The best Mia Wallace quotes show why Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman will go down in film history as one of the great pairings of an actor and a director. Their collaborations are limited to Pulp Fiction and both volumes of Kill Bill, but that was enough to solidify their lasting legacy. Pulp Fiction is one of Tarantino’s most quotable movies, packed with memorable characters. Uma Thurman has played a ton of different characters since her star-making turn in Pulp Fiction, but Mia Wallace is still one of her most memorable roles.
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Mia Wallace’s verbose dialogue was perfectly suited to Thurman’s articulate delivery style, while she had more than enough genuine coolness to show that Mia’s attitude was more than just an act, making her a true standout in the movie. Though she appears at various points throughout Pulp Fiction, Mia’s really only in one segment, but she leaves a distinct impression. Thurman imbued the character with such a high degree of enigmatic charm that it’s impossible for fans of ’90s movies not to know at least a couple of the best Mia Wallace quotes.
14 “In Conversation, Do You Listen Or Wait To Talk?”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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This line is actually from a deleted scene, but it’s a shame it got cut because it’s one of the most thoughtful Mia Wallace quotes. When people engage in conversation, they either take in what the other person is saying and use it as a springboard to provoke a deeper discussion, or they simply wait for that person to stop talking so that they can say what’s on their mind.
Related Pulp Fiction: The 30 Best Quotes
Pulp Fiction is filled with some of the best dialogue ever uttered in a major film and these quotes are proof of that.
Mia asks Vincent Vega (John Travolta), “In conversation, do you listen or wait to talk?” to which Vincent replies, “I have to admit that I wait to talk, but I’m trying harder to listen.” It is an interesting back-and-forth and not only shows what Mia thinks when she looks at life but also gives some insight into Vincent Vega as well, since he spent much of the movie learning from Samuel Jackson’s Jules about zen and the need to actually pay attention to others around him.
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13 “When You Little Scamps Get Together, You’re Worse Than A Sewing Circle.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
When Vincent tells Mia about a rumor he heard about her, she tells him that he and his “little scamp” friends – in other words, the contract killers that work for her mob boss husband – are “worse than a sewing circle.” It’s an endearingly comical take on Vincent’s profession, but it also serves as a stark reminder that people in his line of work are day-to-day encounters to the wife of Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).
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This is a cute look into the world of organized crime and the idea that the people involved are all mostly gossip-spreading busybodies, much like anyone else in the world. The entire moment earlier in the film that showed Vincent and Jules talking about the Samoan who was thrown out of the window for possibly massaging Mia’s feet was a perfect example of how even these stone-cold killers love to spread rumors as much as nosy Parkers involved in sewing circles.
12 “I Want That Trophy, So Dance Good.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
When Mia and Vincent are eating at Jack Rabbit Slim’s and the emcee announces the restaurant’s world-famous dance contest, Mia decides she wants to take part – and she wants to win. Winning a dance contest boils down to dancing good to win a trophy. Mia sums it up perfectly: “I do believe Marsellus Wallace, my husband, your boss, told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted. Now, I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good.”
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It leads into one of the most iconic dance scenes of the 90s, and they do indeed “dance good.” The quote is fun because Vincent Vega really doesn’t want to do this at all, but he knows he has to do whatever Mia wants per orders from her husband and Vincent’s boss. However, there is also another fun twist to this. John Travolta is known for his dance moves thanks to the movie Saturday Night Fever, so this gave Quentin Tarantino a chance to show off the actor’s skills in Pulp Fiction.
11 “Through No Fault Of My Own, I Would Have Broken My Promise.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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When Vincent has something to tell Mia, he tells her to promise that she won’t get offended. However, she explains that she can’t make such a promise. She says, “You can’t promise something like that. I have no idea what you’re going to ask me. So, you can go ahead and ask me what you’re going to ask me, and my natural response could be to get offended. Then, through no fault of my own, I would have broken my promise.”
Mia and Vincent’s dinner conversation is generally fascinating, but this Mia Wallace quote is one of the most thought-provoking parts of the whole evening. Of course, the entire question was about the foot massage that he and Jules had spoken of, which reportedly got a man thrown out of a window by Marsellus Wallace. Despite the subject that Vincent wanted to raise, Mia’s answer was perfect because she honestly explained that what he was asking of her was impossible.
10 “That’s When You Know You’ve Found Somebody Really Special; You Can Just Shut The F*** Up For A Minute And Comfortably Share Silence.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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There’s a lot of sexual tension between Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. In a lesser movie, they would fall in love over the course of the night and kiss when Vincent dropped Mia off back at home at the end of their pseudo-date. Instead of getting together, however, their connection is left unspoken, but this Mia Wallace quote is still romantically charged and highly memorable to boot. They know they have something pretty special, but they also know they’ll never be able to act on it.
This also could have been a test for Vincent Vega. He knows he has to do whatever Mia wants for the night, but he also knows there is a line he can’t cross, or it could mean his life. Mia could be toying with Vincent here, or she could be honest with him, which she is for almost the entire evening, no matter what she says. Mostly, she lets Vincent know she thinks he is someone special, but they both know it can’t go any further than just words, and they leave it at that.
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9 “Don’t Be A… *Draws Square*”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
Some fans have pointed out that Mia Wallace actually draws a rectangle in the air and not a square, despite the fact that she’s telling Vincent not to be a square, but that just adds to the quirkiness of the moment. It’s odd for a Tarantino movie to add something over the frame like an animated square appearing at Uma Thurman’s fingertips, but it fits, leading to one of the better–if shorter–Mia Wallace quotes.
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The originally intended ending for Pulp Fiction would have been a more tragic and grisly finale and would have lost the film’s thematic strength.
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Pulp Fiction is an exercise in postmodernism, and so when something pops up to remind the audience that this is just a movie, it works. Tarantino has always pulled from his love of past movies for his directorial masterpieces, and seeing something like Mia drawing the square while talking plays into the movies that he homages here. There were drawn squares in everything from to the The Parent Trap to The Flintstones to Three Little Bops, and many more.
8 “Three Tomatoes Are Walking Down The Street…”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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Thanks to Pulp Fiction, a lot of moviegoers are familiar with the TV production process. Mia Wallace explains that she once appeared in a TV pilot called Fox Force Five (a pilot being the first episode of a show that is used to determine if it’s worth making into a series). Her character was supposed to tell a corny joke in every episode, but they only did one episode, so she only ever got to tell one joke, leading to an excellent Mia Wallace quote:
“Three tomatoes are walking down the street: a papa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Papa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smushes him…and says, ‘Catch up.’”
What made this joke even better was Vincent Vega’s small laugh and Mia’s admission that it wasn’t that funny. However, the entire moment, coming after all the trauma involving Mia’s near-death experience, made this bad joke a perfect moment in their story.
7 “Trying To Forget Anything As Intriguing As This Would Be An Exercise In Futility.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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When Vincent Vega tells Mia Wallace that he has something to tell her, she wants to know what it is, but then he changes his mind about telling her and instructs her to forget it. However, as she tells him, once he’s introduced the notion that he has something tantalizing to tell her, it’s impossible for her to just forget about it. She won’t be able to let it go until she’s told what that is.
It’s easy to relate to this Mia Wallace quote, and the way that Tarantino makes these larger-than-life characters feel normal is a big part of Pulp Fiction‘s everlasting charm. This happened when Vincent wanted to ask Mia about the moment with the foot massage that he and Jules had talked about. The entire rumor was that Marsellus Wallace threw a man out of a window for massaging Mia’s feet, and now Vincent wants to know if it is true. He is embarrassed, but Mia won’t let him out of it since he started the question.
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6 “I Have To Go Powder My Nose.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
Pulp Fiction was controversial for a lot of things, like its violence and its language, but one of the most contentious elements was drug use. Drug use is never glamorized by the movie, however, and is shown to be very dangerous, as seen in Mia’s overdose scene. There’s a sinister undercurrent running throughout everything in Pulp Fiction‘s depiction of Los Angeles.
Just like the novelty waiters dressed as tragically dead stars who are serving Vincent and Mia their food at dinner, there’s a darkness to the Hollywood glamour that goes largely unspoken. Mia’s euphemism for doing cocaine in the bathroom is fittingly old-fashioned and on-the-nose as a result. Of course, this quote was full of dark undertones and innuendo, and the “powder” that Mia was planning to use was going up her nose, not on it. It was a nice double-meaning, and everyone knew what she was referring to.
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5 “Don’t You Just Love It When You Come Back From The Bathroom And Find Your Food Waiting For You?”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
This is another really relatable Mia Wallace quote. The magic of returning to a restaurant table to a freshly delivered plate of food is one of those everyday occurrences that are universally identifiable, yet is so mundane that it rarely gets a mention in movies and TV shows. Tarantino’s movies have always been famous for their dialogue, but lines like this in Pulp Fiction are so perfect in such a simple way that they almost sound poetic without appearing to try.
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Mia Wallace has one thing going for her that Vincent Vega doesn’t. She is easy with the one-liners, and she seems comfortable making conversation, likely thanks to all the people that Marsellus has come in to ensure that she remains entertained. While Vincent mostly sits uneasy, unsure of what to say, Mia has little lines like this to spark up a conversation, and it is something that really drives this entire diner scene between the two characters, keeping it memorable.
4 “Something.”
Mia Wallace To Lance
One of the most thrilling and breathtaking sequences in Pulp Fiction is the one where Mia Wallace snorts some of Vincent’s heroin, mistaking it for cocaine, and starts to overdose. Vincent panics because it’s his boss’ wife, and if she dies, he dies. So, he gets her into his car and rushes her over to his drug dealer Lance’s (Eric Stoltz) house to get her an adrenaline shot. This leads to the intense scene of driving the adrenaline needle into her chest and wishing for the best.
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When she awakens from the adrenaline shot, Lance says, “If you’re all right, then say something,” and Mia jokingly says, “Something.” There are longer and more eloquent Mia Wallace quotes, but none quite as funny. It is also a perfect moment for Tarantino to add here. With such an intense and disturbing scene, things build to a crescendo, and then the small one-line joke that Mia delivers after almost dying is all that is needed to allow the characters and audience to come down from this high.
3 “Uncomfortable Silences. Why Do We Feel It’s Necessary To Yack About Bulls*** In Order To Be Comfortable?”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
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As this Mia Wallace quote points out, it often feels like all silences are uncomfortable when in the company of a vaguely familiar acquaintance, but they don’t have to be. As long as that acquaintance is someone like Mia Wallace, the silences don’t have to be uncomfortable, because they’ll point this out. Mia isn’t just a great character to see in a movie; she seems like a real person that anyone could strike up an interesting conversation with.
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For someone who is as easy to talk to as Mia Wallace, she knows and recognizes that Vincent Vega is not as comfortable having conversations with other people. This is a line that makes Vincent feel a little more comfortable and also continues to paint Mia in a light that shows that she might be the most honest person in this entire movie. With so many criminals and killers in Pulp Fiction, Mia is the one person who doesn’t fear speaking the truth, and she does it in the perfect situations.
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2 “The Only Thing Antoine Ever Touched Of Mine Was My Hand, When He Shook It, At My Wedding.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
The running storyline about why Marsellus threw Tony Rocky Horror from a fourth-floor window is an interesting one, and it doesn’t get fully explained. Even Mia Wallace doesn’t have the full story. She just confirms that what Vincent heard about the foot rub, the rumor that made him terrified to take her out for dinner, is just a rumor. She even points out that he should’ve been able to tell that from how unreasonable it sounds.
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The fact it’s never resolved, with Mia saying it’s between Marsellus and Tony Rocky Horror and them alone, adds to the mystique of the movie and creates a very memorable Mia Wallace quote. It is an interesting way to tie up the storyline and relieve Mia of the perceived guilt at his misfortune. It also shows that a lot of the gossip and rumor spreading from people like Jules and Vincent was mostly false and not reliable at all. This quote was just a nice way to tie up that fable.
1 “This Doesn’t Sound Like The Usual Mindless, Boring, Getting-To-Know-You Chit-Chat. This Sounds Like You Have Something To Say.”
Mia Wallace To Vincent Vega
Mia Wallace’s defining characteristic is that she refuses to fall for all of society’s traps. Banal chit-chat is just a symptom of social convention, and Mia realizes that and rejects it. This is a common theme in Tarantino’s movies, starting with the very first scene of his very first film in which the Reservoir Dogs gangsters are eating breakfast in a diner and Steve Buscemi’s Mr. Pink starts protesting automated tipping like he’s Larry David.
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When Mia realizes that something actually needs to be said, she’s excited because it gives her a break from the mundanity of the social norms and offers up another of her best quotes. Mia is not a person who cares about beating around the bush. She is honest, and she says what is on her mind. She expects no less from the people she chooses to spend time with. It is what makes her one of the best Pulp Fiction characters.
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8.3/10 Pulp Fiction RDramaCrime
Quentin Tarantino’s classic tale of violence and redemption follows the intertwining tales of three protagonists: hitman Vincent Vega, prizefighter Butch Coolidge, and Vincent’s business partner Jules Winnfield.
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*Availability in US Director Quentin Tarantino Release Date October 14, 1994 Distributor(s) Miramax Films Cast John Travolta , Bruce Willis , Ving Rhames , Samuel L. Jackson , Uma Thurman , Christopher Walken , Tim Roth , Harvey Keitel , Eric Stoltz , Rosanna Arquette Runtime 154 minutes