14 of the Best Quotes from Nearly Silent TV and Movie Characters
Give these writers and directors credit — they’ve been able to express a wide range of emotions with little more than beeps, dings and proper nouns.
Wile E. Coyote: Anatomy of a Roadrunner
The otherwise mute canine does deliver a poignant monologue in the 1965 short Zip Zip Hooray! that explains his obsession with the roadrunner. He walks the viewer through a detailed chart of the various cuts of roadrunner meat: “Now observe this chart. This exquisite delicacy is completely without waste. Each cut and each feather comes in a dazzling array of flavours. Banana, asparagus, papaya, licorice, vanilla, sponge cake…”
Groot Knew Plural Pronouns This Whole Time
Groot let his friends and colleagues believe his vocabulary was limited to three words, but when it really mattered, he whipped out two bonus words:
Rocket Raccoon: No, Groot! You can’t! You’ll die! Why are you doing this? Why?
(Groot wipes away Rocket’s tears)
Groot: We are Groot.
In a 2022 comic book, Marvel repurposed the phrase to be Groot’s battle cry, indicating he’s ready to absorb his pals and become a Megazord-sized behemoth and fight Doctor Doom.
Sauron Bombs at Stand-Up
In 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie, Lego Joker unleashes some of dork fiction’s most evil beings upon Gotham city, including the usually silent-but-deadly Sauron:
The Joker: He’s a 9,000-year-old incarnation of evil, with an eye for jewelry. Give it up for Sauron!
Sauron: Good afternoon, Gotham City.
(Sauron blasts a beam of fire at the city)
Annyong Bluth: ‘Go Fatty’
Annyong’s vocabulary in Arrested Development is reduced to that of a Pokemon, since the Bluth family mistakes the Korean phrase for “hello” and “goodbye” for his name. But he does pick up a little English, and employs it to rile up his family/captors:
Buster: Why should I have to sit and cheer Annyong? Annyong never cheers me.
Annyong: Go Fatty.
(Buster lunges at him, and they fight)
Lucille: Stop it. He’s your little brother.
Buster: No he isn’t. I came out of you, he didn’t.
Harpo Marx: ‘Honk Honk’
Harpo didn’t speak for nearly his entire stage and film career, but he did manage to communicate via ham-fisted prop-assisted pun. His most impressive “dialogue” is probably the phone conversation he was able to have using nothing but a few horns stuck in his pants.
R2-D2: ‘Beebda Tweet Bwoop Woobeep Bleep Bleep Wuuruu’
It’s been canon that R2-D2 uses foul language since A New Hope, when C-3PO responds to some beeps and boops with “You watch your language!” But the 2015 comic book Star Wars #13 spells it out phonetically, causing fellow droid Triple-Zero to respond, “My, what language. He certainly is a foul-mouthed little astromech.”
Hector Salamanca Goes Full R2-D2
Better Call Saul reveals Salamanca’s final words before having the stroke that would leave him wheelchair bound and only able to communicate via bell: “It is! It is personal!” But his best quote comes with the help of an aide, when he slowly dings out “S-U-C-K M-Y-” and “F-U-C-” after calling a meeting with Hank Schrader.
Hodor’s Big Reveal
Season Six of Game of Thrones reveals why everyone’s favorite sentient wheelchair can only say “Hodor”, and why everyone calls him that even though they all know his name is actually Wylis. Bran does some extracurricular warging into Wylis’ head as a boy, giving him a glimpse of his own brutal, heroic death and implanting his singular canonical purpose: to “hold the door!” against the wights.
Conan the Slutshamer
Conan the Barbarian was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first American roles, and his English was so choppy that every line was a struggle. One of the most baffling and memorable exchanges goes a little something like this:
Beggar: A pittance to protect you from evil.
Subotai: I am evil!
Conan: They’re all sluts! He’s dead already!
(Conan gets in a fistfight with a camel)
Max Rockatansky: Not the Car, Guys
This steampunk cop loves to exercise his right to remain silent, other than the melodramatic intro voiceover that tees up the whole franchise as a diary entry. He makes his priorities super clear in Mad Max: Fury Road, after his forced blood transfusion and carjacking: “How much more can they take from me? They’ve got my blood, now it’s my car!”
Silent Bob Has a Way With Words
His only line in Clerks is quite poignant: “You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of ‘em just cheat on you.”
So Long, Who?!
In Super Mario 64, Mario taunts Bowser when he hurls him off the board in each boss fight. What exactly he says is up for debate — it sure sounds a lot like, “So long, gay Bowser,” but it’s more likely either “King Bowser” or perhaps a simple Italianization: “So long, a-Bowser.”
Timmy Speaks (As Doctor Timothy)
Throughout South Park the TV show, Timmy’s vocabulary is confined to little more than his own name. But he does speak telepathically as his superhero alter ego in the video game South Park: The Fractured But Whole: “Eric, you must listen to me. Right now, I’m speaking to you telepathically. Your franchise is going nowhere. Face the truth, Eric. You guys are kind of douchebags.”
Kenny Speaks (As Mysterion)
Donning a facemask that’s the inverse of his usual turtleneck, South Park’s perpetual punching bag describes the hell he relives every episode: “I’ve experienced death, countless times. Sometimes I see a bright light, sometimes I see heaven or hell. But eventually, no matter what, I wake up in my bed, wearing my same old clothes. And the worst part, no one even remembers me dying. I go to school the next day, and everyone’s just like ‘Oh, hey, Kenny,’ even if they had seen me get decapitated with their own eyes. You wanna whine about curses, Hindsight, you’re talking to the wrong fucking cowboy.”
