“Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” And Forrest Gump’s mama was right too, both about life and cinema. The silver screen has yielded a slew of catchphrases in our lifetime, from pithy (“I’ll be back”) to punchy (“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”).

A few years back, to salute the Hollywood century, the American Film Institute chose the top 100 quotable film quotes, with Rhett Butler’s earlier farewell to Scarlett O’Hara the winner. Second went to Don Corleone’s “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

No other movie matches this local classic’s linguistic legacy.

Catchier nominees included Casablanca’s toast (“Here’s looking at you, kid”), 007’s introduction (“Bond, James Bond”), Dorothy’s dread (“We’re not in Kansas any more”) plus Jerry Maguire’s plea: “Show me the money!” Of course, that same drama also lent us the line from Renee Zellweger’s own Dorothy: “You had me at hello.”

Several films in fact, like Casablanca and Star Wars, and the Terminator franchise, have embedded multiple quotes in our psyche. Though here in Australia, there is one clear winner, as a recent phone call reminded me.

Last week, on ABC Radio Victoria, I invited Evenings listeners to build a list of movie locations, not quotations, as seen in homegrown films. Streams of calls and texts arrived, with listeners sharing Beulah (The Dry), Robertson (Babe) and Coburg (Chopper).

But then came the call from Costas, a member of Castle royalty.

“It was a bit of dumb luck, being in the right place at the right time. I went to uni with Rob (Sitch), Tom (Gleisner) and Santo (Cilauro). And when they wrote The Castle, they were thinking of some of the characters I’d played onstage with them. They wrote Farouk with those characters in mind.”

Costas proved to be Constantinos Kilias, now a Melbourne magistrate, but forever Darryl Kerrigan’s neighbour Farouk in our zeitgeist, thanks to The Castle of 1997.