It

It

by

Stephen King

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Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie Character Analysis

The bespectacled member of the Losers’ Club, who generally goes by “Richie.” Tozier is known for his barbed sense of humor, his love of rock-and-roll, and his fondness for comic impressions. Along with Beverly Marsh, he starts smoking cigarettes at the age of eleven. He later improves his talent for impressions, including that of an Irish cop partly influenced by Officer Aloysius Nell, and uses it to develop a career as Los Angeles’s most successful disc jockey. His latest nickname is “the Man of a Thousand Voices.” Richie is the son of Wentworth and Maggie Tozier. He is an A-student and gets the nickname “trashmouth” due to “his wise mouth and his face, which just begged to be pounded into new and exciting shapes.” When his jokes go too far, his friends warn him by saying “beep-beep.” Initially, he is the only member of the Losers’ Club who does not have a story about It. Later, while fleeing from the house on 29 Neibolt Street with Bill Denbrough, Richie is chased by It, in the form of a werewolf. Richie is a fan of 1950s “schlock” horror films and envisions the werewolf shortly after seeing the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Like Ben Hanscom and Mike Hanlon, he is unmarried in adulthood, though he had a two-and-a-half year relationship with his girlfriend, an attorney named Sandy, whom he came close to marrying twice.

Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie Quotes in It

The It quotes below are all either spoken by Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie or refer to Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Evil and the Supernatural Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

What a bunch of losers they had been—Stan Uris with his big Jew-boy nose, Bill Denbrough who could say nothing but "Hi-yo, Silver!" without stuttering so badly that it drove you almost dogshit, Beverly Marsh with her bruises and her cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of her blouse, Ben Hanscom who had been so big he looked like a human version of Moby Dick, and Richie Tozier with his thick glasses and his A averages and his wise mouth and his face which just begged to be pounded into new and exciting shapes. Was there a word for what they had been? Oh yes. There always was. Le mot juste. In this case le mot juste was wimps…

Related Characters: William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie , Stanley Uris , Beverly Marsh Rogan, Mike Hanlon
Related Symbols: Silver
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was no zipper on the thing's jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen's for a buck if you wanted it. Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf's jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.

Related Characters: It / Pennywise the Dancing Clown / Bob Gray, William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie
Related Symbols: Silver
Page Number: 385
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing bluejeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownup’s face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from the Tooth Fairy. No, he thinks. Not the Tooth Fairy. The Age Fairy.

Related Characters: Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie
Page Number: 744
Explanation and Analysis:

Mike said, “It's always been here, since the beginning of time…since before there were men anywhere, unless maybe there were just a few of them in Africa somewhere, swinging through the trees or living in caves. The crater's gone now, and the ice age probably scraped the valley deeper and changed some stuff around and filled the crater in…but It was here then, sleeping, maybe, waiting for the ice to melt, waiting for the people to come.” “That's why It uses the sewers and the drains,” Richie put in. “They must be regular freeways for It.”

Related Characters: Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie (speaker), Mike Hanlon (speaker), It / Pennywise the Dancing Clown / Bob Gray
Page Number: 773
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

Bill marked it as a paper boat. Stan saw it as a bird rising toward the sky—a phoenix, perhaps. Michael saw a hooded face—that of crazy Butch Bowers, perhaps, if it could only be seen. Richie saw two eyes behind a pair of spectacles. Beverly saw a hand doubled up into a fist. Eddie believed it to be the face of the leper, all sunken eyes and wrinkled snarling mouth—all disease, all sickness, was stamped into that face. Ben Hanscom saw a tattered pile of wrappings and seemed to smell old sour spices […] Henry Bowers would see it as the moon, full, ripe…and black.

Related Characters: William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie , Eddie Kaspbrak , Beverly Marsh Rogan, Mike Hanlon, Henry Bowers , Oscar “Butch” Bowers
Related Symbols: The Paper Boat
Page Number: 1048
Explanation and Analysis:
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Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie Quotes in It

The It quotes below are all either spoken by Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie or refer to Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Evil and the Supernatural Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

What a bunch of losers they had been—Stan Uris with his big Jew-boy nose, Bill Denbrough who could say nothing but "Hi-yo, Silver!" without stuttering so badly that it drove you almost dogshit, Beverly Marsh with her bruises and her cigarettes rolled into the sleeve of her blouse, Ben Hanscom who had been so big he looked like a human version of Moby Dick, and Richie Tozier with his thick glasses and his A averages and his wise mouth and his face which just begged to be pounded into new and exciting shapes. Was there a word for what they had been? Oh yes. There always was. Le mot juste. In this case le mot juste was wimps…

Related Characters: William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie , Stanley Uris , Beverly Marsh Rogan, Mike Hanlon
Related Symbols: Silver
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was no zipper on the thing's jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen's for a buck if you wanted it. Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf's jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.

Related Characters: It / Pennywise the Dancing Clown / Bob Gray, William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie
Related Symbols: Silver
Page Number: 385
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing bluejeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownup’s face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from the Tooth Fairy. No, he thinks. Not the Tooth Fairy. The Age Fairy.

Related Characters: Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie
Page Number: 744
Explanation and Analysis:

Mike said, “It's always been here, since the beginning of time…since before there were men anywhere, unless maybe there were just a few of them in Africa somewhere, swinging through the trees or living in caves. The crater's gone now, and the ice age probably scraped the valley deeper and changed some stuff around and filled the crater in…but It was here then, sleeping, maybe, waiting for the ice to melt, waiting for the people to come.” “That's why It uses the sewers and the drains,” Richie put in. “They must be regular freeways for It.”

Related Characters: Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie (speaker), Mike Hanlon (speaker), It / Pennywise the Dancing Clown / Bob Gray
Page Number: 773
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

Bill marked it as a paper boat. Stan saw it as a bird rising toward the sky—a phoenix, perhaps. Michael saw a hooded face—that of crazy Butch Bowers, perhaps, if it could only be seen. Richie saw two eyes behind a pair of spectacles. Beverly saw a hand doubled up into a fist. Eddie believed it to be the face of the leper, all sunken eyes and wrinkled snarling mouth—all disease, all sickness, was stamped into that face. Ben Hanscom saw a tattered pile of wrappings and seemed to smell old sour spices […] Henry Bowers would see it as the moon, full, ripe…and black.

Related Characters: William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough , Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, Richard “Trashmouth” Tozier / Richie , Eddie Kaspbrak , Beverly Marsh Rogan, Mike Hanlon, Henry Bowers , Oscar “Butch” Bowers
Related Symbols: The Paper Boat
Page Number: 1048
Explanation and Analysis: