About this quote

Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding delivers this line in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) during a conversation about parole and getting older inside prison. The line is memorable for its wry, understated delivery and the plainspoken way it frames a convict's expectation about freedom. It sticks in the mind because a small, comic image — a long white beard and marbles rolling upstairs — captures a large, weary idea about time and being judged fit to leave.