- Andy Dufresne: [to Red] I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
- Red: [narrating] Sometimes it makes me sad, though... Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.
- Andy Dufresne: [in letter to Red] Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
- Andy Dufresne: [referring to Andy using an alias to launder money for the warden] If they ever try to trace any of those accounts, they're gonna end up chasing a figment of my imagination.
- Red: Well, I'll be damned. Did I say you were good? Shit, you're a Rembrandt!
- Andy Dufresne: Yeah. The funny thing is - on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.
- [Red laughs]
- Red: [narrating] I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.
- Red: [narrating] Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.
- 1967 Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?
- Red: Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
- 1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
- Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?
- 1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you?
- Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.
- [last lines]
- Red: [narrating] I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.
- Red: [to Andy] Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
- Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
- Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
- Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
- Red: Forget?
- Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
- Red: What're you talking about?
- Andy Dufresne: Hope.
- Red: [narrating] Forty years I been asking permission to piss. I can't squeeze a drop without say-so.
- Red: These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.
- Heywood: Shit. I could never get like that.
- Ernie: Oh yeah? Say that when you been here as long as Brooks has.
- Red: Goddamn right. They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.
- Brooks: [in letter] Dear fellas, I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The parole board got me into this halfway house called "The Brewer" and a job bagging groceries at the Foodway. It's hard work and I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don't think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work, I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking Jake might just show up and say hello, but he never does. I hope wherever he is, he's doin' okay and makin' new friends. I have trouble sleepin' at night. I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. P.S: Tell Heywood I'm sorry I put a knife to his throat. No hard feelings. Brooks.
- Red: [narrating, referring to the warden committing suicide] I'd like to think that the last thing that went through his head, other than that bullet, was to wonder how the hell Andy Dufresne ever got the best of him.
- Andy Dufresne: What about you? What are you in here for?
- Red: Murder, same as you.
- Andy Dufresne: Innocent?
- Red: [shakes his head] Only guilty man in Shawshank.
- Heywood: The Count of Monte Crisco...
- Floyd: That's "Cristo" you dumb shit.
- Heywood: ...by Alexandree Dumb-ass. Dumb-ass.
- Andy Dufresne: Dumb-ass? "Dumas". You know what it's about? You'll like it, it's about a prison break.
- Red: We oughta file that under "Educational" too, oughten we?
- Andy Dufresne: [in a letter to Red] Dear Red. If you're reading this, you've gotten out. And if you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don't you?
- Red: Zihuatanejo.
- Andy Dufresne: I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I'll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend. Andy.
- Red: [narrating] The first night's the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell... and those bars slam home... that's when you know it's for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.
- Red: [referring to the possibility of Andy committing suicide] I don't know; every man has his breaking point.
- Andy Dufresne: [about his wife] She was beautiful. God I loved her. I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. I killed her, Red. I didn't pull the trigger, but I drove her away. And that's why she died, because of me. The way I am.
- Red: [narrating] In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big goddamn poster. Like I said, in prison a man will do most anything to keep his mind occupied. Turns out Andy's favorite hobby was totin' his wall out into the exercise yard, a handful at a time. I guess after Tommy was killed, Andy decided he'd been here just about long enough. Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guards simply didn't notice. Neither did I... I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes? Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.
- Andy Dufresne: I have no enemies here.
- Red: Yeah? Wait a while. Word gets around. The Sisters have taken quite a likin' to you. Especially Bogs.
- Andy Dufresne: I don't suppose it would help if I told them that I'm not homosexual.
- Red: Neither are they. You have to be human first. They don't qualify.
- Red: [narrating] Not long after the warden deprived us of his company, I got a postcard in the mail. It was blank, but the postmark said Fort Hancock, Texas. Fort Hancock... right on the border. That's where Andy crossed. When I picture him heading south in his own car with the top down, it always makes me laugh. Andy Dufresne... who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. Andy Dufresne... headed for the Pacific.
- Red: [narrating] We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. As for Andy - he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer.
- Andy Dufresne: Red. If you ever get out of here, do me a favor.
- Red: Sure, Andy. Anything.
- Andy Dufresne: There's a big hayfield up near Buxton. You know where Buxton is?
- Red: Well, there's... there's a lot of hayfields up there.
- Andy Dufresne: One in particular. It's got a long rock wall with a big oak tree at the north end. It's like something out of a Robert Frost poem. It's where I asked my wife to marry me. We went there for a picnic and made love under that oak and I asked and she said yes. Promise me, Red. If you ever get out... find that spot. At the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. Piece of black, volcanic glass. There's something buried under it I want you to have.
- Red: What, Andy? What's buried under there?
- Andy Dufresne: [turns to walk away] You'll have to pry it up... to see.
- District Attorney: And that also is very convenient, isn't it, Mr. Dufresne?
- Andy Dufresne: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found.
- Red: [narrating] There's a harsh truth to face. No way I'm gonna make it on the outside. All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole, so maybe they'd send me back. Terrible thing, to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time. Only one thing stops me. A promise I made to Andy.
- Andy Dufresne: You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?
- Red: No.
- Andy Dufresne: They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.
- Bogs Diamond: Now, I'm gonna open my fly and you're gonna swallow what I give ya to swallow. And after you swallow mine you're gonna swallow Rooster's cause ya done broke his nose and I think he oughta have something to show for it.
- Andy Dufresne: Anything you put in my mouth you're gonna lose.
- Bogs Diamond: Naw, you don't understand. You do that and I'll put all eight inches of steel in your ear.
- Andy Dufresne: All right. But you should know that sudden serious brain injury causes the victim to bite down hard. In fact, I hear the bite reflex is so strong they have to pry the victims jaws open with a crowbar.
- Bogs Diamond: [unnerved] Where do you get this shit?
- Andy Dufresne: I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?
- Warden Samuel Norton: [after Andy tells him Tommy could prove Andy's innocence] I have to say that's the most amazing story I've ever heard. What amazes me most is that you were taken in by it.
- Andy Dufresne: [Confused] Sir?
- Warden Samuel Norton: Well, it's obvious this fellow Williams is impressed with you. He hears your tale of woe and quite naturally, wants to cheer you up. He's young, not terribly bright. It's not surprising he wouldn't know what a state he put you in.
- Andy Dufresne: Sir, he's telling the truth.
- Warden Samuel Norton: Well, let's say for the moment this Blatch does exist. You think he'd just fall to his knees and cry "Yes, I did it, I confess! Oh, and by the way, add a life term to my sentence."
- Andy Dufresne: You know that wouldn't matter. With Tommy's testimony I can get a new trial.
- Warden Samuel Norton: That's assuming Blatch is still there. Chances are excellent he'd be released by now.
- Andy Dufresne: Well they'd have his last known address, names of relatives. It's a chance, isn't it?
- [Norton shakes his head]
- Andy Dufresne: How can you be so obtuse?
- Warden Samuel Norton: [his anger rising] What? What did you call me?
- Andy Dufresne: Obtuse. Is it deliberate?
- Warden Samuel Norton: Son, you're forgetting yourself.
- Andy Dufresne: The country club will have his old time cards. Records, W-2s with his name on them!
- Warden Samuel Norton: If you wanna indulge in this fantasy, that's your business. Don't make it mine. This meeting is over.
- Andy Dufresne: Sir, if I ever get out, I'd never mention what goes on in here. I'd be just as indictable as you for laundering that money.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [slams his fists on the table] Don't you *ever* mention money to me again, you sorry son of a bitch! Not in this office, not anywhere!
- [slaps the intercom]
- Warden Samuel Norton: Get in here! Now!
- Andy Dufresne: I'm just trying to put your mind at ease!
- [Hadley comes in]
- Warden Samuel Norton: [to Hadley] Solitary, a month!
- Andy Dufresne: [as they drag him away] What's the matter with you? This is my life, don't you understand? IT'S MY LIFE! IT'S MY LIFE! NO!
- Red: [narrating, referring to Andy] I could see why some of the boys took him for snobby. He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled, like a man in a park without a care or a worry in the world, like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say... I liked Andy from the start.
- [Warden Norton finds the Bible in his safe after Andy escapes and finds the message Andy left for him]
- Andy Dufresne: Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within.
- [Norton flips through a couple of pages to find the outline of the rock hammer that was hidden in the Book of Exodus within the Bible, and then drops it on the floor in shock]
- Andy Dufresne: Bad luck, I guess. It floats around. It's got to land on somebody. It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the tornado. I just didn't expect the storm would last as long as it has.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [to the new inmates] I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [after Andy escapes] Well?
- Red: Well what?
- Warden Samuel Norton: I see you two all the time, you're thick as thieves, you are. He musta said *something*.
- Red: No sir, Warden. Not a word.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [frustrated] Lord, it's a miracle! Man up and vanished like a fart in the wind! Nothing left but some damn rocks on the windowsill. And that cupcake on the wall! Let's ask her, maybe she knows.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [to poster] What say you there, fuzzy-britches? Feel like talking? Aw, guess not. Why should she be any different?
- [hefting one of Andy's rocks]
- Warden Samuel Norton: This is a conspiracy, that's what it is.
- [throwing rocks]
- Warden Samuel Norton: One... big... damn conspiracy! And everyone's in on it, including *her*!
- [Throws a rock at the poster, the rock goes right through it and they hear it clattering. Norton puts his arm through the torn poster and rips it away from the wall, revealing Andy's escape tunnel; they look through it in shock]
- [after Tommy told the story of how he got arrested]
- Andy Dufresne: Perhaps it's time you tried a new profession.
- Tommy Williams: Huh?
- Andy Dufresne: What I mean is, you don't seem to be a very good thief, maybe you should try something else.
- Tommy Williams: Yeah, well, what the hell you know about it, Capone? What are you in for?
- Andy Dufresne: Me? My lawyer fucked me. Everybody's innocent in here. Don't you know that?
- Andy Dufresne: Mr. Hadley, do you trust your wife?
- Captain Hadley: Oh that's funny. You're gonna look funnier sucking my dick with no teeth.
- Andy Dufresne: What I mean is, do you think she'd go behind your back, try to hamstring you?
- Captain Hadley: That's it. Step aside Mert, this fucker's having himself an accident.
- [grabs Dufresne and pushes him near the edge of the roof]
- Heywood: He's gonna push him off the roof!
- Andy Dufresne: Because if you do trust her, there's no reason you can't keep that $35,000!
- Captain Hadley: What did you say?
- Andy Dufresne: $35,000.
- Captain Hadley: $35,000?
- Andy Dufresne: All of it.
- Captain Hadley: All of it?
- Andy Dufresne: Every penny.
- Captain Hadley: You better start making sense.
- Andy Dufresne: If you want to keep all of that money, give it to your wife. The IRS allows a one-time-only gift to your spouse for up to $60,000.
- Captain Hadley: Bullshit! Tax free?
- Andy Dufresne: Tax free. IRS can't touch one cent.
- Captain Hadley: You're that smart banker who killed his wife, aren't you? Why should I believe a smart banker like you? So I can end up in here with you?
- Andy Dufresne: It's perfectly legal, go ask the IRS, they'll say the same thing. Actually I feel stupid telling you this, I'm sure you would've investigated the matter yourself.
- Captain Hadley: Yeah, fucking A'! I don't need a smart wife-killing banker to tell me where the bear shit in the buckwheat!
- Andy Dufresne: Of course not. But you do need someone to set up the tax-free gift for you, and that'll cost you. A lawyer for example.
- Captain Hadley: Bunch of ball-washing bastards!
- Andy Dufresne: Right. I suppose I could set it up for you. That would save you some money. If you get the forms I'll prepare them for you, nearly free of charge. I'd only ask three beers apiece for each of my co-workers.
- Guard Mert: Ha! "Co-workers", get him, that's rich ain't it?
- Andy Dufresne: I think a man working outdoors feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds. That's only my opinion, sir.
- Captain Hadley: [looks over at the rest of Andy's co-workers] What are you Jimmies staring at? Back to work!
- Fat Ass: You don't understand! I'm not supposed to be here!
- Inmates: Me neither! They run this place like a fucking prison!
- Red: [narrating] Two things never happened again after that. The Sisters never laid a finger on Andy again... and Bogs never walked again. They transferred him to a minimum security hospital upstate. To my knowledge, he lived out the rest of his days drinking his food through a straw.
- Red: [narrating] I must admit I didn't think much of Andy first time I laid eyes on him; looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. That was my first impression of the man.
- Warden Samuel Norton: [after Andy escapes] I want him found. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast - now!
- Tommy Williams: So I'm backing out the door, right, and I got the TV, like this; it was a big old thing, I couldn't see shit; suddenly I hear this voice, "Police, kid, hands in the air." You know, I was standing there, holdin' on to that TV, so finally the voice says, "You hear what I said, boy?" And I say, "Yes sir, I sure did, but if I drop this fucking thing you got me on destruction of property too."
- [after Brooks held a knife to Heywood's throat]
- Andy Dufresne: I just don't understand what happened in there.
- Heywood: Old man's crazy as a rat in a tin shithouse, is what.
- Red: Oh Heywood, that's enough out of you!
- Ernie: I heard he had you shittin' in your pants!
- Heywood: Fuck you!
- Red: Would you knock it off? Brooks ain't no bug. He's just... just institutionalized.
- Heywood: Institutionalized, my ass.
- Red: The man's been in here fifty years, Heywood. Fifty years! This is all he knows. In here, he's an important man. He's an educated man. Outside, he's nothin'! Just a used up con with arthritis in both hands.
- Fat Ass: I don't belong here! I want to go home! I want my mother!
- Another Prisoner: I had your mother, she wasn't that great!
- Andy Dufresne: I understand you're a man who knows how to get things.
- Red: I'm known to locate certain things from time to time.