Charley Butts: I turned 35 today. Some birthday! When's your birthday?
Frank Morris: I don't know.
Charley Butts: Geez, what kind of childhood did you have?
Frank Morris: Short.
Frank Morris: Something special about those steps?
English: The higher you sit, the more status you got. So we kind of play King of the Mountain. Except here we don't play for fun, man.
Frank Morris: And you're King?
English: Yeah.
[Morris walks down the steps]
English: Now I
figure there's two reasons why you didn't sit down on my step. Either you're too scared, or you just hate niggers. Now which is it, boy? You too scared? Hmm?
Frank Morris: [Morris climbs back up and sits next to English] Nah. I just hate niggers.
English: Ten years ago, I was in this bar in Alabama when two dudes started hassling me. That was their first mistake. They pulled knives. That was their second mistake. They didn't know how to use them. That was the last mistake they ever made. I got two 99-year sentences, back to back.
Frank Morris: Seems like you could've pleaded self-defense.
English: The dudes were white, man. Just like you.
Warden: If you disobey the rules of society, they send you to prison; if you disobey the rules of the prison, they send you to US. Alcatraz is not like any other prison in the United States. Here, every inmate is confined ALONE... to an individual cell. Unlike my predecessors, Wardens Johnson and Blackwell, I don't have good conduct programs, I do not have inmate counsels. Inmates
here have no say in what they do; they do as they're told. You're not permitted to have newspapers or magazines carrying news; knowledge of the outside world is, ah, what we tell you. From this day on, your world will be everything that happens in this building.
Warden: Alcatraz was built to keep all the rotten eggs in one basket, and I was specially chosen to make sure that the stink from the basket does not escape. Since I've been warden, a few people have tried to escape. Most of them have been recaptured; those that haven't have been killed or drowned in the bay. No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz. And no one ever will!
John Anglin: Hey, how's it going, Frank?
Frank Morris: Well, the Anglins. What are you guys doing, just dropping by?
Clarence Anglin: Yeah, thought we'd pay you a visit.
Frank Morris: Gonna stay long?
John Anglin: Nah, not long. Only about fifteen or twenty years.
Frank
Morris: Why the Rock?
Clarence Anglin: We were going over the wall in Atlanta when we encountered a minor problem.
Frank Morris: Such as?
Clarence Anglin: They saw us.
Frank Morris: Yeah, that do present problems.
Clarence Anglin: So they shipped us to Leavenworth.
John Anglin: Yeah, but we didn't like the accommodations there, either. Warden said he knew just the place for us. Alcatraz.
Clarence Anglin: Is it true no one's ever busted out of here?
Frank Morris: So they tell me.
John Anglin: Jesus. I wonder what I'd be like after fifteen years here.
Clarence Anglin: What movie is playing this week?
John Anglin: Some cowboy piece of shit.
[goes into Italian-American voice]
John Anglin: 'ey, least dey could show was a gangsta movie!
[laughs]
Frank Morris: I may have found a way out of here.
[the group stops and stares at him]
English: Sometimes I think that's all this place is. One... long... count. The prisoners count the hours, the bulls count the prisoners and the king bulls count the counts.