Saving Private Ryan Quotes

Captain Miller: James Francis Ryan of Iowa?
Private Ryan: Yes, sir. Paton, Iowa, that's correct. What is this about?
Captain Miller: Your brothers were killed in combat.
Private Ryan: Which - Which ones?
Captain Miller: All of them.
[Ryan pauses in shock and then begins to cry]

Captain Miller: I'm a schoolteacher. I teach English composition... in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I've been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it's a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I've

changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I'll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. The man means nothing to me. It's just a name. But if... You know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the

right to get back to my wife, then that's my mission.
[to Private Reiben]
Captain Miller: You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.

[Being told he can go home]
Private Ryan: Hell, these guys deserve to go home as much as I do. They've fought just as hard.
Captain Miller: Is that what I'm supposed to tell your mother when she gets another folded American flag?
Private Ryan: You can tell her that when you found me, I was with the only brothers I had left.

And that there was no way I was deserting them. I think she'd understand that.

Parker: [firing machine gun] I'm out of .30 Caliber!
Private Jackson: [lining shots] Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
[Fires rifle twice]
Private Jackson: My goodness and my fortress... my high tower and my Deliverer.
[Fires rifle]
Private

Jackson: My shield, and he in whom I trust.
[Fires rifle, then to his rifle]
Private Jackson: Here you go baby.
[Fires rifle few more times. Notices a tank has spotted them]
Private Jackson: Parker, get down!

Old James Ryan: [Last lines, addressing Capt. Miller's grave] My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn't sure how I'd feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I've earned what all

of you have done for me.
Ryan's Wife: James?...
[looking at headstone]
Ryan's Wife: Captain John H Miller.
Old James Ryan: Tell me I have led a good life.
Ryan's Wife: What?
Old James Ryan: Tell me I'm a good man.
Ryan's Wife: You *are*.

[Walks away]
Old James Ryan: [Stands back and salutes]

Private Jackson: Sir... I have an opinion on this matter.
Captain Miller: Well, by all means, share it with the squad.
Private Jackson: Well, from my way of thinking, sir, this entire mission is a serious misallocation of valuable military resources.
Captain Miller: Yeah. Go on.
Private

Jackson: Well, it seems to me, sir, that God gave me a special gift, made me a fine instrument of warfare.
Captain Miller: Reiben, pay attention. Now, this is the way to gripe. Continue, Jackson.
Private Jackson: Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of

Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen.
Private Reiben: Oh, that's brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don't gripe at all?
Captain Miller: I don't gripe to *you*, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I

gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.
Private Reiben: I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?
Captain Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir,

with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering."
Mellish: [chuckles] He's good.
Private Caparzo: I love him.
[they make mocking

kissy-faces at each other]

Gen. George C. Marshall: My dear Mrs Ryan: It's with the most profound sense of joy that I write to inform you your son, Private James Ryan, is well and, at this very moment, on his way home from European battlefields. Reports from the front indicate James did his duty in combat with great courage and steadfast dedication, even after he was informed of the tragic loss your family

has suffered in this great campaign to rid the world of tyranny and oppresion. I take great pleasure in joining the Secretary of War, the men and women of the U.S. Army, and the citizens of a grateful nation in wishing you good health and many years of happiness with James at your side. Nothing, not even the safe return of a beloved son, can compensate you, or the thousands of other American

families, who have suffered great loss in this tragic war. I might share with you some words which have sustained me through long, dark nights of peril, loss, and heartache. And I quote: "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a

sacrifice upon the alter of freedom." -Abraham Lincoln. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, George C. Marshall, General, Chief of Staff.

Sergeant Horvath: I don't know. Part of me thinks the kid's right. He asks what he's done to deserve this. He wants to stay here, fine. Let's leave him and go home. But then another part of me thinks, what if by some miracle we stay, then actually make it out of here. Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to

pull out of this whole godawful, shitty mess. Like you said, Captain, maybe we do that, we all earn the right to go home.

Captain Miller: You see, when... when you end up killing one of your men, you see, you tell yourself it happened so you could save the lives of two or three or ten others. Maybe a hundred others. Do you know how many men I've lost under my command?
Sergeant Horvath: How many?
Captain Miller: Ninety-four. But that means I've saved the

lives of ten times that many, doesn't it? Maybe even 20, right? Twenty times as many? And that's how simple it is. That's how you... that's how you rationalize making the choice between the mission and the man.

Captain Miller: Well when I think of home, I... I think of something specific. I think of my, my hammock in the backyard or my wife pruning the rosebushes in a pair of my old work gloves.
Private Ryan: This, this one night, two of my brothers came and woke me up in the middle of the night. And they said they had a surprise for me. So they took me to the

barn up in the loft and there was my oldest brother, Dan, with Alice, Alice Jardine. I mean, picture a girl who just took a nosedive from the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down. And... and Dan's got his shirt off and he's working on this bra and he's tryin to get it off and all of a sudden Shawn just screams out, "Danny you're a young man, don't do it!" And so Alice Jardine hears this and

she screams and she jumps up and she tries to get running out of the barn but she's still got this shirt over her head. She goes running right into the wall and knocks herself out. So now Danny's just so mad at us. He, he starts coming after us, but... but at the same time Alice is over there unconscious. He's gotta wa... , wake her up. So he grabs her by a leg and he's drag, dragging her. At the

same time he picks up a shovel. And he's going after Shawn, and Shawn's saying, "What are you trying to hit me for? I just did you a favor!" And so this makes Dan more angry. He tries to swing this thing, he looses the shovel, goes outta his grasp and hits a kerosene lantern; the thing explodes, the whole barn almost goes up because of this thing. That was it. That was the last, that was, Dan went

off to basic the next day. That was the last night the four of us were together. That was two years ago. Tell me about your wife and those rosebushes?
Captain Miller: No, no that one I save just for me.

Gen. George C. Marshall: I have a letter here, written a long time ago, to a Mrs. Bixby in Boston. So bear with me. "Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which

should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly

a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln."

Medic Wade: Only thing is, sometimes she'd come home early, and I'd pretend to be asleep
Mellish: Who, your mom?
Medic Wade: Yeah. She'd stand in the doorway looking at me... and I'd just keep my eyes shut. And I knew she just wanted to find out about my day - that she came home early... just to talk to me. And I still wouldn't

move... I'd still pretend to just be asleep. I don't know why I did that.