Beetlejuice - Wikiquote (2024)

Beetlejuice is a 1988 horror comedy film about two recently-deceased ghosts who enlist the help of a "bio-exorcist", Beetlejuice, to help remove a new family from their old house.

Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Michael McDowell, Warren Skaaren. Story by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson.

In This House... If You've Seen One Ghost... You Haven't Seen Them All. taglines

• [reading obituary] Ooh-la-la, what have we got here? The Maitlands. [laughs] Cute couple. Look nice and stupid, too! [more laughing]
• Let's turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.^[1]
• Hey, these aren't my rules! Come to think of it, I don't have any rules!
• I'm the ghost with the most, babe.
• YOU BUNCHA LOSERS!!! YOU'RE WORKIN' WITH A PROFESSIONAL HERE!!! (kicks over a tree; quietly observes it for a moment) NICE f*ckIN’ MODEL!!!! (grabs his crotch and squeezes it twice with a bike horn sound)
• Attention, K-Mart shoppers!
• Thank you. Thank you. That, is why I won't do two shows a night anymore babe, I won't.
• Well... what do we got here tonight, kids? [Sees the Maitlands] Oooo, well, we got the, uh, Maitlands. Uh, I think, uh, they've had enough "exorcise" for tonight. [Mimes a golf swing and the Maitlands fall onto the floor]
• [To Otho] Not so fast, round boy. We're gonna have some laughs! [Kisses Otho on the cheek and laughs]
• We come for your daughter, Chuck.
• Nobody says the "B" word.
• It's showtime!
• [calmly] Ah, well, I attended Juilliard, I am a graduate of the Harvard Business School, I travel quite extensively, I lived through the Black Plague and I had a pretty good time during that, [getting aggressively more demented] I've seen The Exorcist about 167 TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTIN' FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT! NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKIN' TO A DEAD GUY! NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK?! [calmly] You think I'm qualified?
• [After his head spins] Don't you hate it when that happens?
• I'll eat anything you want me to eat, I'll swallow anything you want me to swallow, so come on down and I'll... chew on a dog! (howls)
• [talking to a witch doctor] Did you do that? Very good work. Let me ask you, how do you get them down so small? Hey look, there goes Elvis. Yo, King! [witch doctor looks away, Beetlejuice switches his ticket with witch doctor's] Well, guess I'm next. I have an appointment with GQ in half an hour. They have been trying to get me for weeks. Some underwear thing or something. [annoyed with having his ticket being switched, witch doctor sprinkles shrinking powder on Beetlejuice] Hey, what are you doing? Hey, stop it! Hey! You're messing up my hair! Come on! [Beetlejuice's head gets smaller and voice becomes increasing higher] Whoa, whoa, stop it, WHOA! [Beetlejuice is now with a tiny head and voice that is two octaves higher than before] Hey, this might be a good look for me!

• [About her stepmother, Delia] She's sleeping with Prince Valium tonight.
• My whole life is a darkroom. [Slowly, for effect] One. Big. Dark. Room.
• I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that's in this food.
• [realizing that Adam and Barbara are ghosts] The funeral. God. You guys really are dead.

• [To Charles] I'm here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don't let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will GO INSANE AND I WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME!!!

• [about Beryl] Don't mind her. She's still upset because someone dropped a house on her sister.

• We're ghosts!

• Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!

Adam: Barbara, I don't think we survived that crash.

Delia: I can't believe we're eating Cantonese. Is there no Szechuan up here?

Lydia: I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that's in this food.

Delia: This is our first meal in this house, so why don't we all do our little private parts to make it a pleasant one?

Charles: Don't bait your mother, Pumpkin. As soon as we get settled, we'll build you a darkroom in the basem*nt.

Lydia: My whole life is a darkroom. One. Big. Dark. Room.

Delia: So you were miserable in New York City, and now you're going to be miserable out here in the sticks. At least someone's life hasn't been upheaved.

Lydia: [On the new house] Delia hates it. [sees a huge spider on a web] I could live here.

Charles: Pumpkin, sweetheart... [kisses her and forces her out his study room] Go help your mother.

Lydia: Maybe you can relax in a haunted house, but I can't.

Juno: What's wrong?

Barbara: We're very unhappy.

Juno: What did you expect? You're dead.

Lydia: Are you the guys hiding out in the attic?

Adam: We're ghosts!

Lydia: What do you look like under there?

Adam: Aren't you scared?

Lydia: I'm not scared of sheets. Are you gross under there? Are you Night of the Living Dead under there? Like all bloody veins and pus?

Adam: Night of the what?

Lydia: Living Dead. It's a movie.

Barbara: You know, if I had seen a ghost at your age I would have been scared out of my wits.

Adam: You can see us without the sheets?

Lydia: Of course I can see you.

Adam: Well, how is it you see us and nobody else can?

Lydia: Well, I've read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says: 'Live people ignore the strange and unusual'. I, myself, am strange and unusual.

Barbara: You look like a regular girl to me.

Adam: You've read our book?

Lydia: Yeah.

Adam: You can follow it?

Lydia: Yeah. Why were you guys creeping around in Delia's bedroom?

Adam: We were trying to scare your mother.

Lydia: Stepmother. Anyway, you can't scare her. She's sleeping with Prince Valium tonight.

[Adam and Barbara are in the model seeking Beetlejuice's assistance in getting the Deetzes out of their house]

Adam: For instance, uh, what are your qualifications?

Beetlejuice: [refined voice] Ah, well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard Business School. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. [getting progressively more demented] I've seen The Exorcist about 167 TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTIN' FUNNIER EVERY... SINGLE...TIME I SEE IT! NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKIN’ TO A DEAD GUY! [screams] NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK?! [quietly] You think I'm qualified?

Adam: Uh, what I meant is, can you be scary?

Beetlejuice: Oh! I didn't know what you were askin' me. Can I be scary? [does a jerk-*ff gesture] What do ya think of this?

[shows a hideous face to the Maitlands that only shows tentacles from the sides to audience; both Adam and Barbara scream]

Beetlejuice: [back to normal] You like it?

Barbara: [about the whor*house (Dante's Inferno) in the model] Adam, why did you build that?

Adam: I didn't.

[Adam and Barbara are transported to Juno's office in the underworld]

Juno: The whor*house was my idea. I want Beetlejuice out of there!

Dumb Football Player #1: Coach? Coach, where's the men's room?

Juno: I'm not your coach! He survived.

Dumb Football Player #2: Wait, Coach. Let me get something straight. What's our curfew around here?

Juno: Will you get outta here?!? Go on, get downstairs! "Men's room" - are ya kidding? Can't you read signs?

[they come back into the office later]

Dumbest Football Player: Coach?

Juno: What?

Dumbest Football Player: I don't think we survived that crash.

Juno: How did ya guess?

Lydia: They don't wanna come down.

Delia: Charles...

Otho: Why not?

Lydia: I think the reason is, is that they were trying to scare you away, and you didn't get scared.

Delia: Please, they're dead. It's a little late to be neurotic.

Lydia: Mr. and Mrs. Maitland? Hello? Where are you?

Beetlejuice: [laying on a lounge chair on the balcony of Dante’s Inferno] Dead. Dead, dead, deadski.

Lydia: Of course they're dead. They're ghosts.

Beetlejuice: No, I mean they're gone, split, outta here, afterlife kids, deceased-ahh.

Lydia: Are you a ghost too?

Beetlejuice: I'm a ghost with the most, babe. [Gets up from his lounge chair] Y'know, you look like somebody I can relate to. Maybe you could help me get outta here, y'know, 'cause I gotta tell ya: this dead thing is- [Picks up and eats a beetle from the ground] -it's just too creepy. See, here's my problem; I got these friends on the outside I said I'd meet, y'know, and it's the kinda thing I have to be there in person, y'know, so I was just wondering... could you help me get outta here?

Lydia: [Sighing sadly] I wanna get in.

Beetlejuice: [Genuinely confused] Why?... Y'know, hey, you probably got your reasons. I can't do anything from here. If you could get me 'out, then maybe we could talk or somethin'.

• I wanted him to be pure electricity, that's why the hair just sticks out. At my house I started creating a walk and a voice. I got some teeth. I wanted to be scary in the look and then use the voice to add a dash of goofiness that, in a way, would make it even scarier. I wanted something kind of moldy to it, too. Tim had the striped-suit idea and we added the big eyes. I think that movie will go forever because it's 100% original.
  • Michael Keaton "Michael Keaton's dark memories of 'Batman' and shining love for 'Beetlejuice'", LA Times, May 12, 2011.

• In This House... If You've Seen One Ghost... You Haven't Seen Them All.
• He's guaranteed to put some life, in your afterlife.
• Say it once... Say it twice... But we dare you to say it THREE TIMES!
• The name in laughter from the hereafter.

• Michael Keaton — Betelgeuse
• Alec Baldwin — Adam Maitland
• Geena Davis — Barbara Maitland
• Winona Ryder — Lydia Deetz
• Catherine O'Hara — Delia Deetz
• Jeffrey Jones — Charles Deetz
• Glenn Shadix — Otho
• Sylvia Sidney — Juno
• Dick Cavett — Bernard
• Robert Goulet - Maxie Dean
• Annie McEnroe - Jane Butterfield

• Encyclopedic article on Beetlejuice on Wikipedia
• ( Media related to Beetlejuice on Wikimedia Commons
• Beetlejuice quotes at the Internet Movie Database

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