Liam Neeson credited as playing...
Oskar Schindler
- Oskar Schindler: Power - is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.
- Amon Goeth: You think that's power?
- Oskar Schindler: That's what the Emperor said. A man stole something, he's brought in before the Emperor, he throws himself down on the ground. He begs for mercy, he knows he's going to die. And the Emperor - pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go.
- Amon Goeth: I think you are drunk.
- Oskar Schindler: That's power, Amon. That - is power.
- Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more.
- Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
- Oskar Schindler: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just...
- Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of what you did.
- Oskar Schindler: I didn't do enough!
- Itzhak Stern: You did so much.
- [Schindler looks at his car]
- Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people.
- [removing Nazi pin from lapel]
- Oskar Schindler: This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this.
- [sobbing]
- Oskar Schindler: I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!
- [Addressing his workers at the end of the war in 1945]
- Oskar Schindler: The unconditional surrender of Germany has just been announced. At midnight tonight, the war is over. Tomorrow you'll begin the process of looking for survivors of your families. In most cases... you won't find them. After six long years of murder, victims are being mourned throughout the world. We've survived. Many of you have come up to me and thanked me. Thank yourselves. Thank your fearless Stern, and others among you who worried about you and faced death at every moment. I am a member of the Nazi Party. I'm a munitions manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labor. I am... a criminal. At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted. I shall remain with you until five minutes after midnight, after which time - and I hope you'll forgive me - I have to flee.
- [He addresses the factory's SS guards]
- Oskar Schindler: I know you have received orders from our commandant, which he has received from his superiors, to dispose of the population of this camp. Now would be the time to do it. Here they are; they're all here. This is your opportunity. Or, you could leave, and return to your families as men instead of murderers.
- [the guards gradually exit; he addresses the workers again]
- Oskar Schindler: In memory of the countless victims among your people, I ask us to observe three minutes of silence.
- Oskar Schindler: Stern, if this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I'll be very unhappy.
- Oskar Schindler: In every business I tried, I can see now, it wasn't me that failed. Something was missing. Even if I'd known what it was, there's nothing I could have done about it because you can't create this thing. And it makes all the difference in the world between success and failure.
- Emilie Schindler: Luck?
- Oskar Schindler: [Schindler kisses his wife's hand and smiles] War.
- Oskar Schindler: How are you doing, Rabbi?
- Rabbi Menasha Lewartow: Good, Herr Direktor.
- Oskar Schindler: The sun is going down.
- Rabbi Menasha Lewartow: Yes it is.
- Oskar Schindler: What day is it? Friday? It is Friday, isn't it?
- Rabbi Menasha Lewartow: Is it?
- Oskar Schindler: What's the matter with you? You should be preparing for the Sabbath, shouldn't you. I've got some wine in my office. Come.
- [to Stern, upon closing the factory deal]
- Oskar Schindler: My father was fond of saying you need three things in life - a good doctor, a forgiving priest, and a clever accountant. The first two, I've never had much use for.
- Helen Hirsch: My first day here, he beat me because I threw out the bones from dinner. He came down at midnight and asked for them. And I asked him, I don't know how, I could never ask him now, I said, "Why are you beating me?" He said, "The reason I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you."
- Oskar Schindler: I know your sufferings, Helen.
- Helen Hirsch: It doesn't matter. I have accepted them.
- Oskar Schindler: Accepted them?
- Helen Hirsch: One day, he will shoot me.
- Oskar Schindler: No, no, no, no, no. He won't shoot you.
- Helen Hirsch: I know. I see things. We were on the roof on Monday, young Lisiek and I and we saw the Herr Kommandant come out of the front door and down the steps by the patio right there below us and there on the steps he drew his gun and he shot a woman who was passing by. A woman with a bundle, through the throat, just shot her. Just a woman on her way somewhere, you know, she was no fatter or thinner or slower or faster than anyone else and I couldn't guess what - had she done. The more you see of the Herr Kommandant the more you see there are no set rules that you can live by. You can't say to yourself, "If I follow these rules, I will be safe."
- Oskar Schindler: He won't shoot you because he enjoys you too much. He enjoys you so much he won't even let you wear the star. He doesn't want anyone to know it's a Jew he's enjoying. He shot the woman from the steps because she meant *nothing* to him. She was just one of a series neither offending him or pleasing him.
- [Stern brings a report to Schindler at lunchtime]
- Oskar Schindler: I could try to read this or I could eat my lunch while it's still hot. We're doing well?
- Itzhak Stern: Yes.
- Oskar Schindler: Better this month than last?
- Itzhak Stern: Yes.
- Oskar Schindler: Any reason to think next month will be worse?
- Itzhak Stern: The war could end.
- Amon Goeth: You want these people?
- Oskar Schindler: These people. My people. I want my people.
- Amon Goeth: Who are you? Moses?
- Itzhak Stern: By law I have to tell you, sir, I'm a Jew.
- Oskar Schindler: Well, I'm a German, so there we are.
- Oskar Schindler: What are you doing? These are mine. These are my workers. They should be on my train. They're skilled munitions workers. They're essential. Essential girls!
- [shows the guard Danka Dresner's hand]
- Oskar Schindler: Their fingers polish the inside of shell metal casings. How else am I to polish the inside of a 45 millimeter shell casing? You tell me. You tell me!
- S.S. Guard: [to the girls he has been herding away from their parents] Back on the train!
- [Goeth admires Schindler's his suit]
- Amon Goeth: It has a nice sheen to it. What is it, silk?
- Oskar Schindler: Of course! I'd say I'd get you one but the man who made it's probably dead.
- Emilie Schindler: I will only stay if you promise me, no doorman or maitre d will ever mistake anyone but me for Mrs. Oscar Schindler.
- Emilie Schindler: [Next shot she is going away on a train] Good-bye!
- Oskar Schindler: Good-bye!
- Oskar Schindler: Look, all you have to do is tell me what it's worth to you. What's a person worth to you?
- Amon Goeth: No, no, no, no. What's one worth to you!
- Oskar Schindler: [Schindler and Stern are writing the list] How many?
- Itzhak Stern: 400, 450.
- Oskar Schindler: More. More.
- Amon Goeth: Oskar, there's a clerical error here at the bottom of the last page.
- Oskar Schindler: No, there's one more name I want to put there. I'll never find a maid as well trained as her at Brinnlitz. They are all country girls.
- Amon Goeth: [referring to Helen] No. No.
- Oskar Schindler: One hand of 21. If you win, I pay you 7400 Reichmarks. Hit a natural and I make it 14800. If I win, the girl goes on my list.
- Amon Goeth: I can't wager Helen in a card game.
- Oskar Schindler: Why not?
- Amon Goeth: Wouldn't be right.
- Oskar Schindler: She's going to Auschwitz on Number Two anyway. What difference does it make?
- Amon Goeth: She's not going to Auschwitz. I'd never do that to her. No, I want her to come back to Vienna with me. I want her to come to work for me there. I want to grow old with her.
- Oskar Schindler: Are you mad? Amon, you can't take her to Vienna with you.
- Amon Goeth: No, of course I can't. That's what I'd like to do. What I can do, if I'm any sort of a man, is the next most merciful thing. I should take her into the woods and shoot her painlessly in the back of the head. What was it you said for a natural 21? Was it 14800?
- Itzhak Stern: How many cigarettes have you smoked tonight?
- Oskar Schindler: Too many.
- Itzhak Stern: For every one you smoke, I smoke half.
- Itzhak Stern: I'm sorry, Herr Direktor, you're running very late. Here, this is for the Obersturmbahnführer and this is for his niece, it's her birthday, Greta. Greta as in Garbo.
- Oskar Schindler: By the way, don't *ever* do that to me again. Didn't you notice that man only had one arm?
- Itzhak Stern: Did he.
- Oskar Schindler: What's his use?
- [gets into his car]
- Itzhak Stern: Very useful.
- Oskar Schindler: [shouts from car window] How?
- Itzhak Stern: [shouts back] Very useful! Success!
- Oskar Schindler: I've been speaking to Goeth.
- Itzhak Stern: I know the destination. These are the evacuation orders, I'm to help arrange the shipments, put myself on the last train.
- Oskar Schindler: That's not what I was going to say. I made Goeth promise to put in a good word for you. Nothing bad is going to happen to you there, you'll receive special treatment.
- Itzhak Stern: The directives coming in from Berlin talk about "special treatment" more and more often. I'd like to think that's not what you mean.
- Oskar Schindler: Preferential treatment. All right? Do we have to create a new language?
- Itzhak Stern: I think so.