The Usual Suspects Quotes

Context

This famous line is part of a monologue delivered by Roger "Verbal" Kint, played by Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995).

Who is Keyser Söze? President of a health insurance company? No, that's Kaiser Permanente. A delicious bread to dip in soup? No, that's a Kaiser roll. A delicious blend of fruit juices? No, that's SoBe.

We're not quite sure who Keyser Söze is, because in The Usual Suspects, the over-the-top story told by "Verbal" Kint is designed to mislead us. It's quite the metaphor when he says, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," because he's making us wonder if Keyser Söze exists at all.

Where you've heard it

This line paraphrases Charles Baudelaire—a philosopher, not a Lemony Snicket character—and was later paraphrased by another philosopher, Macklemore.

And, of course, Buzzfeed never met a quote it couldn't turn into a listicle.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Kevin Spacey's character is literally pretending to be someone that he's not, which is the very definition of pretentious.