Twelve Monkeys Quotes
In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.
Jeffrey Goines: There's the television. It's all right there - all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we *for* then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact - if you don't buy things - toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, stereo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers...
Dr. Owen Fletcher: Kathryn, you're a rational person. You're a trained psychiatrist. You know the difference between what's real and what's not.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: And what we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. Right, Owen? I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: And what we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. Right, Owen? I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.
[James Cole found a spider and knows he's got to take it with him, let's it crawl over his hand while deciding what to do with it]
Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.
James Cole: Germs?
Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. In the eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person, anyway. Ah! Ah! Along comes this doctor, uh, uh, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, well, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. Ah? He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do you call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, cut to the 20th century. Last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger in this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. Jim, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right? See?
[James Cole finally takes the spider into his mouth, Jeffrey Goines is either too deep into his talk or unimpressed by this and continues his talk as if nothing happened]
Jeffrey Goines: Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?
Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.
James Cole: Germs?
Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. In the eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person, anyway. Ah! Ah! Along comes this doctor, uh, uh, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, well, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. Ah? He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do you call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, cut to the 20th century. Last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger in this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. Jim, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right? See?
[James Cole finally takes the spider into his mouth, Jeffrey Goines is either too deep into his talk or unimpressed by this and continues his talk as if nothing happened]
Jeffrey Goines: Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?
L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.
Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L. J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.
L.J. Washington: Don't mock me my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?
Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L. J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.
L.J. Washington: Don't mock me my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?
Jeffrey Goines: There was this guy, and he was always requesting shows that had already played. Yes. No. You have to tell her before. He couldn't quite grasp the idea that the charge nurse couldn't make it be yesterday. She couldn't turn back time, thank you, Einstein! Now, *he* was nuts! *He* was a fruitcake, Jim!
[first lines]
Title Card: ...5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997... /... The survivors will abandon the surface of he planet... /... Once again the animals will rule the world... / - Excerpts from interview with clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, April 12, 1990 - Baltimore County Hospital.
Title Card: ...5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997... /... The survivors will abandon the surface of he planet... /... Once again the animals will rule the world... / - Excerpts from interview with clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, April 12, 1990 - Baltimore County Hospital.
Jeffrey Goines: Telephone call? Telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctor's *discretion*. Nuh-uh. Look, hey - all of these nuts could just make phone calls, they could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all these poor sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere, plague of madness.
Jeffrey Goines: When I was institutionalized, my brain was studied exhaustively in the guise of mental health. I was interrogated, I was x-rayed, I was examined *thoroughly*.
[turns head and coughs]
Jeffrey Goines: Then, they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next, say, 10 years. Which they then filtered through a probability matrix of some kind to - to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. So you see, she knew I was gonna lead the Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the pages of history before it ever even occurred to me. She knows everything I'm ever gonna do before I know it myself. How's that?
[turns head and coughs]
Jeffrey Goines: Then, they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next, say, 10 years. Which they then filtered through a probability matrix of some kind to - to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. So you see, she knew I was gonna lead the Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the pages of history before it ever even occurred to me. She knows everything I'm ever gonna do before I know it myself. How's that?
Jeffrey Goines: Sorry. Uh, sorry. I, I, I got a little agitated. The thought of, uh, escape had crossed my mind, and then suddenly - suddenly - suddenly I felt like bending the fucking bars back, and ripping out the goddamn window frames and eating them - yes, *eating* them! Leaping, leaping, leaping! Colonics for everyone! All right! You dumbasses. I'm a mental patient. I'm *supposed* to act out! Wait'll you morons find out who I am! My father's gonna be really upset, and when my father gets upset, the ground SHAKES! My father is God! I worship my father!
Dr. Kathryn Railly: If you don't turn yourself over to the police, they're going to, to kill you, then they're going to shoot me too because I'm going to be the accessory to murder.
James Cole: You're all gonna die.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Nobody is going to die! You're not going to save the world, okay? You're delusional. You've made all this up out of bits and pieces in your head.
James Cole: No.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Yes! Let me give you an example. You know Jeffrey Goines. You were both patients at County Hospital at the same time.
James Cole: Jeffrey Goines was a fruitcake!
James Cole: You're all gonna die.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Nobody is going to die! You're not going to save the world, okay? You're delusional. You've made all this up out of bits and pieces in your head.
James Cole: No.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Yes! Let me give you an example. You know Jeffrey Goines. You were both patients at County Hospital at the same time.
James Cole: Jeffrey Goines was a fruitcake!
Louie: Where'd they send you?
James Cole: 1990.
Louie: '90! How was it? Good drugs? Lots of pussy? Hey, Bob, you do the job? You find out the big info? Army of the 12 Monkeys?
James Cole: I was supposed to be 1996.
Louie: Science ain't an exact science with these clowns but, they're getting better. You're lucky you didn't end up in ancient Egypt!
James Cole: 1990.
Louie: '90! How was it? Good drugs? Lots of pussy? Hey, Bob, you do the job? You find out the big info? Army of the 12 Monkeys?
James Cole: I was supposed to be 1996.
Louie: Science ain't an exact science with these clowns but, they're getting better. You're lucky you didn't end up in ancient Egypt!
