Finding Forrester

Finding Forrester (2000)

14 quotes

(2 votes)

Movie Quote Quiz

Forrester: Writers write things to give readers something to read.

Forrester: No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think.

Jamal: "The rest of those who have gone before us cannot steady the unrest of those to follow." You wrote that in your book.

Forrester: Let me ask you a question... those two foul shots at the end of the game... did you miss them, or did you miss them?
Jamal: Not exactly a soup question, now is it?

Jamal: Women will sleep with you if you write a book?
Forrester: Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.

Jamal: I'll take poor assumptions for $800, Alex.

Jamal: We've been talking about your book at school.
Forrester: People have been talking about it for years. They just haven't been saying anything.
Jamal: I think I got it down, though. I figure you were writing about how life never works out.
Forrester: Really? You had to read a book to figure that out?

Jamal: I ain't seen nothing change.
Forrester: You ain't seen nothing? What the hell kind of sentence is that?

Jamal: Be sure to write.

Forrester: Punch the keys, for God's sake.

Jamal: Did you ever enter a writin' contest?
Forrester: Yeah, once.
Jamal: Did you win?
Forrester: Well of course I won.
Jamal: You win like money or somethin'?
Forrester: No.
Jamal: Well, whadchu win?
Forrester: The Pulitzer.

Forrester: In some cultures it's good luck to be wearing something inside-out.
Jamal: And you believe that?
Forrester: No, but it's like praying: what do you risk?

Jamal: I was wondering if I could bring you more of my stuff. Or maybe I could write something else.
Forrester: How about 5,000 words on why you should stay the fuck out of my house.

Forrester: You're the man now, dog.

Factual error: In one scene in "Finding Forrester", Sean Connery's character video-tapes a bird from his apartment window, proclaiming that it is an "adult male...Connecticut Warbler." He then shows the image on his camcorder to Rob Brown's character and the audience. But the image we see is NOT a Connecticut Warbler. It is an adult male Yellow Warbler. There's no way to confuse the two species. The Yellow Warbler is very distinctive: all yellow, with faint chestnut streaking on its chest. The Connecticut Warbler has a greenish back and a grey "hood" (head, throat, and chest). If he HAD shown a picture of a Connecticut Warbler, that might have been confusing, because there are other warblers that look like a Connecticut. But the Yellow Warbler is unmistakable, and the brief glimpse in the movie left me with no doubt. It is such a simple, and obvious mistake, that I must wonder if they made it on purpose, just to test the audience. Anyone who could come up with the name "Connecticut Warbler" would have to know what one looks like, or at least have easy access to an image (there's zillions on the web, not to mention in scores of books, including ANY guide to North American birds). Even assuming the filmmakers had correctly depicted a Connecticut warbler on Sean Connery's camcorder, the likelihood of this species appearing outside a third-story window in the Bronx is practically nil. Connecticut warblers are extremely secretive birds that do not perch in trees, but walk on the ground, amongst dense vegetation. Furthermore, they are not in the New York area, but occur there only on rare occasions during migration. Even in its proper habitat, a sighting of one is considered exceptional.

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Trivia: Whenever we see Forrester's hands on the keyboard, they are not Sir Sean Connery's, but someone else's, as the production found out during filming that Connery could not type.

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