"Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."
Red says this about Andy after Andy has escaped from prison, and it has both a literal and a figurative meaning. Andy was sent to prison for murders he did not commit, and Red suggests that he had to climb out of this figurative "river of shit" to find freedom. Additionally, Andy must literally crawl through the plumbing in order to escape from Shawshank. Thus, the line has a double meaning.
"There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."
Red has been rejected by the parole board every time he has met with them, but when he gives this speech after 40 years behind bars, they set him free. in this moment, Red stops telling the board what he believes they want to hear and finally speaks the truth. While his speech is irreverent and dismissive of the parole officers' attitudes, it shows them that his attitude towards his own guilt and regret is felt and internal, and for whatever reason proves to the authorities that he is reformed.
"Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours."
Andy tells his friends that while he was in solitary confinement he listened to music in his head to keep his sanity. He teaches them the importance of holding on to one's inner light in order to make it through hard times and prevent the prison from taking everything away from its prisoners. His ability to connect with his inner life and maintain a sense of that which the authorities "can't touch" is his lifeline, and what drives him to escape the prison and pursue his dream life.
"It's funny. On the outside, I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook."
After he begins helping Norton launder money for the prison, Andy notices this stark irony. In his real life, he was an honest banker, and he is innocent of the crime for which he has been locked up. It is not until he begins working for the warden at the prison that he begins actually committing crimes, an irony which does not escape him.
"I'd like to think that the last thing that went through his head, other than that bullet, was to wonder how the hell Andy Dufresne ever got the best of him."
Red narrates this line after Andy escapes and exposes Norton's nefarious business dealings to the police. Trapped in his office as police sirens blare outside, Norton opts to shoot himself in the face. This narration by Red highlights what an expert revenge Andy orchestrates, in that it leaves Norton with the realization that he has been bested by the ingenious inmate over whom he has lorded his power.
"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."
Red and Andy cannot seem to agree about the importance of hope. While Red sees it as a bad thing in that it can drive a man insane when it butts up against the hopelessness of prison life, Andy alleges that it is the most important thing, the thing that can stay with someone even through the hardest of moments. Here, Andy outlines his more optimistic perspective to his friend.
"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't wanna know. I would like to think they were singing about something that was so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you this voice soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away. For the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."
When Andy gets a donation of used books and records from the Senate, he finds a recording of the Mozart opera Le Nozze de Figaro and plays it over the loudspeaker for the entire prison. The inmates are spellbound by the sound of the music, the soaring soprano, and Red delivers this narration about how the music makes them feel free from their life of imprisonment and feel like they can commune with freedom and the outside world, if just for a moment.
"You eat when we say you eat! You shit when we say you shit! You piss when we say you piss!"
This command, yelled by the authoritarian captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, epitomizes the fascistic and oppressive structures of authority at the prison. With this line we see that even the bodily functions and needs of the prisoners do not belong to them.
"I don't waste time on losers, Tommy."
Andy says this to Tommy Williams, a young inmate who wants to learn how to read, having never received a proper education. In the process, Tommy loses his confidence and his will, but Andy insists that he is not a loser and he will be able to achieve his goals. This line shows that Andy is a generous and selfless person, who wants to help his fellow inmates be the best people they can be.
"Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone."
Red says this about Andy, his best friend, after Andy has managed to escape. He describes Andy's escape as a kind of inevitability, something that is "meant to be," and marvels at the fact that Andy was destined to escape imprisonment. Red expresses that he is proud of and happy for his friend, but he also expresses the fact that he misses him and that life is worse without him.
