How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Chinatown.
Quote #1
MAN WITH KNIFE: You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses. (Flicks knife, cutting open Jake's nostril). Next time you lose the whole thing. Cut it off and feed it to my goldfish. Understand? Understand!?
This knife-wielding gangster doesn't hesitate to slit Jake Gittes' nostril open. This demonstrates the lengths the bad guys are going to in order to keep the reservoir off bounds, making sure no one discovers their plan to steal the water.
Quote #2
GITTES: I thought I was keeping someone from being hurt and actually I ended up making sure she was hurt.
This is the irony behind the whole movie. The same thing that happened to Jake with this unknown woman when he was working in Chinatown happens again with Evelyn Mulwray. He goes through all the work to uncover the mystery and bring the criminals to justice—but the criminals still win in the end.
Quote #3
CROSS: You may think you know what you're dealing with—but believe me, you don't… Why is that funny?
GITTES: It's what the District Attorney used to tell me in Chinatown.
When he was in Chinatown, Jake didn't know what he was dealing with because the culture and languages were so different from the world he was used to. In this case, Noah Cross's evil is at a whole different level, and the culture of corruption he's created goes way beyond the kind of sleaze that Jake normally encountered as a P.I.