Joe Versus the Volcano Quotations

Joe Versus the Volcano is a 1990 film about a hypochondriac who learns that he is dying and accepts an offer to throw himself in a volcano at a tropical island so that an industrialist can get a mining concession from the superstitious natives. Along the way, he finds love and learns to truly live.

Directed and written by John Patrick Shanley.

An Average Joe. An Adventurous Comedy. taglines

Patricia Graynamore

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.

Frank Waturi

[to Joe] Do you think I feel good? Nobody feels good. After childhood, it's a fact of life. I feel rotten. So what? I don't let it bother me. I don't let it interfere with my job.

Samuel Harvey Graynamore

[to Joe] Well, does it take more guts to twice traverse a staircase in a burning building, or to make a one-time leap into a volcano? Damned if I know, Kimosabe. All I know is when you're making those kind of calls, you're up in the high country.

Dialogue

Joe: You look terrible, Mr. Waturi. You look like a bag of shit stuffed in a cheap suit. Not that anyone could look good under these zombie lights. I, I, I, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeball. Suck, suck, suck, SUCK... [makes a sucking noise] For 300 bucks a week, that's the news. For 300 bucks a week, I've lived in this sink, this used rubber.

Mr. Waturi: You watch it, mister! There's a woman here!

Joe: Don't you think I know that, Frank? Don't you think I am aware there is a woman here? I can smell her, like, like a flower. I can taste her, like sugar on my tongue. When I'm 20 feet away I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair. Not that I've done anything about it. I've gone all day, every day, not doing, not saying, not taking the chance for 300 bucks a week, and Frank, the coffee stinks, it's like arsenic. The lights give me a headache. If the lights don't give you a headache, you must be dead; let's arrange the funeral.

Mr. Waturi: You better get outta here right now! I'm telling you!

Joe: You're telling me nothing. And why, I ask myself, why have I put up with you? I can't imagine, but now I know. Fear. Yellow freakin' fear. I've been too chicken shit afraid to live my life so I sold it to you for 300 freakin' dollars a week! You're lucky I don't kill you! You're lucky I don't rip your freakin' throat out! But I'm not going to! And maybe you're not so lucky at that. 'Cause I'm gonna leave you here, Mr. Wahoo Waturi, and what could be worse than that?

Marshall: They just pay me to drive the limo, sir. I'm not here to tell you who you are.

Joe: I didn't ask you to tell me who I am.

Marshall: You were hinting around about clothes. That happens to be a very important topic to me, sir. Clothes, Mr...

Joe: Banks.

Marshall: Banks. Clothes make the man. I believe that. You say to me you want to go shopping, you want to buy clothes, but you don't know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I'm going to fill in the blank. That to me is like asking me who you are, and I don't know who you are. I don't want to know. It's taken me my whole life to find out who I am, and I'm tired now. You hear what I'm saying?

Patricia: Wait, stop right there! I love you! I've fallen in love with you. I've never loved anybody. I don't know how it happened. I never even slept with you or anything. And now you're gonna kill yourself.

Joe: [to the Chief] Can you give us a minute?

[Chief nods]

Joe: You love me?

Patricia: Yes, I love you. I can feel my heart...I feel like I'm going crazy. You can't just die and leave me alone on this stinking earth without you.

Joe: I've gotta do it.

Patricia: Why? Why? The Chief doesn't even want you to do it. Do you, Chief?

Joe: 'Cause I've wasted my entire life and I'm gonna die. Now I have a chance to die like a man, and I'm gonna take it. I've gotta take it.

Patricia: I love you!

Joe: I love you, too! I've never been in love with anybody before, either. It's great. I'm glad. But the timing stinks. [kisses her on the cheek] I've gotta go.

Patricia: [as they are about to jump in the volcano] Nobody knows anything, Joe. We'll take this leap, and we'll see. We'll jump, and we'll see. That's life, right?

Joe: I saw the moon when we were out there in the ocean, shining down on everything. I've been miserable so long, years of my life wasted, afraid. It's been a long time coming here to meet you - a long time, on a crooked road. Did I ever tell you that the first time I saw you, it felt like I'd met you before?

Patricia: You're not going anywhere without me.

[they kiss]

Patricia: I wonder where we'll end up?

Joe: Away from the things of man, my love. Away from the things of man.

Cast

Tom Hanks - Joe Banks
Meg Ryan - DeDe/Angelica Graynamore/Patricia Graynamore
Lloyd Bridges - Samuel Harvey Graynamore
Robert Stack - Kenneth Hindmick/Dr. Ellison
Abe Vigoda - Waponi Chief
Dan Hedaya - Mr. Frank Waturi
Barry McGovern - Luggage Salesman
Amanda Plummer - Dagmar
Ossie Davis - Marshall