What we've got here is failure to communicate.
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Frank Pierson
Frank Romer Pierson (May 12, 1925 – July 22, 2012) was an American screenwriter and film director. 2Life and career Pierson was born in Chappaqua, New York, the son of Louise (née Randall), a writer, and Harold C. Pierson. Pierson's family was the subject of his mother's 1943 autobiography Roughly Speaking and a 1945 movie of the same name, starring Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson as his parents. Pierson served in the military during World War II, then graduated from Harvard. He worked as a correspondent for Time and Life magazines before selling his first script to Alcoa-Goodyear Theater. He got his break in Hollywood in 1958 as script editor for Have Gun – Will Travel and moved on to write for the television series Naked City, Route 66 and others. He wrote or co-wrote several successful films, including Cat Ballou and Cool Hand Luke, which were both nominated for Academy Awards. He wrote Dog Day Afternoon, which won Pierson the Academy Award. He directed and contributed to the screenplay of the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born; and the in-fighting between himself, Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson and producer (and at the time boyfriend of Streisand) Jon Peters on the film led him to write the article "My Battles with Barbra and Jon" for The Village Voice.Pierson directed several films produced for television, including Dirty Pictures, Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy, and Somebody Has To Shoot the Picture. His direction on Conspiracy won a Directors' Guild Award for Best Television Movie, and his second Peabody and BAFTA Awar
Now, I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean sum-bitch.
Boss: Sorry, Luke. I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that. Luke: Nah—calling it your job don't make it right, Boss.
The Girl: [Washing her car with the radio on loud to get the prisoners’ attention] Dragline: Hey, Lord... whatever I done, don't strike me blind for another couple of minutes.
What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
That's my darling Luke. He grins like a baby but bites like a gator.
[Speaking to her son Luke] You know, sometimes, I wished people was like dogs, Luke. Comes a time, a day like, when the bitch just don't recognize the pups no more, so she don't have no hopes nor love to give her pain. She just don't give a damn.
You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice you got yourself two sets. You ain't gonna need no third set, 'cause you gonna get your mind right.
Boss Paul: That ditch is Boss Kean's ditch. And I told him that dirt in it's your dirt. What's your dirt doin' in his ditch? Luke: I don't know, Boss. Boss Paul: You better get in there and get it out, boy.
[Alone in a church, talking to God, as police lights begin flashing] Is that your answer, old man? Well, I guess you're a hard case, too.
Captain: You gonna get used to wearin' them chains after a while, Luke. Don't you never stop listenin' to them clinking. 'Cause they gonna remind you of what I been saying. For your own good. Luke: Wish you'd stop being so good to me, Captain.
Yeah, well...sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Dragline: Why you got to go and say fifty eggs for? Why not thirty-five or thirty-nine? Luke: I thought it was a nice round number.
Oh come on. Stop beatin' it. Get out there yourself. Stop feedin' off me. Get out of here. I can't breathe. Give me some air.
[talking to Sal, waiting for his wife to answer the phone] You know I can call anybody, they'd put it on the phone? The Pope, an astronaut, the wisest of the wise...Who do I have to call?
Bank robbing is a federal offense. You got me on kidnapping, armed robbery. You're gonna bury me, man!
I'm a Catholic, I don't want to hurt anybody.
I mean, how do they expect you to get uncrazy if you're asleep all the time?
I couldn't explain why I did the things I did. So I went to this psychiatrist who explained to me I was a woman in a man's body. So Sonny right away wanted to get me money for a sex change operation: but where was he to get that? 2,500 dollars! My God, he's in hock up to his ears already.
Sylvia: Why don't you smoke? Sal: I don't want the cancer.