The Sandpiper Quotes

The Sandpiper is a television program that was first aired in 1970 . The Sandpiper completed its run in 1970.

It features Martin Ransohoff as producer, Johnny Mandel in charge of musical score, and Milton R. Krasner as head of cinematography.

The Sandpiper is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of The Sandpiper is 117 minutes long. The Sandpiper is distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The cast includes: Richard Burton as Dr. Edward Hewitt, Eva Marie Saint as Claire Hewitt, Torin Thatcher as Judge Thompson, Morgan Mason as Danny Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor as Laura Reynolds, Charles Bronson as Cos Erickson, and James Edwards as Larry Brant.

The Sandpiper Quotes

Richard Burton as Dr. Edward Hewitt

• (Richard Burton) "I was talking to our architect about you. That is to say, I was talking about you and our new chapel. The one we're going to build. It calls for two stained-glass windows and it occurred to me we might try for something indigenous to this particular area. I mean, the mountains, the sea, whatever it is that makes this part of the world unique. That would seem to call for a local artist and I was -- I was thinking of you."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, but I am an atheist. How could I design something that glorifies a creed I don't believe in?"
• (Richard Burton) "Do you think Orozco believed in Christianity? Or Rivera, or Portinari, or Chagall? Some of their best work is found in churches. It's not at all rare to find the religious vision more purely apprehended by the non-believer than by the saint."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Why -- Why do you say that?"
• (Richard Burton) "Well, saints tend to be myopic, whereas the atheist is almost always innocent. And innocence is what we want in this chapel."

• (Richard Burton) "May I ask, what are your religious affiliations?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Of course. I'm a naturalist."
• (Richard Burton) "A what?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "We believe that man is doomed by his myths -- that there can be no peace on earth until man rids himself of all belief in the supernatural."
• (Richard Burton) "I see, yes. Very interesting. Go on."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "That's about it -- It's a very small sect."
• (Richard Burton) "With a membership of approximately -- one?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Exactly one -- with Danny as an officiate, of course."
• (Richard Burton) "Hmm, well, I have no objection to your lack of religion, nor to your son's."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "But you do have compulsory religious training here, don't you?"
• (Richard Burton) "Well, Chapel is compulsory, yes, but I've never yet forced a boy to pray, it, uh, it can't be done, you know."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, it could be tried."
• (Richard Burton) "San Simeon is not a jail, Mrs. Reynolds. Students don't come here to be punished, they come here to be educated."

• (Richard Burton) "What would you do, in my shoes?"
• (Eva Marie Saint) "Wear them."

• (Richard Burton) "I just want to find out what you want from life, that's all."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Oh, aside from raising Danny, most of all I want to know myself, to be myself. I won't have a chance to do that if I spend my life playing the matrimony game, which was rigged before I was even born."
• (Richard Burton) ""Rigged"?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Of course it's rigged. It always has been. First 20 years of a girl's life, she gets so used to going to the same schools as the boys, taking the same classes, living in the same world with him. She can't get it through that square little head of hers that she isn't his absolute equal."
• (Richard Burton) "Which, of course, she is."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Just wait until they get married, and then see what happens. The man enters into a professional life. The woman becomes an unpaid domestic servant. So there goes your equality. What good does all that education do except make her unhappy?"
• (Richard Burton) "Well, perhaps it's something to fall back on when her beauty fades and her husband turns to a younger woman."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "I wasn't talking about you or any individual man. I was talking about men as a group."
• (Richard Burton) "I know, but most women who become homemakers are not necessarily miserable."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "I didn't say miserable. I say they're unfulfilled. Look, a man is always a husband, and a father, and something else, like a doctor. A woman is a wife, and a mother, and what else? A nothing. The "nothing" is the thing that kills her. And you don't care. You want her to stay just the way she is. Fertile and unfulfilled, then in her place."
• (Richard Burton) "Who wants this?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Oh, creatures like you, judges like Thompson. All the doctors, the President. The whole male establishment. Every last one of you."
• (Richard Burton) "You make it sound like one enormous conspiracy."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, of course, it is. Ever since Adam stool-pigeoned on Eve."

• (Richard Burton) "Our English tongue has a long history and I'm pleased with your interest in its oldest and most, uh, ardent words. I think it's sad, however, that these ancient expressions should be degraded to a position on lavatory walls. You will scrub the walls down, of course, then you will learn the equivalent words in German, French, and Latin, after which you will decline each noun and conjugate each verb in all tenses, including the subjunctive. Thank you for your attention, and, uh, good day."

• (Richard Burton) "I've learned that total adjustment to society is quite as bad as total maladjustment, that principled disobedience of unjust law is more Christian, more truly law abiding than unprincipled respect."

James Edwards as Larry Brant

• (James Edwards) "Look, baby, with a parson and a preacher for a patron, you've got it made. Just think of all those Renaissance cats."

Eva Marie Saint as Claire Hewitt

(We don't have any quotes for this character)

Elizabeth Taylor as Laura Reynolds

• (Elizabeth Taylor) "You mean you told her about me?"
• (Richard Burton) "Yes."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "That we made love?"
• (Richard Burton) "Yes."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Oh. How could you? How could you bring yourself to tell anyone about me? It's too private. It's too private to tell."
• (Richard Burton) "I felt she had to know."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Isn't the relationship between a man and a woman in love as privileged as between a lawyer and a client, a doctor and a patient, a priest and a confessant? Isn't it just as holy?"
• (Richard Burton) "Laura, it is holy. I swear to you it is."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Not with you. Not when it's with me."
• (Richard Burton) "Laura."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Don't touch me. Go away. Go back to your wife."

• (Elizabeth Taylor) "How much is this crazy chapel going to cost?"
• (Richard Burton) "About a hundred thousand dollars."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "For just a place to pray?"
• (Richard Burton) "Well, a place to pray is not as trivial as you think."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "But you can pray anywhere. If man is so important, why -- Why don't you spend the money on him? How many poor children could you educate for $100,000?"

• (Elizabeth Taylor) "You don't like them."
• (Richard Burton) "On the contrary, I like them very much. All the charm and wonder of a child's vision of creation. But there's one thing missing."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "God?"
• (Richard Burton) "No, man."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "I left him out."
• (Richard Burton) "Why?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, I -- I wanted the world to be innocent and it can't be with man in it. You see, this is the universe before man came along."
• (Richard Burton) "It won't do. Man is essential to any concept of the universe. Without him the universe would be here, but it wouldn't be conceived. That is the miracle of man. That he can imagine the awe and terror of an infinite universe and still not be frightened by it. But facing the mystery of time and the implacability of death, he can still laugh, work, create -- And love."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, good for him. Then he'll have to be in somebody else's sketches."

• (Elizabeth Taylor) "I feel as alone as Robinson Crusoe. Even with the footprints of a man beside me."
• (Richard Burton) "You should always have a man's footprints beside you, Laura."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "How do you know I haven't always?"
• (Richard Burton) "Because you're afraid of them --"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "But I'm not as afraid as you think."
• (Richard Burton) "Do you think that one of these days Danny's going to feel somehow that you robbed him of a father?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "Well, that's a chance I'm gonna' have to take. Do you know something? If I were a devoted widow, and Danny's father were a dead war hero, would you be pitching me this bit about finding a second father to replace the dead one?"
• (Richard Burton) "Touché."

• (Elizabeth Taylor) "You ask the questions, you're a Minister, you wouldn't want me to lie to you, would you?"
• (Richard Burton) "Neither would I want you to lie to me if I were a truck driver or a disk jockey. I question you because it's my job to do so. You send us a deeply disturbed boy --"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "My son is NOT disturbed. He's not disturbed at all. He's a healthy, normal boy because he hasn't been brainwashed yet. And I aim to see that he stays that way."

Torin Thatcher as Judge Thompson

• (Torin Thatcher) "Why did you take that boy out of school?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "His teacher was a fool. I've taught him more in two months than he learned at school in a full term."
• (Torin Thatcher) "In the course of his studies, what have you taught him about respect for the law?"
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "As he grows up, he'll learn that there are good laws, and bad ones. He'll respect the good ones."
• (Torin Thatcher) "And disobey the bad ones."
• (Elizabeth Taylor) "At least I hope he does."

• (Torin Thatcher) "If you didn't mean to do it, why did you?"
• (Morgan Mason) "I guess I wanted to find out what the fun was."
• (Torin Thatcher) ""Fun"?"
• (Morgan Mason) "My mother says, that men are the only animals that kill for fun."

Charles Bronson as Cos Erickson

Add or Update Quotes

If you have a quote to add or change and want to let us know, please fill in the form below. Include the time in the film/video if possible so we can find it.