While I enjoyed AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) well enough, I liked the previous installment of the Marvel Avengers’ saga, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) much better.

For me, INFINITY WAR was the perfect balance of action-adventure, well-placed humor, and raw emotion. It also didn’t hurt that it had one heck of an ending, one that left audience members gasping in shock at the bold decision made by the filmmakers.

Thanos won.

Those two words still make me groan.

Speaking of words, let’s get back to the point of this column, and lighten things up a bit. A huge reason why INFINITY WAR was so enjoyable was its script. Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the screenplay did a remarkable job giving each and every character in the film key moments and quality screen time. As such, there were a lot of memorable lines in this one, most of which need very little explanation or setting up.

Let’s have a listen:

One of the main reasons the script in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR was so lively was because of the interactions of all the different characters, many of which were meeting each other for the first time, like here when Tony Stark first runs into the Guardians of the Galaxy:

PETER QUILL: Everybody stay where you are. Chill the eff out. I’m gonna ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?

TONY STARK: Yeah. I’ll do you one better. Who’s Gamora?

DRAX: I’ll do you one better. Why is Gamora?

 

And this exchange between Doctor Strange and Peter Quill:

DOCTOR STRANGE: Ok, let me ask you this one time: What master do you serve?

PETER QUILL: Oh, what master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?

 

The Guardians get some of the funniest lines in the film, like this sequence with Thor:

THOR: There are six stones out there. Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it last week when he decimated Xandar. He stole the Space Stone from me when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people. The Time and Mind Stones are safe on Earth, they’re with the Avengers.

PETER QUILL: The Avengers?

THOR: The Earth’s mightiest heroes.

MANTIS: Like Kevin Bacon?

THOR: He may be on the team. I don’t know, I haven’t been there in a while.

 

And here with Tony Stark and Peter Parker:

TONY STARK: We gotta coalesce. Because if all we come out is with a plucky attitude—.

PETER QUILL: Dude, don’t call us plucky. We don’t know what it means. We’re more optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except, it sucks. So let me do the plan and that way it might be really good.

DRAX: Tell him about the dance-off to save the Universe.

TONY STARK: What dance-off?

PETER QUILL: It’s not a thing.

PETER PARKER: Like in Footloose, the movie?

PETER QUILL: Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?

PETER PARKER: It never was.

TONY STARK: Don’t encourage Flash Gordon.

PETER QUILL: Flash Gordon? That’s a compliment. Don’t forget, I’m half human. So that 50% of me that’s stupid. That’s 100% you.

 

Another reason AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR works so well is because Thanos is one of the best Marvel movie villains of all time, and the movie gives him depth and plenty of key scenes. One could make the argument that INFINITY WAR is really Thanos’ story, as it follows his quest to obtain the Infinity Stones and make good on his promise to wipe out half the population of the universe all in the interest of saving it. Thanos gets a lot of memorable lines, like in this dramatic exchange with his daughter and current Guardian of the Galaxy, Gamora:

GAMORA: I was a child when you took me.

THANOS: I saved you.

GAMORA; No. We were happy on my home planet.

THANOS: You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I’m the one who stopped that. You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise.

GAMORA: Because you murdered half the planet.

THANOS: A small price to pay for salvation.

GAMORA: You’re insane.

THANOS: Little one, it’s a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources, finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting.

GAMORA: You don’t know that!

THANOS: I’m the only one who knows that. At least, I’m the only one with the will to act on it.

And in one of the more dramatic sequences in the film, here with Gamora again, and Red Skull, when Thanos realizes that in order to secure this particular Stone he has to sacrifice someone he loves.

GAMORA: All my life I dreamed of a day, a moment, when you got what you deserved. And I was always so disappointed. But now, you kill and torture and you call it mercy. The universe has judged you. You asked it for a prize and it told you no. You failed. And do you wanna know why? Because you love nothing. No one.

(Thanos sheds tears.)

GAMORA: Really? Tears?

RED SKULL: They are not for him.

And at the moment, the audience realizes what’s going to happen next, what Thanos is about to do. I can still feel the shivers. Heck, nearly every time Thanos speaks I feel shivers. Just listen:

THANOS: I know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail nonetheless. It’s frightening, turns the legs to jelly. I ask you to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now it’s here. Or should I say, I am.

I just have to say, in addition to the screenplay, Josh Brolin’s performance as Thanos really deserves a shout out.  Brolin nailed it as Thanos throughout.

Okay, time to lighten things up again.

Two other characters who met for the first time in INFINITY WAR, Thor and Rocket Raccoon, enjoyed a lot of lively exchanges:

ROCKET: You speak Groot?

THOR: Yes, they taught it on Asgard. It was an elective.

 

ROCKET: This is Thanos we’re talking about. He’s the toughest there is.

THOR:  Well, he’s never fought me.

ROCKET: Yeah, he has.

THOR: He’s never fought me twice.

 

Then there’s this humorous exchange between Tony Stark and Doctor Strange:

TONY STARK: If Thanos needs all six, why don’t we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?

DOCTOR STRANGE: No can do.

WONG: We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.

TONY STARK: And I swore off dairy… but then Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after me, so…

DOCTOR STRANGE: Stark Raving Hazelnuts.

TONY STARK: Not bad.

DOCTOR STRANGE: A bit chalky.

WONG: A Hunk of Hulk of Burning Fudge is our favorite.

 

INFINITY WAR also featured old friends reuniting after being separated for a long time. Here, Captain American and Thor meet up for the final battle and comment on each other’s appearances:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: New haircut?

THOR: Noticed you’ve copied my beard.

 

And this exchange between Tony Stark and Peter Parker:

PETER PARKER: Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I’m sorry.

TONY STARK: I don’t want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?

And on and on we could go, but we’ll finish here, with, fittingly enough, the final line in the movie. It’s Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury:

NICK FURY: Oh, no… Motherf…!

And on that note, we’ll call it a column. Hope you enjoyed this look at memorable quotes from AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and join me again next time for another Memorable Movie Quotes column.

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael