Original artwork, not a still
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
— Ferris Bueller's Day Off • 1986
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Said by a teenager grinning at the camera while he plays hooky, so the advice feels like a wink, not a lecture. It is a defence of the day off and a dare to the audience to try one. Because it is short, true and easy to say, it has outlived the film as a graduation-card line, a motto for slowing down, and the sentence people quote when they are about to stop working and wander.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Ferris Bueller's Day OffShow the scene
John Hughes's 1986 comedy has Ferris Bueller, a Chicago-suburb high-schooler who fakes illness to skip school, talk straight to the camera through the whole film. He first says the line in his opening address to the audience, just after explaining how to fake a stomach cramp for a worried mother, when he swerves from the pre-class test on European socialism into a wider thought. He repeats it near the end, back in bed after the long day in the city has barely ended, as his parents leave the room, and the film's post-credits scene follows it with a last joke at the viewer.
Sources (3)
- Wikiquote: Ferris Bueller's Day OffFerris Bueller sectionReference checked
- Wikipedia: Ferris Bueller's Day OffLead; infoboxReference checked
- Wikiquote: Ferris Bueller's Day OffSecond occurrence of the lineReference checked
Context reviewed
