The Monuments Men * Quotes

Claire Simone: "Would you stop speaking French? Or whatever language you are speaking?"
James Granger: "Well, if it weren't for us, you'd... you'd be speaking German."
Claire Simone: "No. If it was not for you, I might be dead. But I would still be speaking French."
James Granger: "OK..."

"So, how can I help you steal out stolen art?"

"You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they'll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it's as if they never existed. That's what Hitler wants and that's exactly what we are fighting for."

Frank Stokes: "I was told that before you were sent here, you ran one of those camps."
Colonel Wegner: "Who told you that?"
Frank Stokes: "A little bird."
Colonel Wegner: "You're not Jewish, lieutenant?"
Frank Stokes: "No."
Colonel Wegner: "Then you should thank me."
Frank Stokes: "You know, I don't smoke either. My first cigarette.... but I want to remember this moment. I'm gonna go home soon. Got a nice apartment in New York on the Upper West Side. There's a deli down the street called Sid's. Every morning, I walk there and I get a cup of coffee and a bagel, and I read the newspaper. I think about it every day here. It'll be the first place I go when I get stateside. I'm gonna be sitting there, eating one of Sid Meldman's toasted onion bagels and reading a tiny article in the New York Times, page... 18... that says you, Colonel Wegner, were hanged for your crimes you committed during the war and you were buried in an unmarked grave. And then I'll think about my cigarette... and I'll think about you sitting there with that stupid look on your face. Then I'll finish my coffee, leave the paper for Sid to wrap fish in. I'll never think of you again."

James Granger: "Stop, stop. Stop. I seem to have stepped on a land mine... of some sort."
Frank Stokes: "Why d'you do something like that?"
James Granger: "It was a slow day."
Frank Stokes: "Well, I wouldn't move."
James Granger: "I'd like to at some point."

James: "How many men?"
Frank: "For now, six."
James: "Jesus!"
Frank: "With you that's seven."
James: "That's much better."

"Yesterday we found 16,000 pieces of art in a copper mine. It seems the Germans take better care of their art than people."