. Make them respect you.

Sara Monday: Oh, Gully. God bless you. You don't throw a woman's weakness in her face. You know how God made us. That's the funny thing about you. You know about women.
Gulley Jimson: When it comes to a wife, give me a woman every time.

Gulley Jimson: You've got your whale upside down.
Bit Role: Sybille
[a painter]
Bit Role: But Mr. Jimson, surely a whale doesn't have its eye *under* its jaw, does it?
Gulley Jimson: Gully Jimson: Naught of your sarcasm, now. *My* whales do. Otherwise, they wouldn't be real; they'd just be pictures out of a whale book.
Bit Role: Sybille
[a painter]
Bit Role: Shall I try and reverse it?
Gulley Jimson: Not now. It's too late.

Gulley Jimson: [speaking to some helpers] When you've finished that, you can start on the Damned: D8, 9 and 10. We may need tigers and orchids; or fly catchers and flesh eaters; Flowers of Evil - or a borough councilor eating a baby for breakfast.

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