"Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not 'Mr. Lebowski.' You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing."
The Dude explains to Jeffrey Lebowski that he is not Mr. Lebowski, the man whom the other men came to threaten for money the previous night. He is simply The Dude, who is mixed up in the whole thing by mistake. The line typifies the Dude's carefree, hippie dippie attitude. He does not want to be mistaken for a square and is making it clear that he is a chilled-out kind of guy.
"I'm saying, I see what you're getting at, Dude, he kept the money. My point is, here we are, it's shabbas, the sabbath, which I'm allowed to break only if it's a matter of life or death..."
Walter is committed to the cause of helping Dude in his pursuits, but he takes issue with the fact that the Dude is not caught in a matter of life and death. While Walter is a hot-headed war veteran who seems to mess up everything, he takes his conversion to Judaism very seriously, and practices with a restrained discipline that contrasts with the coarser elements of his character.
"Donny was a good bowler, and a good man. He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors... and bowling, and as a surfer he explored the beaches of Southern California, from La Jolla to Leo Carrillo and... up to... Pismo. He died, like so many young men of his generation, he died before his time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took him, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And so would Donny. Donny, who loved bowling. And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince."
Walter is giving his eulogy for Donny, whose ashes he and the Dude are about to throw into the Pacific Ocean. Nonetheless, he can't help but connect Donny's death to the death of the men he served with in Vietnam, a topic that he gets hung up on a lot.
"I had a rough night and I hate the fucking Eagles, man."
In a cab after getting beaten up by a belligerent cop in Malibu, the Dude asks the driver to change the station, as it is playing the Eagles, a band he despises. The driver resists his request, but the Dude cannot stand listening to a band he doesn't like. This quote shows that, while the Dude is not very particular about a lot of things, when it comes to the music he listens to, he gets very particular indeed.
"Is this your homework, Larry?"
After they find a paper in the back of Dude's car after it is stolen, Walter and Dude visit the house of the paper writer, a middle schooler named Larry. Larry doesn't say much, just staring slack-jawed at Walter and the Dude as Walter tries to intimidate him into admitting that he stole a million dollars from the car. Walter yells this at the young boy trying to get some answers out of him.
"The Dude abides."
This is the Dude's final line, and perhaps the most iconic line from the cult classic. He says it to the Stranger at the bowling alley, and it suggests that the Dude has found some key to enlightenment, that he is imperturbable and lives in a state of calmness and bliss that others can only dream of.
"Hey, nice marmot."
When the nihilists apprehend the Dude when he's taking a bath at home, he looks at the ferret that Uli is dragging around on a leash and says this, misidentifying the animal. This line shows that even in moments in which he is in danger, the Dude has a pleasant, affable attitude.
"That rug really tied the room together."
After Treehorn's men ruin his rug, Dude gets really hung up on the fact that he lost a good rug. Humorously, he notes that the rug "really tied the room together," a funny observation since the Dude hardly seems like someone who would care very much about interior decoration.
"Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr. Lebowski?"
After being flown in naked on a harness in her giant loft, Maude asks the Dude if a naked woman makes him uncomfortable, as she puts on a robe. Maude is a woman who loves to be provocative and wants nothing more than to bamboozle and entice.
"My only hope is that the big Lebowski kills me before the Germans can cut my dick off."
The Dude says this when tensions have heightened and it seems that he is in a particularly sticky situation. With no other options, he realizes that he is caught between two parties that want to hurt him: the nihilists who want him castrated, and Lebowski, who is angry at him for not paying off the nihilists.
