National Treasure Quotes

Riley Poole: Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?


Riley Poole: It's surrounded by guards... video monitors... and little families from Iowa... and little kids on their eighth grade field trips.


Abigail Chase: What let you to assume there's this invisible map?
Ben Gates: We found an engraving on the stem of a 200-year-old pipe.
Riley Poole: Owned by the Free Masons.
Abigail Chase: May I see the pipe?
Riley Poole: We don't have it.
Abigail Chase: Did Bigfoot take it?


Ben Gates: I'm in a little trouble.
Patrick Gates: Is she pregnant?
Abigail Chase: [to Riley] I look pregnant?
Riley Poole: Of course not.
Ben Gates: If she is would you leave the mother of your grandchild out in the cold?
Patrick Gates: Come in.


Abigail Chase: You're treasure hunters, aren't you?
Ben Gates: We're more like treasure protectors.


Ben Gates: Do you trust me?
Abigail Chase: Yes.


Ben Gates: [upset] I... I just really thought I was gonna find the treasure.


Shaw: [referring to the underground staircase] How do a bunch of people with hand tools build all this?
Ben Gates: The same way the built the pyramids, and the Great Wall of China.
Riley Poole: Right... the aliens helped them.


Ben Gates: I'm workin' on it!
[said several times]


Abigail Chase: What do you see?
Ben Gates: 2:22.
Abigail Chase: What time is it now?
Clothing Store Clerk: Almost 3.
Abigail Chase: [sighs] We missed it.
Riley Poole: No, we didn't. We didn't miss it because... you don't know this? I know something about history that you don't know.
Ben Gates: I'd be very excited to learn about it, Riley.
Riley Poole: Hold on one second, let me just take in this moment. This is cool. Is this how you feel all the time? Well, except now.
Abigail Chase: Riley!
Riley Poole: All right! What I know is that daylight savings wasn't established until World War I. If it's 3 p.m. now that means that in 1776 it would be 2 p.m.
Ben Gates: Riley, you're a genius.


Riley Poole: It's a big blue-ish green man... with a strange-looking goatee... I'm guessing that's significant.
[hugs the statue]


Riley Poole: When are we gonna get there? I'm hungry. This car smells weird.


Ian Howe: He's got the bloody map.


Abigail Chase: Are you crying, Riley?
Riley Poole: Oh, look. Stairs.


Ben Gates: We have to steal The Declaration of Independence!


[Agent Hendricks clears his throat]
Sadusky: Yes, Agent Hendricks, you've got something?
Agent Hendricks: Um...
Sadusky: This isn't a day for "Um."
Agent Hendricks: We received a tip a few days ago that someone was going to steal the Declaration of Independence.
Sadusky: [nodding] Do we have a name on the tipster?
Agent Hendricks: Uh, there was no file opened. We didn't find the information credible.
Sadusky: [beat] How about now?


Ben Gates: I leveled with you one hundred percent.
Abigail Chase: Give me the Declaration, Mr. Brown.
Ben Gates: OK, my name's not Brown. It's Gates. I leveled with you ninety-eight percent.


Riley Poole: You know, it took you almost two seconds to decide to steal The Declaration of Independence.
Benjamin Franklin Gates: Yeah, but I didn't think I was going to have to personally tell my dad about it.


Patrick Gates: The status quo has changed, son.


Sadusky: Door number one, you go to prison for a very long time. Door number two, we are going to get back the Declaration of Independence, you help us find it, and you still go to prison for a very long time, but you feel better inside.
Ben Gates: Is there a door that doesn't lead to prison?


Sadusky: Someone's got to go to prison, Ben.


Patrick Gates: I'm the family kook. I have a job, a house, health insurance...


Butcher Lady: If you're not a steak, you don't belong here.
Abigail Chase: I'm just trying to hide from my ex-husband.
Butcher Lady: [sees Shaw] Baldie?
Abigail Chase: Yeah.
Butcher Lady: Honey, stay as long as you like.
[to Shaw]
Butcher Lady: Do you want something?
Shaw: Huh?
Butcher Lady: I said, "Do you want something?"
Shaw: Shut up.
[leaves]
Butcher Lady: [to Abigail] I see why you left him.


Riley Poole: [speaking through headset] How do you look?
Ben Gates: [looking in mirror] Not bad.
Riley Poole: Mazel tov!


Ben Gates: If there's something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.


Ben Gates: [paraphrasing Thomas Edison, about invention of light bulb] I didn't fail, I found 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb; I only need to find one way to make it work.


Riley Poole: [listening to Abigail over Ben's wire connection] Is that that hot girl? How does she look?


Ben Gates: The preservation room. Enjoy. Go ahead. Do you know what the preservation room is for?
Riley Poole: Delicious jams and jellies?


Patrick Gates: [to Abigail] And he dragged you two into this nonsense?
Abigail Chase: Literally.
Riley Poole: I volunteered.


Riley Poole: Will someone please explain to me what these magic numbers are?


Ian Howe: Tell me what I need to know, Ben.
Ben Gates: You need to know... if Shaw can catch.
[throws flare]


Benjamin Franklin Gates: I'm so sorry I dropped you - I had to save the Declaration!
Abigail Chase: No, don't be. I would have done exactly the same to you.
Benjamin Franklin Gates: Really?
Abigail Chase: Yeah.
Riley Poole: I would've dropped you both! Freaks.


Riley Poole: Our evil plan is working.


Riley Poole: Okay, Ben, pay attention. I've brought you to the Library of Congress. Why? Because it's the biggest library in the world. Over 20 million books. And they're all saying the same exact thing: Listen to Riley.


Shaw: Look... this is a waste of time. How could a ship wind up way out here?
Riley Poole: Well, I'm no expert but... it could be that the hydrothermic properties of this region produce hurricane-force ice storms that cause the ocean to freeze and then melt and then refreeze, resulting in a semisolid migrating land mass that would land a ship right around here.
[walks away]


Ben Gates: It's invisible.
Abigail Chase: Oh! Right.
Riley Poole: And that's where we lost the Department of Homeland Security.


Ben Gates: A toast? Yeah. To high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and-Oh! Oh, my personal favorite-and had their entrails cut out and *burned*!
[brief pause]
Ben Gates: So...


Riley Poole: For the record, Ben, I like the house.
Ben Gates: You know, I chose this estate because in 1812 Charles Carroll met...
Riley Poole: Yeah, someone that did something in history and had fun. Great. Wonderful.
[puts on a pair of sunglasses and starts the car]
Riley Poole: Could have had a bigger house.
[drives away]


Shaw: Prison.
Riley Poole: Albuquerque. See I can do it too. Snorkel.
Shaw: That's where the map is. Like he said, "Fifty-five in iron pen." "Iron pen" is a prison.
Ben Gates: Or it could be, since the primary writing medium of the time was iron gall ink, the "pen" is... just a pen. But then why not say a pen? Why... why said "iron pen"?
Shaw: 'Cause it's a prison.


[Gates is stealing the Declaration of Independence, which is rolled up in his jacket]
Gift Store Clerk: Are you trying to steal that?
Ben Gates: [looks around in surprise, spotting a box of Declaration replications for sale] Oh! Umm...?
Gift Store Clerk: It's thirty-five dollars.
Ben Gates: For this?
Gift Store Clerk: Yeah.
Ben Gates: That's a lot.
Gift Store Clerk: Hey, I don't make the prices.
Ben Gates: [searching through his wallet] That's umm... thirty-two... fifty-seven?
Gift Store Clerk: We take Visa.


Ben Gates: You know, Agent Sadusky, something I noticed about fishing? It never worked out so well for the bait.


Sadusky: Agent Dawes, do you have a visual? Do you see Gates in the water?
Agent Dawes: Sir? It's the Hudson. Nothing is visible.
Sadusky: Smart fish.


Ben Gates: Of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others. "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."


[first lines]
Young Ben Gates: Grandpa!
John Adams Gates: You're not supposed to be up here, looking at that.


[last lines]
Abigail Chase: I made something for you.
Ben Gates: You did? What?
Abigail Chase: A map.
Ben Gates: A map? Where does it lead to?
Abigail Chase: You'll figure it out.


Ian Howe: Gentlemen, why is this word capitalized?
Phil: Because it's important?
Ian Howe: Because it's a name.


Patrick Gates: What is that animal skin? How old is it?
Ben Gates: About 200 years.
Patrick Gates: Sure?
Ben Gates: Pretty sure.


Riley Poole: [after seeing a guy walk up to Gates and Chase] Who's the stiff?


Riley Poole: [examining the back of the Declaration] So if it's in invisible ink, how do we see it?
Patrick Gates: Throw it in the oven.
Abigail Chase, Ben Gates: NO!