Le Peron:
The brothel's throwing a party for the new colonel. Got any prisoners who can wait on table?

Lucien Cordier:
You know I never arrest anyone unless I have to. I have enough troubles of my own.

Leonelli:
What good is an empty prison?

Lucien Cordier:
What are you hunting?

Leonelli:
Nothing, jerk. We're shooting stiffs.

Le Peron:
Doesn't bother them and it's fun for us. When dysentery's cured, we'll find a new sport.

Le Peron:
You can always be bribed.

Lucien Cordier:
I've got no choice. First, I'm underpaid; second, my wife takes all my money; and third, fining you is practically a civic duty.

Anne:
I'm the new schoolteacher of Bourkassa.

Lucien Cordier:
That's a fine profession. A vocation, I'd say. Thanks to you, black children will be able to read their daddy's name on French war memorials.

Lucien Cordier:
We've got to laugh in this world, or else we'd shoot ourselves.

Le Peron:
You've got nothing to do around here.

Lucien Cordier:
Doing nothing is my job. I'm paid for it.

Le Peron:
So go do nothing somewhere else.

Marcel Chevasson:
Where do you think they are now?

Lucien Cordier:
In jail?

Marcel Chevasson:
Someday you'll learn a coffin costs the state less than a man in a cell, old chum.

Priest:
You'll never arrest anybody. How can they respect you? You've got to show folks you're brave, honest, and hard-working. Here, hold this.

Lucien Cordier:
I can't.

Priest:
Why not?

Lucien Cordier:
First, because I'm not brave, honest, and hard-working, and second, because I don't think my bosses want me to be.

Priest:
How come?

Lucien Cordier:
If they wanted someone brave, honest, and hard-working, they wouldn't have hired me.

Lucien Cordier:
Kicking a dying man isn't very nice. But first, I wanted to, and second, it's no risk. This hurts me more than you.

Lucien Cordier:
I do things without thinking. Later I understand. I never plan ahead.

Rose:
Having you is an honor. Killing my husband for love.

Lucien Cordier:
No, I was just getting rid of trash. The trash also happened to be your husband.

Rose:
There's a lot of trash around.

Lucien Cordier:
There'll be less and less. Had to start somewhere.

Lucien Cordier:
What's wrong? You know I have to.

Vendredi:
But Captain, I trusted you. You're different from other white men.

Lucien Cordier:
There's your mistake.

Lucien Cordier:
We all kill what we love.

Lucien Cordier:
Better the blind man who pisses out the window than the joker who told him it was a urinal. Know who the joker is? It's everybody.

Lucien Cordier:
You kissed too much white ass. You asked to get fucked. This is what I do with friends like you.

Colonel Tramichel:
A last adieu to his master.

Rose:
He just wants to eat him. Right, Spot?

Lucien Cordier:
Didn't your regiment squash the peanut pickers' revolt?

George Le Peron:
Sure did.

Lucien Cordier:
It sure took guts. All those niggers armed with clubs. And all you had was machine guns.

Lucien Cordier:
Can you excuse a pole for filling a hole? It may squash some rabbits, but is it the pole's fault if it fits that hole?

George Le Peron:
But a pole is an inanimate object.

Lucien Cordier:
Aren't we all more or less inanimate?

George Le Peron:
What do you mean?

Lucien Cordier:
Who knows!

Lucien Cordier:
I'm not a policeman, George. I'm Jesus Christ in person, sent here with a load of crosses, each bigger than the next.

George Le Peron:
I see.

Lucien Cordier:
I try to save the innocent but there aren't any. All crimes are collective. We contribute to each other's crimes. We all shot your brother. And maybe I did a bit more than my share.

Lucien Cordier:
Do you know the question no one can answer? The big question?

George Le Peron:
Go ahead.

Lucien Cordier:
When you scratch your balls, is it 'cause they itch, or 'cause it feels good?

Lucien Cordier:
I'm exhausted, Rose.

Rose:
Sleep is all you do.

Lucien Cordier:
It's the best thing besides eating. When you eat or sleep, you forget about the things you can't solve. Think about it. You'll see I'm right.

Rose:
Thinking's not what I need.

Rose:
You saw everything?

Lucien Cordier:
Let's say I heard everything.

Rose:
And you did nothing?

Lucien Cordier:
Why should I have done something?

Rose:
Why... to stop me.

Lucien Cordier:
It wasn't up to me to stop you. It was up to you, to Huguette, Nono, Marcaillou. If I put temptation in front of you, it's not a reason to use it. I just help folks reveal their true character. It's a dirty job, Rose. And I deserve all the dirty pleasure I get out of it.

Rose:
You're not ashamed?

Lucien Cordier:
Part of my job is enjoying other folks' misery.

Rose:
You have to help me. I can't take it. What can I do?

Lucien Cordier:
How the hell do I know? Any idiot can see they were shot with your gun.

Rose:
But that's horrible!

Lucien Cordier:
At first it is horrible. But then you start to think about starving kids, little girls sold into slavery, women whose sex is sewn up... God created murder out of pure kindness. Murder is nothing compared to those horrors.

Lucien Cordier:
You'll manage. I'm sure of that. You could make a mint just doing what you like best, which you do better than any woman I know. And since we'll probably never see each other again, I'll be glad to bang you one last time, even though you're a fugitive.

Lucien Cordier:
Do you know why dogs sniff each other's butts? When dogs still ruled the world, they held a convention to vote new laws. The head dog said: "I suggest that due to poor hygiene here, our assholes we leave at the door." The dogs agreed and de-assholed. But just then, a tornado blew in and mixed all the assholes up. Not one dog recognized his own. Ever since, they smell each other's asses. And it'll go on till the end of time.

Rose:
They say there are a hundred kinds of deaths. I hope yours will be the worst.

Marcaillou:
You gonna arrest me for clubbing a nigger?

Lucien Cordier:
No, not exactly. The main thing is the board. Marcaillou The board? Lucien Cordier Yeah, covering that hole there. What if somebody fell in and broke his leg? It'd be your fault.

Marcaillou:
So?

Lucien Cordier:
So, since nobody did, I'll let you off this time.

Rose:
There are three kinds of French: real French, shit French, and French shit. You're not even French shit.

Lucien Cordier:
I can't read the aviator's book. It's too well-written.

Anne:
You like sounding illiterate? You're not. So why?

Lucien Cordier:
Habit. Grammar gets rusty like everything else if you don't use it. And in Africa the same goes for good and evil. What's good? What's evil? Nobody knows. It's not much use here. So it gets rusty too. Must be the climate.