Renaissance Man Quotes

Soldiers: [chanting] Hamlet's mother, she's the queen / Buys it in the final scene / Drinks a glass of funky wine / Now she's Satan's Valentine.


[Talking about Shakespeare to the class]
Bill Rago: He wrote plays. Plays...? You know, like TV without the box.


Private Miranda Myers: I'd rather be a Double D than a swinger from the ugly tree, ya fat pig.


Bill Rago: GO NAVY.


Bill Rago: Hi. I'm Bill Rago. I've never taught before and you've never thought before. So good luck to all of us.


[Bill writes "oxymoron" on the board]
Pvt. Jamaal Montgomery: You can't say that. That is a diss. I ain't no ox moron.
Bill Rago: No, no, no not ox moron, schmuck; oxymoron.


Bill Rago: All I know is, the choices you make dictate the life you lead. "To thine own self be true."


[another recruit is trying to bang a rhythm on his desk]
Private Miranda Myers: Give him time, give him time. He's a white boy.


Melvin: I ain't never gonna hit my kids.


[Melvin is reading a passage from HAMLET in a monotone voice]
Bill Rago: Melvin, read the rest of it when you come out of the coma.


[reading Hamlet]
Pvt. Jamaal Mongomerey: Bill, are you gonna translate this?
Bill Rago: Why? It's in English.


Soldier 1: You seen my green socks?
Soldier 2: We all got green socks.


[reading about why they joined the Army]
Pvt. Tommy Lee Haywood: There's these woods behind our trailer park. This old guy lives in the woods there. Everybody in town swore he was crazy. He showed me how to hunt, and how to be real quiet, and how to listen. He said he had seen everythin' in the world he wanted to see, and he ain't never wanted to leave those woods. Well, me and my daddy got laid off at the paper mill, and whilst I spent about five months watchin' TV with my brothers, I kept thinkin' of what the old man said. Finally, I decided that I did want to see more of the world, and what was behind that trailer park. And that's why I joined up.
Private Miranda Myers: I liked livin' with my aunt, Mavis, in Chicago the best. But last summer, my mother, Ruthie, came back and we drove to Atlanta. She said, "We don't have to stay long," but then she met a man, and they take off. I waited around for a while, waitin' for her to come back, but everybody keep sayin', "Just go on home." I don't know where that is. So I take the bus to Cleaveland and spend two days starin' at the poster behind the driver sayin', "Be all you can be." So I think about that for a week, and think I gotta be somewhere, so here I am.
Pvt. Jamaal Mongomerey: In my crib, there ain't never been a time where we eat, sleep, or nothin'. Y'know, everybody just run around crazy. Half the time, I don't even know who were are. I must be the only person in the world who joined the army so he'd know what time he'd eat.
Pvt. Roosevelt Nathaniel Hobbs: I wanted to learn a new trade.


Bill Rago: [about reading their essay] All right, who wants to start?
[no reply]
Bill Rago: Nobody?
[snickers]
Bill Rago: I thought this was the volunteer army...


Bill Rago: Write... why you're here.
Pvt. Tommy Lee Haywood: This is where they told us to be.
Bill Rago: No, no. Write about the magical twist of fate that prompted you to gravitate towards this institute of imbeciles.
Pvt. Jamaal Mongomerey: [confused] What?
Bill Rago: [very nonchalantly] Write why you joined the Army.


Bill Rago: Double D?
Soldiers: Yeah, the whole fort calls us Double Ds. Dumb as dog shit.