The Last Castle

„For your offer. The men don’t want to salute. They don’t want to use rank. They don’t want better food and they don’t want more TV. They just want your resignation… and so do I.”

„Take a look at a castle. Any castle. Now break down the key elements that make it a castle. They haven’t changed in a thousand years. 1: Location. A site on high ground that commands the territory as far as the eye can see. 2: Protection. Big walls, walls strong enough to withstand a frontal attack. 3: A garrison. Men who are trained and willing to kill. 4: A flag. You tell your men you are soldiers and that’s your flag. You tell them nobody takes our flag. And you raise that flag so it flies high where everyone can see it. Now you’ve got yourself a castle. The only difference between this castle and all the rest is that they were built to keep people out. This castle is built to keep people in.”

„I’m not fighting anyone or anything, anymore.”

„You call a three star general, „Man?” What are you going to call him next? „Dude?””

„Any man with a collection like this is a man who’s never set foot on a battlefield. To him a minié ball from Shiloh is just an artifact. But to a combat vet, it’s a hunk of metal that caused some poor bastard a world of pain.”

” See, I too share the burden of command. You may not think that I’ve ever set foot on a battlefield, but that’s because you’ve never sat behind this desk. This desk! My men and I are vastly outnumbered. We spend every day behind enemy lines because, make no mistake about it, Mr. Irwin, they are the enemy!”

„We can no long wear the uniform of the soldier. We forfeited that right and that includes me. I disobeyed an executive order, I violated my duty as a commanding officer. And eight men paid a catastrophic price. It’s a mistake not easy to live with. So here I am just like you, a convicted criminal. Only difference between you and me is, I know I’m guilty.”

„So we’re packed away here as prisoners. And one thing is certain, our captor have the power. They can humiliate us, they can beat us, they can lock us away in a dark hole for days on end. But there’s one thing they cannot do. They cannot take away from us, who we *are*. And we are soldiers! And it is the one thing, the ONE thing that gives us a chance in here. And that nobody can take away!”

(The Last Castle)

Babel

 

” I killed the American, I was the only one who shot at you. They did nothing… nothing. Kill me, but save my brother, he did nothing… nothing. Save my brother… he did nothing.”

„This is your fucked-up country, it’s your responsibility!”

„It’s almost new. Three hundred cartridges. The guy who gave it to me said you can hit as far as three kilometers.”

Susan Jones: Richard, why did we come here?
Richard: What d’you mean why? I thought you would like it.
Susan Jones: Really: Why are we here?
Richard: To forget everything. To be alone.
Susan Jones: Alone.

(Babel)

Cast Away

 

„I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing.”

„We might just make it. Did that thought ever cross your brain? Well regardless I would rather take my chance out there on the ocean, that to stay here and die on this shithole island spending the rest of my life talking to a god damn VOLLEYBALL.”

„We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and… knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had… lost her. ‘cos I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So… I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I – , I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over *nothing*. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass… And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”

„I always knew you were alive, I knew it. Everybody said that I had to let you go. I love you. You’re the love of my life.”

„The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.”

„We live and we die by time. And we must not commit the sin of losing our track on time.”

„Gotta love crab. In the nick of time too. I couldn’t take much more of those coconuts. Coconut milk is a natural laxative. That’s something Gilligan never told us.”

„Do, do you have to keep bringing that up, huh? Ok, so it was a good thing we did a test because it wasn’t going to be just a quick snap. Would’ve broken my neck, or leg or my back. Would’ve bled to death on the beach, but it’s in the past. It was what, a year ago? SO let’s just forget it.”

„87 hours is an eternity. The cosmos was created in less time.”

(Cast Away)