Directed by Jay Russell. Screenplay by Jeffrey Lieber and James V. Hart. Based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt.

Narrator

• Time is like a wheel. Turning and turning - never stopping. And the woods are the center; the hub of the wheel. It began the first week of summer, a strange and breathless time when accident, or fate, bring lives together. When people are led to do things, they've never done before. On this summer's day, not so very long ago, the wheel set lives in motion in mysterious ways. It set Mae Tuck out in her wagon for the village of Tree Gap to meet her two sons as she did once every ten years.

• Winnie Foster was to be sent 500 miles away to be educated, but what her parents didn't understand was that she only wanted to step outside her fence... so she did. What in these quiet woods should be so forbidden? Winnie had always sensed a mystery waiting for her there.

• For some time passes slowly, an hour can seem an eternity. For others, there's never enough. For Jesse Tuck, it didn't exist.

• Winnie Foster was beginning to lose track of time. Had she been there a day? A week? A month? It seemed to Winnie that the Tucks lived in a way the rest of the world had forgotten. They where never in a hurry and did things the slow way. For the first time Winnie felt free to explore, to ask questions, to play.

• Tuck said it to Winnie the summer she turned 15: Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live. And she did.

Jesse Tuck

• I'm going to see the whole world, every speck of it. Heck, I may even find some new continents or something!

• Spend forever with me, Winnie?

• I'm gonna be 17 until the end of the world!

• How am I supposed to take you home when I can't make my feet move from this spot? If I could die tomorrow I would, just so I could spend one more night with you.

• Winnie Foster, I will love you, until the day I die.

• Winnie Foster, Drink this water when your 17 and we'll get married and live together forever!

• I'm glad its okay with you!

Angus Tuck

• What we Tucks have, you can't call it living. We just... are... like rocks, stuck at the side of the stream.

• If there's one thing I've learned about people, many will do anything — anything — not to die. And they'll do anything to keep from living their life.

• We aren't living the wheel of life! We are stuck in time it feels like

Miles

• Immortality isn't everything the preachers crack it up to be.

• The water tasted like heaven. It floated over your tongue like a cloud.

• Tell Jesse were going to fix that mouth of his.

• Sex was amazzing

Others

• Mae Tuck: [to Miles] You're as cozy as barbed wire.

• Mrs. Foster: I don't know everyone nor do I want to.

Dialogue

Mrs. Foster: [calling from window] Winnifred!

Winnie: [turns on side and starts talking to a toad] I need a new name. One that's not all worn out from being called so much.

Jesse: You shouldn't be in these parts of the woods. It's best you turn around and go home. [pause] Well, go on now, get!

Winnie: Excuse me, but I own these woods and I'll go on and get when I want to.

Mrs. Foster: [while strapping Winnie into corset] You must suffer to be beautiful, so say the French.

Winnie: Well the French are crazy.

Young Pastor: You speak blasphemy, sir.

Yellow Dude: Fluently.

Winnie: I can't swim.

Jesse: You're joshing me!

Winnie: I wish I were.

Jesse: So, you're afraid you'll drown, right? Swallow too much water, sink to the bottom, and die!

Winnie: Thank you for putting it so vividly, and yes, considering I'd sink like a rock, drowning is a fair concern!

Jesse: Well, I guess I'm just gonna have to enjoy this all by myself.

Jesse: Hey, Winnie Foster. You asleep?

Winnie: [groaning] Not anymore.

Jesse: Good. How would you like to see, the Eiffel Tower?

Winnie: What? Someday.

Jesse: No, right now, this instant. While the day is still ours.

Jesse: There it is. [Pointing to a mountain]

Winnie: This is the Eiffel Tower?

Jesse: The one in Paris - it's pretty tall. Mine is two feet higher.

Winnie: [They start to climb the mountain] Have you really seen the real one in Paris?

Jesse: Yes I have. And climbed 1,652 stairs to the top. Much easier than this. You doin' all right?

Winnie: I think so.

Jesse: You're doin' great. Here. [Gives her a helping hand]

Winnie: If I went to the Eiffel Tower I would take one of those elevators.

Jesse: Not with me! You'd take of your shoes and walk up every single, solitary step.

Winnie: How old are you?

Jesse: You really wanna know?

Winnie: Yes.

Jesse: 104

Winnie: I'm serious.

Jesse: So am I!

[Thinks about it]

Jesse: Let's just call it 17.

Winnie: I'd be much obliged. But I want a drink first.

Jesse: No. You can't drink that water. It's poisoned.

Winnie: I saw you drink some.

Jesse: Well, now I'm feeling sick.

Winnie: You hardly look ill. I'm dry as dust.

Mrs. Foster: [at her mother's funeral] Every time I look at you, you're different. I'm losing you, too.

Winnie: I'm right here.

Mrs. Foster: Forgive me, Winnie. I just wanted to keep you my little girl forever.

Mr. Foster: Just... what is your game, sir?

Yellow Dude: What is my game? You detect in me a playful mood?

Winnie: Jesse, don't let go!

Jesse: It's ok, it's ok. There's no chance of that, Winnie Foster. I'll never let you go.

Winnie: I don't wanna die; is that wrong?

Angus Tuck: No. No human does. But it's a part of being human.

Taglines

• A secret is about to be discovered. An adventure is about to begin.

• If you could choose to live forever, would you?

• Tuck's family drinks water from a magical spring, which allows them to live for eternity.

• The spring holds the secret, the secret of life and death