16 The Monuments Men Quotes (2025)

The Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they'll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it's as if they never existed. That's what Hitler wants and that's exactly what we are fighting for.

The Monuments Men

James Granger: Stop, stop. Stop. I seem to have stepped on a land mine... of some sort.
Frank Stokes: Why d'you do something like that?
James Granger: It was a slow day.
Frank Stokes: Well, I wouldn't move.
James Granger: I'd like to at some point.

The Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: I was told that before you were sent here, you ran one of those camps.
Colonel Wegner: Who told you that?
Frank Stokes: A little bird.
Colonel Wegner: You're not Jewish, lieutenant?
Frank Stokes: No.
Colonel Wegner: Then you should thank me.

Frank Stokes: You know, I don't smoke either. My first cigarette.
[lights cigarette]
Frank Stokes: But I want to remember this moment. I'm gonna go home soon. Got a nice apartment in New York on the Upper West Side. There's a deli down the street called Sid's. Every morning, I walk there and I get a cup of coffee and a bagel, and I read the

newspaper. I think about it every day here. It'll be the first place I go when I get stateside. I'm gonna be sitting there, eating one of Sid Meldman's toasted onion bagels and reading a tiny article in the New York Times, page... 18... that says you, Colonel Wegner, were hanged for your crimes you committed during the war and you were buried in an unmarked grave. And then I'll think about my

cigarette... and I'll think about you sitting there with that stupid look on your face. Then I'll finish my coffee, leave the paper for Sid to wrap fish in. I'll never think of you again.

The Monuments Men

Richard Campbell: Heil Hitler.

The Monuments Men

Walter Garfield: The army may not care about art, but they sure as shit care about gold.

The Monuments Men

Claire Simone: [after listening to Granger attempt to communicate very badly in French] Would you stop speaking French? Or whatever language you are speaking?
James Granger: Well, if it weren't for us, you'd... you'd be speaking German.
Claire Simone: No. If it was not for you, I might be dead. But I would still be speaking French.

James Granger: [Glances away] OK.

The Monuments Men

James Granger: How many men?
Frank Stokes: For now, six.
James Granger: Jesus!
Frank Stokes: With you that's seven.
James Granger: That's much better.

The Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: Who would make sure that the statue of David is still standing or the Mona Lisa is still smiling? Who will protect her?

The Monuments Men

Walter Garfield: I've never killed anyone before.
Jean Claude Clermont: It's easy.
Walter Garfield: Have you?
Jean Claude Clermont: I'm about to.

The Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: Yesterday we fond 16,000 pieces of art in a copper mine. It seems the Germans take better care of their art than people.

The Monuments Men

Richard Campbell: Right now, you wish that German had shot you.

The Monuments Men

Frank Stokes: You can add this to the list of Hitler's failures.

The Monuments Men

Preston Savitz: Do we get to kill anybody?

The Monuments Men

Richard Campbell: [after coming across an armed Nazi soldier in the night] Here's the thought. We put down our guns; you go your way, we go our way, no hard feelings.
[to Savitz about the German]
Richard Campbell: He doesn't speak any English!
Preston Savitz: Not a word.
Richard Campbell: Okay.

Preston Savitz: You're just going to sit down?
Richard Campbell: Yeah, I think - why don't we all just sit down for a sec. Okay.
Preston Savitz: Shh.
[Savitz sits down too]
Preston Savitz: [Campbell throws a pack of cigarettes to the Nazi. The Nazi takes one and then throws the pack to Savitz] I don't

smoke.
Richard Campbell: Take a cigarette.
Preston Savitz: I don't smoke!
Richard Campbell: Take a goddamn cigarette.
[Savitz does and they all smoke]
German Soldier at Ghent: John Wayne!
Richard Campbell: John Wayne.