Taken: A Very Particular Set Of 15 Memorable Quotes

There are only three official Taken movies, although it feels like we’ve seen a lot more since the first one inspired a transformation in Liam Neeson’s movie career that led to a string of rip-offs. Neeson’s subsequent action films have borrowed a lot from Taken, whether it’s the European setting, the ex-law enforcement protagonist, the race against time plot, or simply the sight of the actor himself holding a gun.

The Taken sequels never managed to recapture the visceral magic of the original, but Bryan Mills killing people is Bryan Mills killing people and the dialogue throughout the franchise is just as tense and memorable.

Updated on June 28th, 2021 by Kristen Palamara: Taken has become a memorable action franchise mainly for the unforgettable dialogue throughout the movie. Taken movie quotes are always intense and typically the most exciting quotes are from main character, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), as he relentlessly tracks down his daughter in the first movie using his "particular set of skills" that he's garnered over the years. Although the first movie premiered over a decade ago, people still use Taken quotes and reference the movie because of its standout dialogue.

15 "The Next Part Is Very Important. They're Going To Take You."

Bryan Mills' daughter calls him frantically saying that a group of men has broken into her hotel room while she's traveling abroad. Kim tells him everything that's happening and he keeps calm while telling her what to do.

She hides under the bed in a tense scene where her friend is taken by the men and she whispers that they're in the bedroom looking for her. Bryan delivers this memorable line telling her that she's going to be taken and sets up the entire franchise and giving it its name.

14 "You Don't Have To Worry." / "That's Like Telling Water Not To Be Wet, Sweetie."

Bryan's daughter Kim is about to travel abroad with a friend for the first time and of course, her father is worried about her. Kim tells him that he has no need to worry about her because she's a grown-up and everything will be fine.

Bryan tells her that he has to worry about her and her telling him not to doesn't help. It's a memorable line because, as the title suggests and every fan knows, he did have a reason to worry as Kim is taken on the trip.

13 "I Would Sacrifice Anything For Her."

It's clear from the very beginning of the franchise that this quote is true and Bryan would surely do anything and everything to keep his daughter safe. Bryan wanting and needing to keep his daughter Kim safe is the essential plot to the first Taken movie.

Bryan says this line and proves again and again that he would do anything for the people that he loves including hunting down and killing anyone involved with his daughter's disappearance.

12 "You Either Give Me What I Need Or This Switch Will Stay On Until They Turn The Power Off For Lack of Payment On The Bill."

As this quite shows, Bryan can switch from a loving father to easily one of the most terrifying men anyone could come across especially a villain on Bryan's bad side. Bryan captures one of the people he believes was involved with kidnapping his daughter.

He interrogates him and tortures him by electrocuting him over and over again in a grueling scene. Bryan delivers one of his badass lines here as he threatens to turn on the switch that electrocutes the man and leave it on until the power goes out in order to get the information he needs.

11 "I Push One Button And 38 Agents Are Here Before You Have Time To Scratch Your Worthless Balls."

In the same scene where Bryan is torturing a man to get information about where he can find his daughter, he says this line as well. One of Bryan's most memorable action hero traits is that he's able to be calm in tense situations and says that he can have 38 agents in the room just from pushing one button, but only Bryan and the audience know that's not true.

Bryan continues to torture the man until he tells him what he needs to hear to continue looking for his daughter, and he ends up murdering the man by leaving the electrocution switch on anyway.

10 “You Don’t Remember Me? We Spoke On The Phone Two Days Ago. I Told You I Would Find You.”

In real life, people don’t get closure half as often as people do in movies, but that’s why audiences go to the movies. It’s more satisfying than real life. In a real-life version of Taken, it’s highly unlikely that anyone could get to a city halfway around the world and track down their kidnapped daughter within 96 hours.

But fans enjoy the fantasy of Bryan Mills shooting first and asking questions later until he finds Kim. And they really enjoy the payoff of that iconic phone call scene when Bryan has tracked down Marko – the guy who infamously said, “Good luck!” – and reminds him who he is.

9 “Now’s Not The Time For D*** Measuring, Stuart!”

Xander Berkeley has been typecast as characters who are the absolute worst. He’s played the kind of character in The Walking Dead, 24, Terminator 2, Candyman, and Taken is no different. He plays Stuart, the new husband of Lenore who is a hundred times as rich and a fraction as useful as Bryan.

When Bryan comes over to their house after Kim’s been kidnapped and starts asking Stuart about his overseas business, Stuart mentions that he has “a few resources.” Bryan brilliantly calls out his “d**k measuring” during a time of crisis. The guy’s daughter has kidnapped and Stuart is bragging about his resources.

8 “I’ll Be Fine, But The Guys Following Us Are About To Have A Problem.”

Sure, Bryan’s observational skills are depicted as unrealistically sharp, but that’s the fun of it, and this quote is definitely one of the franchise's most fun. Viewers re not supposed to believe that this is a real CIA agent in the real world who can figure out where he’s being driven based on the sounds of the traffic around them.

The audience is just supposed to accept that as the reality of the film and root for him regardless. And it does. In many ways, Bryan Mills is like a superhero. When he realizes that he and Lenore are being followed, he lets her out of the car and tells her that he won’t have a problem, but the guys on their tail will.

7 “This Guy Right Here, He Knows How To Disappear.”

Taken 3 failed to live up to the original, or even the second one, but Forest Whitaker was a fun addition to the franchise in the role of Inspector Franck Dotzler, the cop assigned to hunt down Bryan after he’s framed for his wife’s murder.

Dotzler has a great scene near the beginning of the movie where he takes us through Mills’ unseen background: “At 21, he joins the Army. At 23, he joins the Special Forces. He’s a trained sniper, an explosives expert. No service record, no discharge record, nothing. This guy right here, he knows how to disappear.”

6 “That’s What Happens When You Sit Behind A Desk! You Forget Things! Like The Weight In The Hand Of A Gun That’s Loaded And One That’s Not!”

Every action thriller about a lone wolf on a rampage needs the “old friend” character. John Wick has dozens of “old friends” who happen to owe him favors when he needs them the most. Bryan Mills is the same and one old friend elicits one of his most memorable lines.

When his daughter is kidnapped in Paris, he happens to be friends with a cop working in Paris named Jean-Claude. By the end of the movie, they’re not friends, because Jean-Claude is unhappy with the trail of bodies Bryan is leaving in his wake. He tries to shoot Bryan, but then Bryan reveals he already took out all the bullets, which Jean-Claude would’ve noticed if he wasn’t a desk jockey.

5 “It Was All Business. It Wasn’t Personal."/ "It Was All Personal To Me.”

One-liners in action movies usually take the audience out of the reality of the movie, but the Taken films have a way of weaving badass one-liners organically into the dialogue while remaining grounded, mostly thanks to the acting of Liam Neeson.

This is on display when Saint Clair, the guy the audience last saw ordering his goons to quietly kill Bryan so as to not disturb his party guests, is horrified to see that Bryan has escaped and he’s armed. He tries to plead with him that their kidnapping and trafficking of his daughter wasn’t a personal thing, but rather just business. Bryan isn’t having any of it, telling him that to him, it was personal, before killing him.

4 “What Are You Going To Do?"/"I’m Going To Finish This.”

Liam Neeson has unequivocally denied that Taken 4 will ever happen. It’s probably for the best, too, because Taken 3 wrapped up the story of Bryan Mills in a neat bow – and trilogies are neater than quadrilogies when it comes to storytelling and DVD box sets.

The full-circle nature of the Taken trilogy is summed up in this line. The first movie left behind unfinished business. Then, the second movie left behind even more unfinished business. In the third movie, after being framed for his wife’s murder and going on the run, he finally got the chance to “finish this.”

3 “I Believe You...But It’s Not Gonna Save You.”

The torture scene in the first Taken movie is surprisingly graphic for a movie with a PG-13 rating. Bryan sends electricity pumping through Marko’s veins until he reveals what happened to his daughter. First, he tells him that they sold her. Then, he tells him who they sold her to.

After that, Bryan doesn’t need any more information, and Marko pleads with him that he doesn’t know anything else. Bryan does believe him, but he also doesn’t want to let him go. Just because he told Bryan everything he knows, doesn’t mean he didn’t kidnap and sell his daughter, so he grimly leaves him with the electricity on. It's a cold moment from Bryan but lines like this are what help to make that iciness seem cool rather than callous.

2 “If I Kill You, Your Other Sons Will Come And Seek Revenge."/ "They Will."/ "Then I Will Kill Them, Too.”

Taken 2 might not have been the best sequel, but it did have some memorable lines and a pretty good premise, as this one shows, for an action movie sequel. In Taken, like in most action movies, the lead character killed a ton of people. Those people all had families, and so naturally, at least one of those families would want revenge against Bryan Mills.

From the audience's perspective, some guys kidnapped Bryan’s daughter and he killed them until he found her. But from their perspective, a maniac massacred all their friends and family. Bryan starts to get the idea when he tells the villain that it’ll just happen again if he kills him – but he’s ready for that.

1 “I Will Look For You, I Will Find You, And I Will Kill You.”

The phone speech has to be the franchise's most iconic scene. It’s one of the best monologues in action movie history and contains easily the most iconic quote from the Taken franchise.

Mills tells his daughter’s kidnappers, “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

NEXT: Liam Neeson: The 5 Best & 5 Worst Fight Scenes Of His Career, Ranked