Keyes Quotes

Lieutenant Mike Harrigan: [grabbing Keyes and violently pinning him against the wall] Listen, shithead. I don't give a fuck who you really are or what you want with this asshole... because now it's personal, and he's a dead man.
Peter Keyes: The concept of what you're dealing with is way over your head. I'm warning you...
Lieutenant Mike

Harrigan: You!
[shoving Keyes back against the wall]
Lieutenant Mike Harrigan: You don't know what you're dealing with... and i'm warning you: stay the fuck out of my way!

Barton Keyes: Just came from Norton's office. Semiannual sales records are out. You're high man, Walter. That's twice in a row. Congratulations.
Walter Neff: Thanks. How'd you like a cheap drink?
Barton Keyes: How'd you like a $50 cut in salary?
Walter Neff: Do I laugh now or wait til it gets funny?

Barton Keyes: I'm serious. I've just been talking to Norton. Too much stuff piling up on my desk. Too much pressure on my nerves. I spend half the night walking up and down on my bed. I've got to have an assistant and I thought of you.
Walter Neff: Me? Why pick on me?
Barton Keyes: 'Cause I've got a crazy idea you might be good at

the job.
Walter Neff: That's crazy all right. I'm a salesman.
Barton Keyes: Yeah, peddlar. Glad-handler. Back-slapper. You're too good to be a salesman.
Walter Neff: Nobody's too good to be a salesman.
Barton Keyes: Phooey. All you guys do is ring a doorbell and hand out a smooth line of monkey dough.

What's troubling you is that fifty buck cut, isn't it?
Walter Neff: That'd trouble anybody.
Barton Keyes: Look Walter, the job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity. It takes more guts than there is in 50 salesmen. It's the hardest job in the business.
Walter Neff: Yeah, but it's still a desk job. I don't want to be

nailed to a desk.
Barton Keyes: Desk job? Is that all you can see in it? Just a hard chair to park your pants on from 9 to 5? Just a pile of papers to shuffle around and 5 sharp pencils and a scratchpad to make figures on? Maybe a little doodling on the side? Well that's not the way I look at it, Walter. To me, a claims man is a surgeon. That desk is an operating table and

those pencils are scalpels and bone-chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation. They're alive. They're packed with drama, with twisted hopes and crooked dreams. A claims man, Walter, is a, is a doctor and a bloodhound and a
[phone rings. Keyes answers]
Barton Keyes: Who? Okay, hold on a minute. A claims man is a doctor and

a bloodhound and a cop and a judge and a jury and a father confessor all in one. And you want to tell me you're not interested. You don't want to work with your brains. All you want to do is work with your finger on the doorbell for a few bucks more a week. There's a dame on your phone.

Barton Keyes: Eh? There it is, Walter. It's beginning to come apart at the seams already. Murder's never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it's usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson dame is in it *and* a somebody else. Pretty soon, we'll know who that somebody else is. He'll show. He's got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they've got

to meet. Their emotions are all kicked up. Whether it's love or hate doesn't matter; they can't keep away from each other. They may think it's twice as safe because there's two of them,
Barton Keyes: [chuckles]
Barton Keyes: but it isn't twice as safe. It's ten times twice as dangerous. They've committed a *murder*! And it's not like taking a trolley

ride together where they can get off at different stops. They're stuck with each other and they got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery. She put in her claim... I'm gonna throw it right back at her.
[Walter hands Keyes a light]
Barton Keyes: Let her sue us if she dares. I'll be ready for her *and* that

somebody else. They'll be digging their own graves.