Commentary: Ah, yes, ‘The Quiet Man’

The huge flow of information on the internet sometimes can be quite useful. In this age of almost immediate access to all sorts of knowledge, information can be had with just a few keystrokes. Case in point: Some friends were trying to recall some of those wonderful lines from the movie “The Quiet Man,” the 1950s John Ford film about the ancestral country of Irish Americans.

An online search for “Quiet Man quotes” yielded a treasure trove of memorable quotes. Here are a few:

“He’ll regret it till his dying day, if he ever lives that long.” – Red Will Danaher

“Ah yes… I knew your people, Sean. Your grandfather, he died in Australia in a penal colony. And your father, he was a good man too.” – Father Peter Lonergan

“No patty-fingers, if you please. The proprieties at all times. Hold on to your hats.” – Michaeleen Flynn

“Impetuous. Homeric.” – Michaeleen Flynn (on seeing the broken bed)

The movie, starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, is always available on television around St. Patrick’s Day, and while it does not reveal much about contemporary Ireland, it remains great fun to watch, a nostalgic, idealized look at the way things were in the Emerald Isle of old.