Arrival (2016) quotes
Director
Denis Villeneuve.
Cast
Amy Adams.
Jeremy Renner.
Forest Whitaker.
A linguist is recruited by the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after twelve mysterious spacecrafts land around the world.
If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
– Louise Banks
Maybe I’d say what I felt more often. I-I don’t know.
– Ian Donnelly
I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.
– Louise Banks
But now I’m not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.
– Louise Banks
If all I ever gave you was a hammer…
– Louise Banks
Everything’s a nail…
– Colonel Weber
We have to consider the idea that our visitors are prodding us to fight among ourselves until only one faction prevails.
– Agent Halpern
There’s no evidence of that.
– Louise Banks
Sure there is. Just grab a history book. The British with India, the German with Rwanda…
– Agent Halpern
Now that’s a proper introduction.
– Louise Banks
We’re a world with no single leader. It’s impossible to deal with just one of us.
– Agent Halpern
“Non-zero sum game.”
– Louise Banks
You know I’ve had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you.
– Ian Donnelly
Despite knowing the journey… and where it leads… I embrace it… and I welcome every moment of it.
– Louise Banks
The weapon is their language. They gave it all to us. Do you understand what that means?
– Louise Banks
So we can learn heptapod. If we survive.
– Colonel Weber
If you learn it, when you really learn it, you begin to perceive time the way that they do. So you can see what’s to come. But time, it isn’t the same for them. It’s non-linear.
– Louise Banks
“Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”
– Ian Donnelly
Trust me, you can, uh, understand communication and still end up single.
– Louise Banks
Abbott is death process.
– Costello
If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.
– Ian Donnelly
Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and…
– Louise Banks
Yeah, it affects how you see everything.
– Ian Donnelly
Am I fired?
– Louise Banks
You’re better than the last guy.
– Colonel Weber
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
– Louise Banks
Come back to me.
– Louise Banks
In their final session, the alien said, “There is no time. Many become one.”
– Interpreter
And remember what happened to the Aborigines. A more advanced race nearly wiped ’em out.
– Colonel Weber
Well, the cornerstone of civilization isn’t language, it’s science.
– Ian Donnelly
Mornin’.
– Colonel Weber
Colonel.
– Louise Banks
Gravisti. He says it means an argument. What do you say it means?
– Colonel Weber
A desire for more cows.
– Louise Banks
Who is this child?
– Louise Banks
Let’s say that I taught them Chess instead of English. Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If all I ever gave you was a hammer…
– Louise Banks
Everything’s a nail.
– Colonel Weber
And “purpose” requires an understanding of intent. We need to find out, do they make conscious choices or is their motivation so instinctive that they don’t understand a “why” question at all. And-And biggest of all, we need to have enough vocabulary with them that we understand their answer.
– Louise Banks
As I watch you steer us around these communication traps that I didn’t even know existed, it’s like, “what?” I guess that’s why I’m single.
– Ian Donnelly
Trust me, you can understand communication and still end up single.
– Louise Banks
We don’t know if they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool.
– Louise Banks