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The film:

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  • Everyone treats Hooper like a fresh-out-of-college kid. Dude has gray in his beard.
  • The scene with the Welcome sign:
    • Hooper doing his best to talk some sense into the town Mayor... but the Mayor is more worried about the vandalized Welcome to Amity sign covered with shark graffiti.
    • The vandalization itself, with a spray-painted shark fin, in correct proportion according to Hooper, and a speech balloon coming from the beach bunny: "Help, shark!" Obviously, these were particularly well-researched vandals.
    • Hooper gets fed up with the Mayor's refusal to believe the shark is still out there:
      Vaughn: I don't believe either one of you are familiar with our problems!
      Hooper: I believe that I am familiar with the fact that you're going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in the ASS!
  • Hooper watching some of the would-be shark-killers: "Ha ha, they're all gonna die."
    • Also when he describes the guys who are severely overloading their boat:
      "You know those eight guys in the fantail launch out there? Well, none of them are gonna make it out of the harbor alive."
  • In that same scene, Brody is on the phone trying to get the situation under control. Outside, his deputy, Hendricks, is just standing there smoking. When Brody tries to get his attention, Hendricks cheerily waves at him.
  • Ben Gardner's roasting of the amatuer fishermen. His motor-mouthed delivery is what really sells it; he makes the whole monologue sound like a single sentence.
    Gardner: Wait till we get them silly bastards down in that rock pile, it'll be some fun, they'll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start takin' their bottoms out and slamming into them rocks, boy! Get away from there, ya goddamn fool, you! What's the matter with you, you wanna swamp us, ya crazy son of a bitch?!
  • During the scene with the tiger shark, we get this little gem from one of the fisherman:
    Fisherman: Well what kind? What kind of shark?
    Hooper: Tiger shark!
    Fisherman: A what?
    • For the last line, it's not so much the quote itself but the tone in which he says it.
      • It's also weird, in that these are people who have heard of the mako shark (they mention it earlier in the scene when trying to identify the species, but mispronounce it as "ma-KOW" rather than "MAY-ko") but have never heard of the much better-known tiger shark.
      • To be fair, the tiger shark doesn't normally range much further north than Virginia, while the mako extends to Nova Scotia. Still, the tiger shark is hard to misidentify.
  • Also, as the journalist is trying to get the fishermen to pose for a picture, Quint can be seen cruising on by in the Orca snickering whilst tipping his hat slightly. Obviously he can tell that they've got the wrong shark!
  • After Hooper has determined they caught the wrong shark, he immediately decides to go out looking for the real one. Brody isn't pleased at the prospect:
    Brody: On the water?!
    Hooper: Well, if we're looking for a shark we're not gonna find it on the land.
    Brody: Yeah, but I'm not drunk enough to go out on a boat!
    Hooper: Yes, you are!
    Brody: No, I'm not!
    Hooper: Yes, you are!
    Brody: I can't do that!
    Hooper: Yes, you can!
    (Cut to a noticeably tipsy Brody on Hooper's boat.)
    • Leads to a bit of Mood Whiplash when they find Ben Gardener's trashed boat; Brody seems to sober up pretty damn quick.
  • In one scene, Brody is on Hooper's boat, drunkenly ranting about why he moved from New York to Amity. Hooper's barely listening:
    Hooper: [mouth full] Fascinating. Want a pretzel?
  • "That's some bad hat, Harry."
  • The moment when Hooper visits the Brody household with some wine as a souvenir. Martin, fed up with the whole shark problem, starts filling his pint with the wine despite Hooper's protests that he should let it breathe. (Note that Brody's glass still has some whiskey and ice in the bottom when he fills it. Imagine what that must taste like.) Then, he gives Ellen and Hooper the smallest amount imaginable.
    • To be fair, Hooper did actually hold up two fingers as a way to tell Brody to stop filling his glass. Clearly, neither of them wanted too much, anyway. Brody, on the other hand...
    • And it's the red wine, even though they're having fish. And, considering Hooper's wealth and pained reaction, it was probably a pretty good vintage.
    • And two scenes later, he's working his way through the other bottle.
  • "My husband tells me you're in sharks."
  • This exchange:
    Ellen: Martin hates boats. Martin hates water. Martin - Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland. I guess it's a childhood thing. It's a - there's a clinical name for it, isn't there?
    Chief Brody: Drowning.
  • When Martin declares his intention to take Hooper down to the dock to investigate the tiger shark, Ellen nervously asks whether he can do that.
  • Brody and his wife are arguing over whether they should let Michael sit in his new boat.
    Ellen: Martin, it's his birthday tomorrow!
    Brody: I don't want him out on the water!
    Ellen: He's not in the water! He's on a boat. I don't think he'll ever go in the water after what happened.
    [She flips through a book filled with illustrations of sharks attacking boats and eating people]
    Ellen: Michael! Did you hear your father? Out of the water!
    • Even better is Brody's confused expression when she shouts at Michael. He wasn't looking at the book, and this outburst clearly seems like a bizarre and random mood swing.
  • The Fourth of July scene:
    • When the first shark sighting on the Fourth of July is revealed to be a practical joke by a couple of kids, the two boys pop up to see the entire Amity coast guard pointing rifles at them, prompting one of them to give this hasty excuse:
      Kid: (pointing) He made me do it! He talked me into it...
    • If you listen carefully, you can hear little Sean angrily declaring, "Michael, I don't like you no more!" when the latter refuses to wait for him to catch up while they're playing at the beach.
  • Quint and Brody ironing out the finer details of his payment for catching the shark.
    Quint: $10,000. $200 a day whether I catch him or not.
    Brody: You got it.
    Quint: Get the Mayor off my back so I don't have any more of this zoning crap.
    Brody: You got it.
    Quint: One case of apricot brandy, and you buy the lunch.
    Brody: Two cases. You get dinner when you get back.
    Quint: Champagne, pate de foie gras, Iranian caviar, and don't forget the color TV.
  • As the Orca departs, Quint teases Brody and Hooper with a bunch of nautical phrases.
    "Up periscope! Rig for depth charge! Nor'easter coming! Bad news for Madison Avenue!"
  • Brody's grumbling as he scoops bait into the water. Just before the shark pops up.
    Brody: "Slow ahead". I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chum some of this shit!
  • "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Even funnier is how the audience knows exactly why Brody is saying that when he finally saw the shark. And all through the rest of the scene, Brody is babbling about calling in a bigger boat. Quint keeps ignoring him all the same. Even the editor seems to get tired of it and fades to the next scene while he's still going. It's even more hilarious once you realize that line was completely ad-libbed. Both the book author and the credited screenwriter expressed jealousy at Roy Scheider just making that up on the spot.
    • It's also funny, in a Black Comedy sort of way, that for all of Brody's kvetching about needing a bigger boat, he's right. They're in way over their heads; if they'd listened to Brody and gone in for a better-equipped boat, the hunt probably would have gone a lot more smoothly.
    • Equally funny is the face he makes when he spots the shark. You can tell his brain is calculating how close his hand just came to being bitten off.
    • Also note that he specifically said "you're". The implication there is that Brody would very much like to get off this ride now.
  • When the shark makes its first appearance while the trio are out on the Orca, Brody's reaction is to freak out, and Quint's is to prepare to harpoon it. Hooper's reaction is to excitedly grab his camera and start snapping photos, while demanding that Brody get closer to the shark in order to give it a reference point for size. Brody... is not pleased with this plan.
    Hooper: I need to have something in the foreground to give it some scale!
    Brody: Foreground my ass!
  • When Quint sees the shark cage, he doubts its reliability, saying, "You go inside the cage? Cage goes in the water? You go in the water? Shark's in the water. Our shark," then smiles and starts singing, "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain!"
  • At one point, Quint crushes a beer can in his hand,note  and Hooper responds by doing the same thing with a styrofoam cup.
  • As Quint and Hooper drunkenly share battle scars from their various undersea encounters, Brody looks down at his appendectomy scar and decides to keep quiet.
    • Hooper revealing his worst scar:
      "Mary Ellen Moffett. She broke my heart"
    • And the other two men cracking up as not only do they find his joke amusing, they can all empathize.
  • Quint's treatment of Hooper, in particular, seems to have more to do with white collar vs. blue collar conflict than age. When Quint pejoratively refers to Hooper as a college boy, the implication is that Hooper has led a sheltered life, in contrast to the hard knocks that Quint has experienced. He then takes Hooper down a peg and reveals that just because he isn't as educated as Hooper doesn't mean he's stupid.
    Quint: Well, it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys, don't have the education to admit when you're wrong.
  • Hooper making faces at Quint after this rebuke (as seen in the image to the right of this page). The college boy is smart enough to wait until Quint has turned his back.
  • Quint's continual rejection of Hooper produces some infamous, yet memorable moments:
    Quint: You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life.
    Hooper: All right, all right. Hey, I don't need this... I don't need this working-class-hero crap.
  • This exchange:
    Brody: It doesn't make sense that they pay a guy like you to watch sharks.
    Hooper: It doesn't make sense for someone who's afraid of water to live on an island.
    Brody: It's only an island when you look at it from the water.
    Hooper: That makes a lot of sense.
  • A deleted scene finds Quint going to a music store to buy some piano wire... and ends with him yelling Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" at a kid who can't play it on clarinet. Naturally, this exchange comes out of nowhere and is promptly forgotten.
  • The horrifying scene of Charlie barely escaping the shark ends on a fairly amusing note. He probably says the most logical thing anyone could say after experiencing such fright:
    Charlie: Can we go home now?
    • Which is followed by a Gilligan Cut of an amused Hendricks telling Brody the story and wondering how Charlie's going to explain to his wife what happened to the pot roast he used as bait.
  • Hooper's reaction to being plunged into darkness during the night attack and exchange with Brody.
    Hooper: He ate the lights.
    Brody: Terrific.
    Hooper: Excuse me.
  • Brody's reaction after Quint destroyed the radio.
    Brody: THAT'S GREAT! THAT'S JUST GREAT! NOW WHERE THE HELL ARE WE HUH?! YOU'RE CERTIFIABLE, QUINT, YOU KNOW THAT?! YOU'RE CERTIFIABLE!
    Quint: Yeah, yeah, yeah...
    • Hooper has to remind them, oh yeah, they have a rather large and angry shark they have to deal with....
      Hooper: Oh boys.... Oh, boys... I think he's come back for his noon feeding.
  • In a behind the scenes case, Steven Spielberg's friend George Lucas visited the set and was very impressed with Bruce the shark. As he stuck his head into the mouth for a closer look, Spielberg pranked him by hitting the button to close it...and as usual, the mechanics malfunctioned and it was quite a job to get Lucas unstuck.
  • Quint spots Hooper playing solitaire with cards and utters "Stop playing with yourself Hooper!"
  • Quint when it seems like they are going to be able to bring the shark into shallow water and drown it.
    "Back home we got a taxidermy man! He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him!"

The ride:

  • Though it mostly depends on which one you get, the skippers are this at some points in the ride, especially when they playfully alter their spiel to poke fun at some of the guests.

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