
Popular National Treasure Quotes
[paraphrasing Thomas Edison, about invention of light bulb] I didn't fail, I found 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb; I only need to find one way to make it work.
Ben Gates
Abigail Chase: What let you to assume there's this invisible map?
Ben Gates: We found an engraving on the stem of a 200-year-old pipe.
Riley Poole: Owned by the Free Masons.
Abigail Chase: May I see the pipe?
Riley Poole: We don't have it.
Abigail Chase: Did Bigfoot take it?
Ian Howe: You all right, Ben? No broken bones? A jump like that could kill a man.
Ben Gates: No, it was cool. You should try it some time.
Ben Gates: Do you trust me?
Abigail Chase: Yes.
Powell: [referring to the underground staircase] How do a bunch of people with hand tools build all this?
Ben Gates: The same way the built the pyramids, and the Great Wall of China.
Riley Poole: Yeah... the aliens helped them.
Riley Poole: Do you actually know who the first person to come up with the idea of daylight savings time was?
Abigail Chase, Ben Gates: Benjamin Franklin.
[Riely stomps down his foot in disappointment]
Abigail Chase: You're treasure hunters, aren't you?
Ben Gates: We're more like treasure protectors.
Ben Gates: Dad, where are the letters?
Patrick Gates: I don't have them, son.
Ben Gates: [pause] What?
Patrick Gates: I don't have them.
Ben Gates: [Another pause] Where are they?
Patrick Gates: I *donated* them to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
Ben Gates: Time to go.
Riley Poole: [after Ben decides to steal the Declaration] This is... huge.
[Beat]
Riley Poole: Prison... huge. You are gonna go to prison. You know that, right?
Ben Gates: Yeah, probably.
Riley Poole: Well... that would... bother most people.
[They see Abigail hanging out the back of Ian's truck, clinging to the door and screaming]
Ben Gates: Oh, no.
Riley Poole: Holy Lord.
It's a big blue-ish green man... with a strange-looking goatee... I'm guessing that's significant.
Riley Poole
[hugs the statue]
It's surrounded by guards... video monitors... and little families from Iowa... and little kids on their eighth grade field trips.
Riley Poole