Robert De Niro: Travis Bickle

Taxi Driver

Travis Bickle

Travis Bickle: Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up! Here is...

Travis Bickle: I first saw her at Palantine Campaign headquarters at 63rd and Broadway. She was wearing a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They... cannot... touch... her.

Travis Bickle: June 29th. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.

Travis Bickle: I realize now how much she's just like the others, cold and distant, and many people are like that, women for sure, they're like a union.

Travis Bickle: [Travis is admiring himself as a gunman in the mirror] Huh? Huh?
[draws]
Travis Bickle: Faster than you, fucking son of a... Saw you coming, you fucking... shitheel.
[reholsters]
Travis Bickle: I'm standing here; you make the move. You make the move. It's your move...
[draws]
Travis Bickle: Don't try it, you fuck.
[reholsters]
Travis Bickle: You talking to me? You talking to me? You talking to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Oh, yeah? Okay.
[draws]

Travis Bickle: Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man... June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change.

Wizard: All right, look. Look at it this way. You know, a man takes a job, you know? And that job - I mean, like that - you know, that becomes what he is. You know, like - you do a thing and that's what you are. I mean like I've been a cabbie for 17 years. 10 years at night. I still don't own my own cab. You know why? Because I don't want to. That must be what I want. You know, to be on the night shift drivin' somebody else's cab. You understand? I mean, you become - you get a job, you become the job. I mean, one guy lives in Brooklyn. One guy lives in Sutton Place. You got a lawyer. Another guy's a doctor. Another guy dies. Another guy gets well. And, you know, people are born. I envy you, your youth. Go on, get laid, get drunk, you know. Do anything. But, you got no choice, anyway. I mean, we're all fucked. More or less, you know.
Travis Bickle: I don't know. That's about the dumbest thing I ever heard.
Wizard: It's not Bertrand Russell. But what do you want? I'm a cabbie, you know. What do I know? I mean, I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about.
Travis Bickle: I don't know. Maybe I don't know either.
Wizard: Don't worry so much! Relax, kid, you're gonna be all right.

Travis Bickle: Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me.

Travis Bickle: I'll tell you why. I think you're a lonely person. I drive by this place a lot and I see you here. I see a lot of people around you. And I see all these phones and all this stuff on your desk. It means nothing. Then when I came inside and I met you, I saw in your eyes and I saw the way you carried yourself that you're not a happy person. And I think you need something. And if you want to call it a friend, you can call it a friend.
Betsy: Are you gonna be my friend?
Travis Bickle: Yeah.

Betsy: You know what you remind me of?
Travis Bickle: What?
Betsy: That song by Kris Kristofferson.
Travis Bickle: Who's that?
Betsy: A songwriter. 'He's a prophet... he's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction. A walking contradiction.'
Travis Bickle: [uneasily] You sayin' that about me?
Betsy: Who else would I be talkin' about?
Travis Bickle: I'm no pusher. I never have pushed.
Betsy: No, no. Just the part about the contradictions. You are that.

Travis Bickle: 12 hours of work, and I still can't sleep... damn. Days go on and on... they don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.

Travis Bickle: This city here is like an open sewer, you know, it's full of filth and scum. Sometimes I can hardly take it. Whatever ever becomes the President should just - really clean it up, know what I mean? Sometimes I go out and I smell it. I get headaches, it's so bad, you know. It's like - they just never go away, you know. It's like I think that the President should clean up this whole mess here. He should flush it down the fucking toilet.

Travis Bickle: Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights, I clean off the blood.

Travis Bickle: The idea had been growing in my brain for some time: TRUE force. All the king's men cannot put it back together again.

Travis Bickle: I would say he has quite a few problems. His energy seems to go in the wrong places. When I walked in and I saw you two sitting there, I could just tell by the way you were both relating that there was no connection whatsoever. And I felt when I walked in that there was something between us. There was an impulse that we were both following. So that gave me the right to come in and talk to you. Otherwise I never would have felt that I had the right to talk to you or say anything to you. I never would have had the courage to talk to you. And with him I felt there was nothing and I could sense it. When I walked in, I knew I was right. Did you feel that way?
Betsy: I wouldn't be here if I didn't.

Travis Bickle: May 10th. Thank God for the rain, which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, 6:00 in the afternoon to 6:00 in the morning - sometimes even 8:00 in the morning. Six days a week - sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle, but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, 3:50 a week - sometimes even more, when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night: whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies... sick, venal. Someday, a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some - some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me.