Here is our pick of the best quotes from the Ghostbusters franchise, with the first two Ivan Reitman directed installments now considered classic supernatural comedies. Regardless of how you feel about the franchise as a whole, the movies are full of funny lines. So, let’s go straight to them…
1. Ghostbusters (1984)
First installment, and in our opinion the best of the series, the story follows a trio of eccentric parapsychologists, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), who after they lose their jobs start a ghost-catching business in New York City.
[to Peter after they’ve been fired from the university]
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I like the university. They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything. You’ve never been out of college. You don’t know what it’s like out there. I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results.
Janine Melnitz: You’re very handy. I can tell. I bet you like to read a lot too.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Print is dead.
Janine Melnitz: Oh, that’s very fascinating to me. I read a lot myself. Some people think I’m too intellectual, but I think it’s a fabulous way to spend your spare time. I also play racquetball. Do you have any hobbies?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
[as Peter is about to enter her room to check for supernatural activity]
Dana Barrett: That’s the bedroom. But nothing ever happened in there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What a crime.
Dana Barrett: You know, you don’t act like a scientist.
Dr. Peter Venkman: They’re usually pretty stiff.
Dana Barrett: You’re more like a game show host.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let me tell you something about myself. I come home from work, to my place, and all I have is my work. There’s nothing else in my life.
Dana Barrett: Dr. Venkman.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I meet you, and I say, “My God, there’s someone with the same problem I have.”
Dana Barrett: Yes, we both have the same problem. You.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You know, it’s just occurred to me we really haven’t had a completely successful test of this equipment.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Well, no sense worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
[after they capture their first ghost
Dr. Peter Venkman: We came, we saw, we kicked its a**!
[interviewing Winston for the job]
Janine Melnitz: Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full-trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster, and the theory of Atlantis?
Winston Zeddemore: Uh, if there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything you say.
[after they’ve come back from a job]
Dr. Raymond Stantz: I got to get some sleep. I’m dying.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You don’t look good.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: I don’t?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, you’ve looked better. You didn’t used to look like this.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I don’t have to take this abuse from you. I got hundreds of people dying to abuse me.
Dana Barrett: I know. You’re a big celebrity now.
[after Dana, who has been possessed by Zuul, the Gatekeeper, answers the door]
Dana Barrett: Are you the Keymaster?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Not that I know of.
[she slams the door in his face, Peter knocks the door again]
Dana Barrett: Are you the Keymaster?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes. I’m a friend of his. He told me to meet him here.
[as Dana is possessed by Zuul, the Gatekeeper]
Dana Barrett: Do you want this body?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Is this a trick question?
Dr. Peter Venkman: I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people.
[a possessed Dana starts kissing him passionately]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule.
[as Dana is possessed by Zuul, the Gatekeeper]
Dana Barrett: I want you inside me.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [laughs] Go ahead. No, I can’t. Sounds like you got at least two people in there already. Might be a little crowded.
Dana Barrett: [demonic voice] There is no Dana, only Zuul.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What a lovely singing voice you must have.
Dr. Egon Spengler: The structure of this roof cap is exactly like the kind of telemetry tracker that NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Cold-riveted girders with cores of pure selenium.
[to the other people in their jail cell]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Everybody getting this so far?
[to the Ray and Egon]
Dr. Peter Venkman: So what? I guess they just don’t make them like they used to, huh?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: No! Nobody ever made them like this! I mean, the architect was either a certified genius, or an authentic wacko!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray, for a moment, pretend that I don’t know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics, and just tell me what the hell is going on.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You never studied.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Your girlfriend lives in the corner penthouse of Spook Central.
Dr. Peter Venkman: She’s not my girlfriend. I find her interesting because she’s a client, and because she sleeps above her covers. Four feet above her covers. She barks. She drools. She claws.
Dr. Egon Spengler: It’s not the girl, Peter. It’s the building.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by d**kless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, it’s true. This man has no d**k.
Winston Zeddemore: I’m Winston Zeddmore, Your Honor. Look, I’ve only been with the company for a couple weeks. But I got to tell you, these things are real. Since I joined these men, I have seen sh*t that’ll turn you white.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, you can believe Mr. Pecker.
Walter Peck: My name is Peck.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: Well, what do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament. Real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes!
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
Mayor: Enough! I get the point!
Gozer: [demonic voice] Are you a god?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: No.
Gozer: [demonic voice] Then die!
[uses lightning from her fingers to force them to the edge of the roof and almost off]
Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say, “Yes!”
[referring to Gozer]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Alright. This chick is toast! Got your stick?
Raymond, Eegon, Wisnton: Holding it!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Heat them up!
Raymond, Eegon, Wisnton: Smoking!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Make them hard!
Raymond, Eegon, Wisnton: Ready!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let’s show this prehistoric b*tch how we do things downtown. Throw it!
[as a giant Stay Puft marshmallow man proceeds to walk through the city]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, there’s something you don’t see every day.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Nice thinking, Ray.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: We used to roast Stay Puft marshmallows by the fire at Camp Waconda.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon. What have you got left?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman. I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
Winston Zeddemore: This job is definitely not worth eleven-five a year!
2. Ghostbusters II (1989)
Second installment follows the Ghostbusters, who are now retired due to having gone bankrupt. However, when a series of events involving ectoplasmic slime threaten the city and Dana’s (Sigourney Weaver) baby, the Ghostbusters re-form to save the world.
[working children’s entertainers at a birthday party]
Brownstone Boy: You know, my dad says you guys are full of crap.
Brownstone Mother: Jason, hush!
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Well, some people have trouble believing in the paranormal.
Brownstone Boy: No, he just says you guys are full of crap, and that’s why you went out of business.
[after being insulted at a children’s birthday party]
Winston Zeddemore: Man, face it. Ghostbusters doesn’t exist. A year from now, those kids won’t even remember who we are.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Ungrateful little yuppie larvae. After all we did for this city.
Winston Zeddemore: Yeah, we conjured up a hundred foot marshmallow man, blew the top three floors off an uptown high-rise, ended up getting sued by every state, county and city agency in New York.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Yeah, but what a ride.
Dana Barrett: How is he these days?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Peter? Well, he was borderline for a while. Then he crossed the border.
[Peter is interviewing psychics on his television show]
Milton Angland: I have a strong psychic belief that the world will end on New Year’s Eve.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, for your sake, I hope you’re right.
[Peter is interviewing psychics on his television show]
Elaine: According to my source, the end of the world will be on February 14th in the year 2016.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Valentine’s Day. Bummer. Where did you get your date, Elaine?
Elaine: I received this information from an alien. As I told my husband, it was in the Paramus Holiday Inn. I was having a drink at the bar, alone, and this alien approached me. He started talking to me. He bought me a drink. And then, I think he must have used some kind of a ray, or a mind-control device, because he forced me to follow him to his room. And that’s where he told me about the end of the world.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So your alien had a room at the Holiday Inn, Paramus?
Elaine: It might’ve been a room on the spacecraft made up to look like a room at the Holiday Inn. I can’t be sure about that, Peter.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Of course not. And that is the whole problem with aliens, is you just can’t trust them. Occasionally you meet a nice one, Starman, E.T. But usually they turn out to be some kind of big lizard!
[referring to the guests on his show]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Norman, where do you find these people? Weren’t we supposed to have the telekinetic guy who bends the spoons?
Norman the Producer: He canceled. This is the best we could do at such short notice. Look, no respected psychic will come on the show. They think you’re a fraud.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I am a fraud.
[as he walks by one of his assistant’s desks]
Dr. Janosz Poha: Everything you are doing is bad. I want you to know this.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Hi, Egon. How’s school? I bet those science chicks really dig that large cranium of yours, huh?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I think they’re more interested in my epididymis.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So whatever happened to Mr. Right, anyway? I heard he ditched you and ran off to Europe.
Dana Barrett: He didn’t ditch me. We had some problems, and he got a very good job offer from an orchestra in London and he took it.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So he ditched you.
[after he’s told them he’s parents didn’t believe in toys]
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You mean you never even had a Slinky?
Dr. Egon Spengler: We had part of a Slinky. But I straightened it.
[referring to Dana]
Dr. Egon Spengler: I’d like to run some gynaecological tests on the mother.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Who wouldn’t?
[as the Ghostbusters are being prosecuted]
Louis Tully: I think you guys are making a big mistake. I do mostly tax law and some probate stuff occasionally. I got my law degree at night school.
Dr. Raymond Stanz: Well, that’s fine, Louis. We got arrested at night.
The Prosecutor: Dr. Venkman, would you please tell the court why it is that you and your co-defendants took it upon yourselves to dig a very big hole in the middle of First Avenue.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, there’s so many holes in First Avenue, we really didn’t think anyone would notice.
The Prosecutor: So what you’re saying is that the world of the supernatural is your exclusive province?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Kitten, I think what I’m saying is that sometimes sh*t happens, someone has to deal with it, and who are you going to call?
[as two ghosts in electric chairs are attacking the courtroom]
The Judge: The Scoleri Brothers!
Dr. Raymond Stanz: Friends of yours?
The Judge: I tried them for murder! Gave them the chair! You got to do something!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Why don’t you just tell them you don’t believe in ghosts?
Dr. Raymond Stanz: Heat them up.
[they turn on their proton packs]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Do…
Dr. Raymond Stanz: Re…
Dr. Egon Spengler: Egon!
[after they’ve successfully trapped the Scoleri Brothers ghosts]
Dr. Raymond Stanz: Two in the box!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Ready to go!
Dr. Peter Venkman: We be fast.
Raymond, Peter, Egon: And they be slow!
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to reporters] We’re the best! We’re the beautiful! We’re the only Ghostbusters!
Dr. Raymond Stanz: We’re back!
Dr. Raymond Stantz: You think there’s a connection between this Vigo character and the slime?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Is the atomic weight of cobalt fifty-eight point nine?
[referring to her baby, Oscar]
Dana Barrett: It’s so late. I really ought to put him down.
Dr. Peter Venkman: May I?
Dana Barrett: Yeah, if you want to.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Oscar] You’re short. Your belly button sticks out too far. And you’re a terrible burden on your poor mother.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Vigo the Carpathian, born 1505, died 1610.
Dr. Peter Venkman: A hundred and five years-old. He hung in there, didn’t he?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: He didn’t die of old age either. He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disembowelled, drawn, and quartered.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ouch.
Winston Zeddemore: I guess he wasn’t too popular at the end.
Dr. Egon Spengler: No, not exactly a man of the people. Also known as Vigo the Cruel, Vigo the Torturer, Vigo the Despised, and Vigo the Unholy.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Wasn’t he also Vigo the Butch?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: And dig this. There was a prophecy. Just before his head died, his last words were, “Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I’ll be back.”
Dana Barrett: Okay, but after dinner, don’t put any of those old cheap moves on me, okay?
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no, no.
Dana Barrett: It’s different.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I have all new cheap moves.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Dana, did you see some shirts here in the floor bed area?
Dana Barrett: Yeah, I put them in the hamper.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I have a hamper?
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to the Mayor] Lenny, have you been out on the street lately? Do you know how weird it is out there? We’ve taken our own head count. There seem to be three million completely miserable a**holes living in the Tri-State area.
Hardemeyer: Oh, please!
Dr. Peter Venkman: I beg your pardon. Three million and one.
[to the Ghostbusters]
The Mayor of NY: What am I supposed to do? Go on television and tell ten million people they have to be nice to each other? Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right.
The Mayor of NY: What the hell’s going on? It’s pandemonium out there!
Hardemeyer: Yes, I know. We’re working on it.
The Mayor of NY: Great. While you’re working on it, I’m going down in history as the mayor who let New York get sucked down into the tenth level of hell. Alright. We’ve got no choice. Call the Ghostbusters.
Hardemeyer: Wait! Now, I’m sure there’s another way.
The Mayor of NY: Jack, I spent an hour last night in my bedroom talking to Fiorello La Guardia, and he’s been dead for forty years.
3. Ghostbusters (2016)
This reboot is directed and co-written Paul Feig, and the story follows paranormal enthusiasts Abby (Melissa McCarthy), Erin (Kristen Wiig), Jillian (Kate McKinnon) and Patty (Leslie Jones), along with their assistant Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), who set out to capture ghosts when they realize that someone is attempting to cause an apocalypse by summoning ghosts in the City of New York.
[as she’s filming Erin]
Jillian Holtzmann: Ma’am, can you tell us where you got the world’s tiniest bow tie?
Erin Gilbert: Uh, it came with the shirt.
Abby Yates: I mean, we saw a real ghost. You know, and she was beautiful.
Jillian Holtzmann: Till she dislocated her jaw and ecto-projected all over you.
Erin Gilbert: Yeah, that stuff went everywhere, by the way, in every crack.
Abby Yates: But, I got to say, even that was kind of spectacularly beautiful.
[after Kevin introduces himself]
Erin Gilbert: Kevin. Oh. That’s a manly name. My name’s Erin. With an E. For “everything you want”.
Patty Tolan: That’s where I saw that weird sparking thing.
Jillian Holtzmann: What was it?
Patty Tolan: Baby, if I knew what it was, I wouldn’t say “a weird sparking thing”.
Jillian Holtzmann: You’re mouthy. I like that.
[referring to the ghost on the train]
Patty Tolan: Well, I guess he going to Queens. He’s going to be the third scariest thing on that train.
Erin Gilbert: Kevin. Hi, can you answer the phone, please?
Kevin: I can’t. It’s in the fish tank.
Erin Gilbert: Uh, no. The one on the desk that’s ringing. That one.
Kevin: Oh, that one.
Erin Gilbert: Yep.
Agent Hawkins: You drive a hearse with a ghost on it, and you use a distinctly un-American sounding siren. Do you have any idea how many federal regulations you’re breaking on a daily basis?
Jillian Holtzmann: One?
Agent Rorke: No.
Jillian Holtzmann: Two?
Agent Rorke: No.
Jillian Holtzmann: Is it one?
Agent Rorke: Just sit quietly.
Mayor Bradley: Here’s the essence of the deal. We are going to have to make the public believe that you are frauds.
Erin Gilbert: What? Wait. Why?
Abby Yates: What?
Jennifer Lynch: The human brain, you know, it can only handle so much. If everybody knew what was going on, you know, there’d be a panic. So we need to get the information out there that the incident at the concert was a hoax. Because, otherwise, there’d be mass hysteria.
Abby Yates: Uh, we don’t want mass hysteria either.
Erin Gilbert: But my concern is, I feel like the cat is sort of already kind of out of the bag.
Abby Yates: I think what they’re saying is the cat is out of the bag. They want us to put the cat back inside the bag.
Erin Gilbert: No, I know that’s what they’re saying. But I’m saying the cat’s already out. So it’s hard to put the cat back in.
Abby Yates: I know. I know it’s out. It’s not impossible.
Erin Gilbert: But that’s why they have that saying.
Abby Yates: It’s a nonsense saying.
Erin Gilbert: If the cat is out of the bag, you can’t put it back in!
Abby Yates: I put a cat in a bag all the time.
Erin Gilbert: But once the cat is out of the bag, aren’t you like, “Ooh! The cat is out of the bag!”
Jennifer Lynch: We just want to shove that damn cat back in the bag.
Agent Rorke: The cat has been out of the bag before, and yet, people lose interest and put it back in.
Jennifer Lynch: People always move on.
Agent Rorke: Sheriff in New Mexico reports a UFO encounter. The crew of the SS Ourang Medan dies mysteriously. The entire town of Langville, Montana, goes missing.
Jillian Holtzmann: It does?
Patty Tolan: Man, it smells like burnt bologna and regrets down here.
[after Abby is possessed by a ghost]
Patty Tolan: Get out of my friend, ghost!
[she slaps Abby hard in the face and the ghost get knocked out]
Abby Yates: Ow! Ow! That’s going to leave a mark!
Patty Tolan: The power of Patty compels you!
[she slaps Abby again]
Abby Yates: Ow!
Erin Gilbert: Please, Mayor Bradley, you have to believe me. You’re the only one that can do something. Don’t, please don’t be like the mayor in Jaws.
Mayor Bradley: Never compare me to the Jaws mayor. Never!
Basement Cop: Man, nobody ordered a Clark Kent strippergram.
[Kevin is possessed by Rowan]
Kevin: Clark Kent? Oh, because of the glasses and the handsomeness.
[after a possessed Kevin knocks out the cops]
Kevin: I should have worked out more when I was alive.
[as Erin hails down a cab]
Cabbie: Where you going?
Erin Gilbert: Chinatown.
Cabbie: No, that’s like one more block south than I want to go.
Erin Gilbert: Sir, those are actual ghosts flying around!
Cabbie: Eh, they’re Class Five floating vapors. Nothing to worry about.
Erin Gilbert: No, no, no! It’s important! Don’t you see what’s happening?
Cabbie: Look, I don’t go to Chinatown, I don’t drive wackos, and I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
[he drives off]
Erin Gilbert: What? No, no, no, wait! That’s a double negative! That means you are afraid of ghosts.
[after being knocked down and squashed by a possessed giant Stay Puft marshmallow man]
Patty Tolan: Oh, Lord, have mercy. This is just wrong!
Abby Yates: I can’t move my hand. I can’t reach the trigger.
Jillian Holtzmann: You guys, this is exactly how I pictured my death.
[after she bursts the giant Stay Puft marshmallow man]
Erin Gilbert: Proton guns are all well and good, but sometimes you need the Swiss Army.
[to the ghosts]
Abby Yates: You know what? I’m glad I didn’t know any of you when you were alive, because I don’t enjoy any of you, especially you.
[to Rowan, who has possessed Kevin]
Abby Yates: I know you’re getting real comfy in your Kevin skin suit, but it’s time you hop out. We like him, despite his many, many frustrating quirks.
Jillian Holtzmann: He just started figuring out the phones!
Abby Yates: Yeah.
Erin Gilbert: What year is it?
Jillian Holtzmann: It’s 2040.
Erin Gilbert: What?!
Jillian Holtzmann: Our president is a plant.
Abby Yates: Oh, my God!
Jillian Holtzmann: I’m kidding. You were gone two seconds.
Jillian Holtzmann: We all did it.
Kevin: That’s right. We all did it.
Abby Yates: Well, uh…
Patty Tolan: What did you do, Kevin?
Kevin: I did a lot, actually. I’ll have you know that I walked over to the power box, pushed a bunch of buttons. Everything got sucked into the portal, then it closed up.
Jillian Holtzmann: Oh, Kev. Sweet, sweet Kev. The two are unrelated.
Erin Gilbert: Uh, more important question. When did you have time to get a sandwich?
Kevin: Oh, when I was looking for you guys, I looked in that deli over there.
Abby Yates: When we were risking our lives, trying to save New York City, you stopped in to get a sandwich?
Kevin: Quit splitting hairs, okay? Potatoes, tomatoes. It doesn’t matter. Point is, the Ghostbusters are back together again, okay? And that’s what friends are for.
[referring to her takeout]
Abby Yates: I’m just looking for a reasonable ratio of wontons to broth. This is absolute madness.
Bennie: Come on, girl. You deserve every wonton in the world. Don’t let any man tell you otherwise.
4. Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2020)
This direct sequel to the original two films is directed and co-written by Jason Reitman. Set thirty years after the second film, the story follows a single mother, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her two children, Trevor and Phoebe (Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace), who move to a small town, where they discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters and their grandfather’s secret legacy.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Call it fate. Call it luck. Call it karma. I believe that everything happens for a reason.
