- [last lines]
- Manuel Calavera: You know, sweetheart, if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: nobody knows what's gonna happen at the end of the line, so you might as well enjoy the trip.
- Olivia Ofrenda: [reading a poem] With bony hands I hold my partner/ On soulless feet we cross the floor/ The music stops as if to answer/ An empty knocking at the door/ It seems his skin was sweet as mango/ When last I held him to my breast/ But now we dance this grim fandango/ And will four years before we rest.
- Membrillo: [describing his work at the morgue] All day long, Manny, I sort through pure sadness. I find evidence, and I piece together stories. But none of my stories end well - they all end here. And the moral of every story is the same: we may have years, we may have hours, but sooner of later, we push up flowers.
- Manuel Calavera: Did you kill much when you were alive?
- Mercedes Colomar: Very little.
- Manuel Calavera: Never killed anybody.
- Mercedes Colomar: I have to confess... I never killed anybody.
- Manuel Calavera: Not even a teensy bit of killing?
- Mercedes Colomar: MAYBE I JUST WASN'T TRYING HARD ENOUGH.
- Hector LeMans: Oh Manny... so cynical... What happened to you, Manny, that caused you to lose your sense of hope, your love of life?
- Manuel Calavera: I died.
- Manuel Calavera: [to the coroner, Membrillo] How do you do this job?
- Membrillo: Without becoming jaded, you mean? The secret to my happiness, Manuel, is I have the heart of a twelve year old child. I keep it in a jar over here. Would you like to see it?
- Manuel Calavera: NO.
- Membrillo: Sorry. Old coroner joke.
- [about Mercedes Colomar]
- Salvador: Manuel? Are you... in love with her?
- Manuel Calavera: Love? Love is for the living, Sal. I'm only after her for one reason... she's my ticket out of here.
- Manuel Calavera: Much as I would like to, I just can't bring myself to jump into the giant pit of uncleaned kitty litter.
- Manuel Calavera: Buenos días.
- Mercedes Colomar: You're not the nurse.
- Manuel Calavera: No.
- Mercedes Colomar: You're not here to give me my medication?
- Manuel Calavera: No, but I am here to ease your pain.
- Mercedes Colomar: Guess they couldn't save me, eh?
- Manuel Calavera: No, but there's still a chance you could save me.
- Manuel Calavera: [referring to balloon squeaking] I have to go. That sound makes me want to kill somebody.
- Clown: You too?
- [the beatnik waiter is putting dirty hookah water into the coffin shooter drinks]
- Blue Casket's Waiter: Just a dab will drop ya.
- [Sees Manny watching]
- Blue Casket's Waiter: Hey, man. You didn't see me put the secret ingredient in these coffin shooters, did ya?
- Manuel Calavera: Relax. Olivia stole the recipe from me in the first place.
- Blue Casket's Waiter: Yeahhhh... she steals from the rich, and gives to me to pour.
- Manuel Calavera: These lockers have a note on them: "Employees: I don't care who's doing it, but please stop using the contained-detonation chamber to crack open walnuts. Thank you."
- [Performing one of her poems]
- Olivia Ofrenda: With boney hands I hold my partner
- Olivia Ofrenda: On soulless feet we cross the floor
- Olivia Ofrenda: The music stops as if to answer
- Olivia Ofrenda: An empty knocking at the door
- Olivia Ofrenda: It seems his skin was sweet as mango
- Olivia Ofrenda: When last I held him to my breast
- Olivia Ofrenda: But now we dance this grim fandango
- Olivia Ofrenda: And will four years before we rest.
- Manuel Calavera: Glottis... Glottis... is that a German name?
- Glottis: Oh, no. My roots lie not in any Earthly nation's soil. I am an elemental spirit summoned up from the Land of the Dead itself and given one purpose, one skill, one desire... TO DRIVE. Or, to change oil or adjust timing belts if no driving jobs are open.
- [Glottis adds hydraulics to the Bone Wagon]
- Manuel Calavera: What a relief. I was getting concerned that our transportation wasn't ostentatious enough.
- Manuel Calavera: I want to ask you a question.
- Domino Hurley: Shoot, slugger.
- Manuel Calavera: Is it hard to kiss up to the boss so much with no lips?
- Domino Hurley: Hey, I got all the lip I need. I get it from you.
- Manuel Calavera: I'll help you find your wife. What did she look like?
- Celso: Oh, here - I got this from the D.O.D., and made copies to hand out. Isn't she something?
- [Celso gives Manny a photo of his wife]
- Manuel Calavera: She must have been beautiful with skin.
- Celso: [wistfully] Weren't we all?
- Manuel Calavera: So what did you think of my poem?
- Slisko: I liked it. It was sad and beautiful, like my mother.
- Alexi: I despised it. It was too short and said nothing to me, like my father.
- Gunnar: I had no feelings about it. It was aloof and licked itself too much, like my cat, Mr. Trotsky.
- Olivia Ofrenda: Why are you leaving town?
- Manuel Calavera: I'm chasing a woman I met once and can't forget.
- Olivia Ofrenda: Well, I have a poem I wrote just for you. Pay attention because it's pretty short. Here it goes: Ch-ch-ch-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-mp.
- [Looking at the door to his office]
- Manuel Calavera: Wasn't too long ago the name on that door was "Supply Closet."
- Salvador: We need carrier pigeons so the word of the revolution can spread across the land brought on the gossamer wings of freedom.
- Manuel Calavera: I myself would also like to spread across the land...
- Manuel Calavera: This deck of cards is a little frayed around the edges, but then again so am I and I've got fewer suits...
- Manuel Calavera: I think we should team up - be partners.
- Domino Hurley: Oh, I would, but I could never be partners with someone who was so much more of a man than me.
- Manuel Calavera: Oh, come on... I've seen your wife.
- Glottis: Manny, until now we scraped along the ground like rats, but from now on, we soar. Like eagles. Yeah. LIKE EAGLES... ON... POGO STICKS.
- Manuel Calavera: That Dockmaster Velasco is one salty old bag of rope.
- Velasco: You should see his wife.
- Manuel Calavera: Bound only by the paper-thin wrapper of mortality, a soul here lies, struggling to be free. And so it shall, thanks to a bowl of bad gazpacho, and a man named... Calavera.
- Manuel Calavera: Why do you get all the good clients?
- Domino Hurley: You're asking the wrong guy. You should be taking a good long look at the man in the mirror.
- Manuel Calavera: No thanks. I don't enjoy that the same way you do.
- [Manny opens a giant can of cat food near a giant kitty little sandbox]
- Manuel Calavera: Great. Now it smells like a giant cat litter box AND some sort of gelatinous demon mystery-meat product in here.
- [Glottis has been kicked out of the V.I.P. Gambling Club]
- Glottis: You gotta let me back in. I'm a V.I.P...
- Manuel Calavera: Does that stand for Very Inebriated Pianist?
- Manuel Calavera: Dom's just the kind of guy to practice Oxford-regulation boxing and then pull out a blade when it comes down to a fight.
- [a train goes literally to Hell]
- Manuel Calavera: What happened to that train?
- Gate Keeper: Your destiny... cannot be purchased.
- [On Meche]
- Eva: Volunteers quickly for dangerous work - she could be very useful to the cause.
- Manuel Calavera: [proud] As far as I'm concerned, she IS the cause.
- [Manny tries to touch a pigeon]
- Manuel Calavera: Come here, little Manny.
- [the pigeon bites his finger]
- Manuel Calavera: Ow. Must be little Meche.
- Manuel Calavera: You know, you have a really bad taste in men.
- Olivia Ofrenda: No, I have a taste for really bad men. There's a difference.
- Manuel Calavera: It's my ex-boss' ex-secretary, Eva.
- Eva: You're never going to let me forget that secretary thing, are you?
- Manuel Calavera: One ticket for you, one for Hector, how many more do you need?
- Domino Hurley: Oh, Manny, we never touch the product ourselves!
- Domino Hurley: We sell the tickets to unfortunate souls...
- Domino Hurley: ...unable to lead moral lives because of the crippling amount of cash they were born into.
- Manuel Calavera: My boss is always giving me these motivational sales books - "They Bought the Farm, Now Sell Them the Cows"... stuff like that.