Top Gun quotes: 30 best lines from 1986 movie with Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis pre-Maverick release

Thirty-six years on from the original Top Gun movie, people still feel the need for speed as the sequel premieres
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Tom Cruise graced the screens as Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell more than 30 years ago in the 1986 action movie Top Gun.

The original movie, released on 16 May 1986, captured people’s hearts from the award-winning soundtrack and daredevil stunts, to the memorable quotes from Cruise, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis and Anthony Edwards, among others.

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Joining Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, set to be released,  is Kilmer returning as Iceman, and newcomers Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly and Jon Hamm.

Tom Cruise as Pete Maverick Mitchell in Top Gun 1986 (Pic: Corbis/Getty)Tom Cruise as Pete Maverick Mitchell in Top Gun 1986 (Pic: Corbis/Getty)
Tom Cruise as Pete Maverick Mitchell in Top Gun 1986 (Pic: Corbis/Getty)

Here are 30 famous quotes from 1986 Top Gun to get you up to speed ahead of the sequel:

  1. Maverick: “I feel the need…”  Goose: “...the need for speed.”
  2. Maverick: “It’s classified, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”
  3. Goose: “Great balls of fire”
  4. Iceman: “You’re everyone’s problem. You’re unsafe. I don’t like you because you’re dangerous.  Maverick: “That’s right Iceman, I am dangerous.”
  5. Charlie: “Listen, can I ask you a personal question.  Maverick: “That depends.  Charlie: “Are you a good pilot?  Maverick: “I can hold my own.  Charlie: “Great, then I don’t have to worry about you making your living as a singer.”
  6. Stinger: “Maverick, you just did an incredibly brave thing. What you should have done was land the plane! You don’t own that plane! The taxpayers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash!”
  7. Carole: “Take me to bed or lose me forever.   Goose: “Show me the way home, honey.”
  8. Slider: “Remember boys, no points for second place.”
  9. After Charlie (McGillis) walks away, Maverick: “I’m going to need a beer to put these flames out. Yo! Great Mav, real slick!”
  10. As seen in the new Top Gun 2 trailer, famous 1986 lines are referenced to such as, Maverick: “You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.” 
  11. Jester: “That was some of the best flying I’ve seen to date - right up to the part where you got killed.”
  12. Iceman: “You can be my wingman.   Maverick: “Bull—- you can be mine!”
  13. Maverick: “Talk to me, Goose.”
  14. Goose to Maverick: “Every time we go up there, it’s like you’re flying with a ghost.”
  15. Maverick: “I think I’ll go embarrass myself with Goose.”
  16. Carole: “God, he loved flying with you Maverick. But he would’ve done it anyway…without you. He’d have hated it, but he would have done it.”
  17. Maverick: “What’s your problem, Kazansky?”
  18. Jester: “His fitness report says it all. Flies by the seat of his pants, totally unpredictable.   Viper: “He got you, didn’t he?”
  19. Carole: “Hey Goose, you big stud!    Goose: “That’s me, honey.”
  20. Charlie: “No, I don’t date students.”
  21. Maverick: “I will fire when I’m (expletive) good and ready! You got that?”
  22. Charlie: “I’ll have what he’s having. Hemlock, is it?  Maverick: “Ice water.”
  23. Air Boss Johnson: “Two of your snot-nose jockeys did a fly-by on my tower at 400 knots! I want somebody’s butt, I want it now, I’ve had it.”
  24.  Walking into the bar, Maverick said: “This is what I call a target-rich environment.”
  25. Nick: “Let’s turn and burn!”
  26. Goose: “No boys, there’s two O’s in Goose!”
  27. Slider: “...whose butts did you kiss to get in here anyway.   Goose: “Well, the list is long but distinguished.”
  28. Goose: “The defence department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid.”
  29. Maverick: “I can see it’s dangerous for you, but if the government trusts me, maybe you could?   Charlie: “It takes a lot more than fancy flying.”
  30. In Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise’s character is brought back to teach new pilots on a dangerous mission. In the original movieMaverick said: “I thought of being an instructor, sir.   Stinger: “In Top Gun?  Maverick: “Yes, sir.   Stinger: “God help us.”

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