Apocalypse Now quotes

View Quote (Apologizing for severed heads adorning Kurtz's headquarters) The heads. You're looking at the heads. I, uh – sometimes he goes too far, you know – he's the first one to admit it!

View Quote Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say "Hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you'..." – I mean, I'm no, I can't – I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas – I mean –...(Note: This is a variation on T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, with the 'If you can keep your head...' a quote from Rudyard Kipling's If)

View Quote Roxanne (after asking if Willard will go back to America after the war and he replies no): Then you are like us; your home is here.

View Quote Roxanne: The war will still be here tomorrow.

View Quote Hubert: You are fighting for the biggest nothing in history.

View Quote Lt. Carlsen: You're in the asshole of the world, Captain!

View Quote Lucy (Playmate): Being playmate of the year... is the loneliest experience i can imagine. It's like... you try to express your feelings to someone and show them your heart and there's this glass wall between you, this invisible glass. They can see your mouth moving. But they can't hear what you're saying. You can never really make them hear what you're trying to say. That's why i tried so desperately... to show somebody that i had some talent. They make you do things you don't wanna do... like, this picture here. I started feeling repulsed with myself. Maybe i'm unfit to have a relationship with a beautiful, innocent boy. I wish... I wish i could find.. just one person... that could share my point of view.

View Quote Willard: My mission is to make it up into Cambodia. There's a Green Beret Colonel up there who's gone insane. I'm supposed to kill him.
Chef: That's ****ing typical! Shit. ****in' Vietnam mission! I'm short and we gotta go up there so you can kill one of our own guys? That's ****in' great! That's just ****in' great, man. Shit. That's ****in'... crazy! I thought you were going in there to blow up a bridge, or, some ****ing railroad tracks or somethin'.

View Quote Willard: Could we, uh, talk to Colonel Kurtz?
Photojournalist: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you'..." I mean, I'm no, I can't – I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's, he's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas ... (Note: The last sentences here reference first Rudyard Kipling's poem If— and then T.S. Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.)

View Quote Willard: Are you crazy, God damn it? Don't you think its a little risky for some R&R?
Kilgore: If I say it's safe to surf this beach Captain, then it's safe to surf this beach. I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole ****ing place!

View Quote [the boat has arrived at the Do Lung bridge, which is a combat zone]
Chef: Lance, hey Lance. What do you think?
Lance: It's beautiful.
Chef: What's the matter with you? You're acting kinda weird.
Lance: Hey, you know that last tab of acid I was saving? I dropped it.
Chef: You dropped acid? ... Far out.

View Quote Roxanne: Do you know why you can never step into the same river twice?
Willard: Yeah, 'cause it's always moving.

View Quote Willard: How long has this kid been on this boat?
Chief Phillips: Seven months.
Willard: He's really specializing in busting my balls.
Chief Phillips: Very possible, Captain, he thinks the same of you ...
Willard: Oh yeah? And what you think, Chief?
Chief Phillips: I don't think! My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this boat, so I don't! But one look at you and I know it's gonna be hot, wherever it is. (Brief pause)
Willard: We're going about 70 klicks above the Do Lung bridge.
Chief Phillips: That's Cambodia, Captain.
Willard: That's classified. We're not supposed to be in Cambodia, but that's where I'm going. You just get me close to my destination, and I cut you and the crew loose.
Chief Phillips: All right, Captain.

View Quote Chef: How come all you guys sit on your helmets?
Soldier: So we don't get our balls blown off.
[Chef laughs a little, seems to think for a second and then sits on his helmet]