Apocalypse Now quotes

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 I worry that my son might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything – everything I did, everything you saw – because there's nothing that I detest more than the stench of lies. And if you understand me, Willard, you will do this for me.

View Quote Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin' all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole ****in' program.

View Quote Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you either love somebody or you hate them."

View Quote [after the tiger attack] You can kiss my ass 'cause I'm bugging out! I didn't drop out of the goddamn eigth grade for this shit, man! I only wanted to learn to cook, I only wanted to ****in' cook, man!

View Quote If that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what they really had against Kurtz. It wasn't just insanity and murder, there was enough of that to go around for everyone.

View Quote You can take that boat anywhere that suits you, young captain.

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 On the river, I thought that the minute I looked at him, I'd know what to do, but it didn't happen. I was in there with him for days, not under guard, I was free, but he knew I wasn't going anywhere. He knew more about what I was going to do than I did. If the Generals back in Nha Trang could see what I saw, would they still want me to kill him? More than ever, probably. And what would his people back home want if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone? He broke from them, and then he broke from himself. I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart.

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 There's mines over there, there's mines over there, and watch out those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya.

View Quote It's a way we had over here with living with ourselves. We cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a Band-Aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw them, the more I hated lies.

View Quote Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.

View Quote Someday this war's gonna end. That'd be just fine with the boys on the boat. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore.

View Quote Oh man, the shit piled up so fast in Vietnam you needed wings to stay above it.