Inspiration on Film

9. Andy Dufresne's Speech

Inspiration on Film
Compiled by Fox-Trot-9

9. Andy Dufresne's Speech
From The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Delivered by Tim Robbins

Andy Dufresne: ...get out of here?

Ellis Boyd Redding: Yeah... One day when I get a long white beard and two or three marbles rolling around upstairs, they'll let me out. 

Andy Dufresne: Tell you where I go. To Zihuatanejo.

Ellis Boyd Redding: To what?

Andy Dufresne: To Zihuatanejo. To Mexico. A little place on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? 

Ellis Boyd Redding: 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. Open up a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat, fix it up new. Take my guests out charter fishing.

Ellis Boyd Redding: Zihuatanejo?

Andy Dufresne: With a place like that, I could use a man that knows how to get things.

Ellis Boyd Redding: I don't think I could make it on the outside, Andy. I've been in here most of my life. I'm an institutional man now, just like Brooks was.

Andy Dufresne: Well, you underestimate yourself.

Ellis Boyd Redding: I don't think so. In here, I'm the guy that can get things for you, sure, but... Outside all you need is the yellow pages. Hell, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Pacific Ocean. Shit. That'd scare me to death, something that big.

Andy Dufresne: Not me. I didn't shoot my wife, and I didn't shoot her lover. Whatever mistakes I've made, I've paid for them and then some. That hotel, that boat, I don't think that's too much to ask.

Ellis Boyd Redding: I don't think you ought to be doing this to yourself, Andy. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there and you're in here, and that's the way it is.

Andy Dufresne: Yeah, right. That's the way it is. It's down there and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy liven', or get busy dyin'.

(To be continued...)

A/N: I watched the movie adaptation AND read the novella by Stephen King in the collection, Different Seasons. The last line of this speech, "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'," has a LOT to say about me and a LOT of poeple I know. You can't stay still; you gotta keep going!