Taps (I) (1981)

Timothy Hutton: Brian Moreland

Photos 

Quotes 

• Brian Moreland : Honor doesn't count for shit when you're looking at a dead little boy.

• Brian Moreland : Sir, how could they do this?

  General Harlan Bache : With the stroke of a pen, sir. Their field of honor was a desktop.

• Brian Moreland : We have a home here. We think it's something worth defending.

• General Harlan Bache : I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, son. There's a feeling on the outside that schools like this are anachronistic, and leaders of men like you and me are dinosaurs.

  Brian Moreland : Sir?

  General Harlan Bache : Well, you go to the movies, you read books. A military leader is always portrayed as slightly insane. Very often more than slightly. That's because it is insane to cling to honor in a world where honor is held in contempt.

• Brian Moreland : I don't ever want to see what I just saw out there.

• Brian Moreland : They want us to be good little boys now so we can fight some war for them in the future. Some war they'll decide on. We'd rather fight our own war right now.

• Brian Moreland : When my mother died, I was sitting in the hallway in the army hospital. I was worried as hell. I knew she was real sick. She had this bad kidney thing. So I'm sitting there and my father comes out of the room and tells me that she's dead. He led me to this little chapel they had there, and he sat me down and he told me I could cry for fifteen minutes. He gave me fifteen minutes to cry, and after that I wasn't supposed to cry again. So he left me alone in the chapel and came back... he came back fifteen minutes later.

  Alex Dwyer : Jesus. What did you do?

  Brian Moreland : Well, I did what I was told. I cried for fifteen minutes.

• [the cadets have taken over the academy] 

  Master Sergeant Kevin Moreland : Let me tell 'em it was growing pains - the wrong execution of the right idea.

  Brian Moreland : "The wrong execution of the right idea"?

• Alex Dwyer : What the hell were you doing back there?

  David Shawn : At least I had your ass over the grinder and it's okay enough to thank me, shithead!

  Brian Moreland : Hut! What's the problem?

  Alex Dwyer : The problem is that this asshole just shot the town!

• David Shawn : Hey, Brian, Dungeons and Dragons game tonight?

  Brian Moreland : Nah, not tonight, Shawn.

  Alex Dwyer : Nice of you to ask.

  David Shawn : [gives Dwyer the finger] 

  Alex Dwyer : Have a good day.

• David Shawn : Brian, Dungeons and Dragons game tonight?

  Brian Moreland : Can't.

  [David flips Alex the finger] 

  Alex Dwyer : Have a good day.

• Brian Moreland : Don't let friendship keep you here.

  Alex Dwyer : Don't worry.

• Colonel Kerby : Eleven boys jumped the wall last night.

  Brian Moreland : That sounds like eleven boys who wouldn't have been much good to us.