The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is not only one of the best Spaghetti Westerns ever made but it also ranks highly in many “Greatest Movies Of All Time” lists. Director Sergio Leonne created an everlasting masterpiece in this final installment of the Dollars Trilogy. A perfectionist, he was one of the few filmmakers who believed in bleeding for art. Stanley Kubrick appeared to share similar beliefs. Apart from its catchy theme song, the film stands out for its quotes. The characters seem too intelligent to be mere weather-beaten gunslingers. Wrong career choice perhaps? Maybe education was boring for them.
Credit has to be given to the screenplay team of Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati, and Furio Scapelli. The starring duo of Clint Eastwood (Blondie aka The Good) and Eli Wallach (Tuco aka The Ugly) also outdid themselves. The juiciest quotes are from conversations between these two. Even though Lee Van Cleef (Angel Eyes aka The Bad) also shines, the film is more of the ‘Adventures of Tuco and Blondie.’ We’ve updated this list from an original 10 quotes to a total of 15, all of which sum up this iconic classic perfectly.
Updated on June 24th, 2020 by Derek Draven: As mentioned in our updated intro, we’ve added 5 more memorable quotes from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, for a total of 15. These quotes have stood the test of time, and have helped make the film such a quotable classic.
15 “One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six. Six. Perfect number.”
Blondie wasn’t afraid to intimidate his opponents with a little arrogant, chest-puffing bravado, but he also did it with style. When facing down Angel Eyes and his men, Blondie begins counting them out, before uttering this quote.
When Angel Eyes asks him why he doesn’t think three is the perfect number, Blondie replies “Mmmm, yeah, but I’ve got six more bullets in my gun.” Classic.
14 “You Never Had A Rope Around Your Neck. Well, I’m Going To Tell You Something. When That Rope Starts To Pull Tight, You Can Feel The Devil Bite Your Ass!”
One can only wonder if there’s some truth to this statement, which is eerily similar to the phrase “There are no Atheists in foxholes.” Tuco mutters this quote to describe what it feels like right before a hanging.
In many respects, the psychological impact of knowing you’re moments away from dying such an unpleasant death would be enough to make anybody sit up and take notice. Perhaps this statement is truer than people think.
13 “Whoever Has The Most Liquor To Get The Soldiers Drunk And Send Them To Be Slaughtered – He’s The Winner.”
Brutal honesty seems to be the order of the day for this Union Captain, who utters this particular quote in reference to the term “liquid courage.” The conversation goes on to say that both sides seem to be partaking of the spirits in order to must up a bit of combat bravado.
It’s a shame that the suggestion that booze plays a role in increasing troop morale even needs to come up, but desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.
12 “I’ll Tell You One Thing, Blondie. If I Knew That My Last Hour Had Come, I Swear, In My Place… In Your Place I Would Do The Same Thing. I Would Tell About The Gold. Yes, Yes, I Would.”
Tuco wasn’t above using any tactic to get what he wanted, including faking sympathy and compassion. In an attempt to get a dehydrated Blondie to reveal the location of the grave containing a cache of gold, he tried using a mixture of sympathy and logic in order to sway him.
Unfortunately, Tuco wasn’t able to hide how obvious his attempt was and gave himself away to Blondie (and the audience) with an eyeroll-inducing “if I were in your place” tactic.
11 “Every gun makes its own tune.”
One of the most famous Clint Eastwood quotes comes courtesy of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, when Blondie utters these words which sum up the world of guns to a T. This quote is in direct reference to the fact that no two guns are identical, or alike, despite their model. Each has their own history and story to tell.
Vintage gun collectors know this best, as weapons made over a hundred years ago must have had a tale or two to tell. Who owned these particular guns? Were they used to defend themselves in the lawless West, or were they family heirlooms passed down from father to son? Some tales may never be told.
10 “Hey, Amigo! You Know You Have a Face Beautiful Enough To Be Worth Two Thousand Dollars?”
When a couple of bounty hunters locate Tuco, one of them makes fun of his ugly face. Tuco would have been clearly named the “Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine if the honor existed in the 1860s. That’s because he could have held a gun to the Editor’s head. Choose amigo! My ugly face on the cover or bullet in your jaw.
There is a lot that the bounty hunters could do with $2000. Maybe buy handkerchiefs to wipe the desert dust off their faces? Amidst the excitement, Blondie appears, ready to spoil the party. He casually lets them know that he won’t let them collect the bounty. The next minute, he guns them down.
9 “When You Have To Shoot, Shoot. Don’t Talk.”
Actions are clearly superior to words. A one-armed man that Tuco nearly killed eight months earlier learns this the hard way. Seeking revenge, he tracks Tuco and finds him relaxing in a bathtub. He then boasts that he has learned to shoot with one arm. Good for you sir! So, does he exercise his new single-handed skills? No! He goes on to give those long graduation-like speeches that people with guns in movies like to give those without guns.
He mistakenly thinks Tuco is helpless. However, he isn’t aware that Tuco is holding a gun under the water. Before the man can continue talking, Tuco pumps a few bullets into him. Tuco then jokes that the man should have just shot him instead of talking too much.
8 “I Almost Forgot… He Gave Me 1000 Dollars. I Think His Idea Was That I Kill You.”
What happens when you hire a hitman to kill someone then your target pays the hitman more money to kill you? Well, if the hitman is Angel Eyes, he kills both of you. Some would call that a weird way of doing business. Others would deem it fair.
In one of the most interesting scenes in the movie, Angel Eyes reports to Baker, an old man who paid him $500 to murder another man. Unfortunately for Baker, Angel Eyes was given $1000 by the man he killed. He goes on to state that when he is paid, he always gets the job done. So he covers Baker’s head with a pillow and shoots him.
7 “God’s Not On Our Side Because He Hates Idiots, Also.”
According to Blondie, Jehovah likes bright humans, not the dumb ones. We’d have to dig through pages of the bible to find out if this is really the case. Blondie considers Tuco to be beneath him in IQ rankings. He’d rather be on his own but circumstances sometimes force him to work with the bandit.
While searching for the hidden gold, Tuco tells Blondie that they will be successful in their endeavor because God is on their side. However, Blondie shuts him down by stating that God doesn’t like idiots. He is referring to Tuco as the idiot because clearly, Blondie considers himself the King Solomon of the American Civil War era.
6 “People With Ropes Around Their Necks Don’t Always Hang.”
Angel Eyes says this in reference to the fact that bandits that have been sentenced to hang don’t usually end up hanging. They are always saved by bounty hunters so that the reward money can be increased. It really isn’t a bad way to make money.
Angel Eyes is aware of the merry-go-round money-making scheme that Blondie and Tuco are engaged in. Whenever Tuco gets captured, Blondie helps him escape. As a result, the bounty is increased. Blondie then turns Tuco in, collects the money and frees him again.
5 “If You Work For a Living, Why Do You Kill Yourself Working?”
Tuco is pretty much talking to himself in a scene where he is plucking off a dead chicken’s feathers. He wonders why anyone would work so hard and put their own lives in danger yet they are working to live.
There’s food for thought here. Is he right? Sure. You can decide not to kill yourself working but in the process, you might just kill your bank account. So, let’s just assume that Tuco was coming up with an excuse for laziness. After all, his key source of income is his own reward money.
4 “You See In This World There’s Two Kinds Of People, My Friend – Those With Loaded Guns, And Those Who Dig. You Dig.”
Blondie said this to Tuco after the two had finally located the Confederate gold at the cemetery. Tuco mistakenly thought that they’d be a division of labor between them but he was mistaken.
Blondie quickly turns him into a slave. Even though Tuco doesn’t like being ordered around by anyone, he reluctantly agrees. After all, he is not in the MCU. He knows that bullets don’t bounce off his body.
3 “The Next Town Is 70 Miles… If You Save Your Breath, I Feel a Man Like You Could Manage It.”
After having enough of Tuco’s complaints, Blondie cuts ties with him, takes the bounty that they are supposed to share before riding away on his horse. He tells Tuco to save his breath and try walking 70 miles. So much for being ‘The Good.’
Luckily, Tuco manages to get to the nearest town and begins plotting revenge on Blondie. He manages to capture Blondie too but his plan to leave him to die in the desert as well backfires after he discovers that Blondie has been told the location of the Confederate gold.
2 “You May Run The Risks, My Friend, But I Do The Cutting. If We Cut Down My Percentage… Who knows? It Might Just interfere With My Aim.”
Tuco has become greedy. Or is he ambitious? Maybe he just knows his worth. He demands the bigger cut of the bounty because he is the one who normally gets captured and placed on the hangman’s noise. He feels that Blondie’s job of shooting the rope is an easy one.
Tuco also feels that if he faces a greater risk because if Blondie misses, he will die. As expected Blondie wants to hear none of it. He cheekily makes it clear that if his cut is reduced, his aim might be affected as well. A classic case of “if the money isn’t right, I won’t do the job well “
1 “If You Miss You Better Miss Very Well. Whoever Double-Crosses Me And Leaves Me Alive Understands Nothing About Tuco. Nothing!”
The brilliant thing about Tuco is that he always had very witty responses to everything he was told. For example, After Blondie suggests that he might intentionally miss his shot at the noose, Tuco issues a threat of his own.
He tells Blondie to make sure he’s dead or else he’ll exert revenge. Interestingly, Blondie still manages to double-cross Tuco at the end of the movie by leaving him with a noose around his neck and no way to access his cut of the Confederate gold. For a man called ‘The Good’, he really did some terrible yet laughable things to Tuco.