Major Motoko Kusanagi quotes from Ghost in the Shell (1995)

View Quote Just a whisper. I hear it in my ghost.

View Quote If we all reacted the same way, we'd be predictable, and there's always more than one way to view a situation. What's true for the group is also true for the individual. It's simple: overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death.

View Quote When I float weightless back to the surface, I'm imagining I'm becoming someone else. ... It's probably the decompression.

View Quote There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure, I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.

View Quote Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins.

View Quote So what happens if she turns over in her sleep? Won't her ghost separate from her body?

View Quote Maybe someday your "maker" will come... haul you away, take you apart, and announce the recall of a defective product. What if all that's left of the "real you" is just a couple of lonely brain cells, huh?

View Quote What we really need, Togusa, is not sharpshooting skills, so much as the ability to get close enough to make sure the enemy can be killed. If you want to play at long-range sniping, you can always go shoot an elephant at 500 miles with a miniature cruise missile...

View Quote As revenge for the fact that two of my men were killed, I even set it up so he would shoot his own son – through a door.

View Quote Batou: Got him, huh? Well, the breech and the barrel really screwed up. That's what happens when you use HV bullets in one of these things. Oh yeah.
Fugitive: It's no use arresting me! I'm not talking to you goddamn cops!
Batou: Talk?! And just what are you going to talk about? You don't even know your own name, you stupid dickhead!
Fugitive: Huh?
Major Motoko Kusanagi: Can you remember your mother's name or what she looks like? Or how about where you were born? Don't you have any happy childhood memories? Do you even know who you are?
Fugitive: [no response]
Batou: Ghost-hacked humans are so pathetic, it's a shame. And this poor bastard has been hacked pretty badly.

View Quote Major Motoko Kusanagi: That robot. Did we seem similar to you?
Batou: Of course not.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: No, I don't mean physically.
Batou: Just what, then?
Major Motoko Kusanagi: Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins. Sometimes I suspect I am not who I think I am, like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and stuck it in this body. Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I'm completely synthetic like that thing.
Batou: You've got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours. You're treated like other humans, so stop with the angst.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: But that's just it, that's the only thing that makes me feel human. The way I'm treated. I mean, who knows what's inside our heads? Have you ever seen your own brain?
Batou: It sounds to me like you're doubting your own ghost.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: What if a cyber brain could possibly generate its own ghost, create a soul all by itself? And if it did, just what would be the importance of being human then?

View Quote Major Motoko Kusanagi: What the hell did you use?
Batou: Your standard issue big gun.

View Quote Major Motoko Kusanagi: You talk about redefining my identity. I want a guarantee that I can still be myself.
Puppet Master: There isn't one. Why would you wish to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.