Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding Quotes & Sayings

“I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him.”

“There's a harsh truth to face: I'm not going to make it on the outside.”

“They send you here for life; that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.”

“I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made-up word.”

“There must be a con like me in every prison in America. I'm the guy who can get it for you.”

“But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left.”

“You're gonna fit right in. Everybody in here's innocent. Didn't you know that?”

“I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it.”

“When they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty now that they're gone.”

“If they ever catch on, though, he'll wind up in here wearing a number himself.”

“I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.”

“Yeah, one day when I got a long, white beard and two or three marbles rolling around upstairs, they'll let me out.”

“You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify.”

“I like to think the last thing that went through his head, other than that bullet, was how the hell Andy Dufresne ever got the best of him.”

“Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes, really.”

“It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

“Well, we ought to file that under "Educational" too. Oughtn't we?”

“I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty.”

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't wanna know.”

“Terrible thing to live in fear.”

“I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope!”

“Only guilty man in Shawshank.”

“Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

“It's got no use on the inside. You'd better get used to that idea.”