I guess sometimes the past just catches up with you, whether you want it to or not. Usually death row was called "the Last Mile". We called ours "the Green Mile" - the floor was the color of faded limes. We had the electric chair, "Old Sparky" we called it. Oh, I've lived a lot of years, Ellie, but 1935 - that takes the prize. That year I had the worst urinary infection of my life, and… that was… that was also the year of… John Coffey and… the two dead girls.

[Repeated line] What happens on the Mile stays on the Mile. Always has.

I've done some things in my life I'm not proud of, but this is the first time I've ever felt in real danger of hell.

A big man is ripping your ears off, Percy! I'd do as he says!

[Edgecomb talks to Warden Moores about sadistic guard Percy.] The man is mean and careless and stupid, and that's a bad combination in a place like this. Sooner or later, he's gonna get somebody hurt, or worse.

And you, Elaine. You'll die, too. And my curse… is knowing that I'll be there to see it. It's my torment, you see. It's my punishment for lettin' John Coffey ride the lightnin'. For killin' a miracle of God. … You'll be gone like all the others, and I'll have to stay. Oh, I'll die eventually — of that I'm sure. I have no illusions of immortality. But I will have wished for death… long before death finds me. In truth, I wish for it already.

We each owe a death — there are no exceptions, I know that — but, sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile seems so long.

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.

And I think about all of us. Walking our own green mile; each in our own time.

[Coffey thinks of Top Hat as he's being strapped to the electric chair.] [singing/sobbing] Heaven… I'm in heaven… heaven…