"Who can gaze into the mirror without becoming evil? The mirror does not reflect evil, but creates it." (Based on the Friedrich Nietzsche quote: "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.") Actually based on (based on the Saito Ryokuu quote: " There is something evil about several people holding mirrors, it is not that is exposes evil; rather, it helps create evil.")
Batou
Akio Otsuka · 12 quotes
Togusa
Koichi Yamadera · 5 quotes
Major Motoko Kusanagi
Atsuko Tanaka · 4 quotes
Chief Aramaki
Tamio Ohki · 3 quotes
Original voiceovers
2 quotes
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence quotes
Page 1 of 2"Who can gaze into the mirror without becoming evil? The mirror does not reflect evil, but creates it." Based on the Saitō Ryokuu quote: "There is something evil about several people holding mirrors, it is not that it exposes evil; rather, it helps create evil."
I ordered you to conduct an investigation. I never said skip the paperwork and act like vigilantes. I certainly don't recall ordering you to barge into any Yakuza office. This isn't the jungle and you're not Special Forces hit men.
[first title cards]
In a future time when most human thought has been accelerated by artificial intelligence and external memory can be shared on a universal matrix, Batou, an agent of the elite Section 9 Security Force and a being so artificially modified as to be essentially cyborg, is assigned, along with his mostly human partner, Togusa, to investigate a series of gruesome murders.
What's up?
Narrow, dark stairs. What's the plan?
We'll take turns, I'll lead.
No, I'll lead. You're so damned big, I can't cover you! [walks up the stairs, hereby forcing the lead]
You sure have gotten informal, Lin. Since when do you skip the "Sir"?
Lin
I haven't forgotten the debt I owe you.
The less one forgets, the less one can remember?
Lin
We got loyalty even in my line.
There's loyalty that protects secrets and loyalty that protects the truth. You cannot serve both masters, so which loyalty is yours?
Lin
They say there's no truth without secrets.
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced. Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks.
Now you're quoting Milton, but we are not Satan.
How great is the sum of thy thoughts? If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.
Psalms 139, Old Testament. The way you spout these spontaneous exotic references, I'd say your own external memory's pretty twisted.
[Quoting the writings on the wall]
Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble.
[With his head between his hands, looking to the floor after a grenade explodes near him]
All I could see... were my wife and daughter's faces.
A half-assed approach just won't cut it.
Akio Ōtsuka - Batou
But no matter how far a jackass may travel, it will never return as a horse.
His downfall came when his reach exceeded his grasp.