Powder I could never watch television.
Played by Sean Patrick Flanery 
Powder (1995) · 37 quotes
Powder (1995) · 37 quotes
Most-quoted character in Powder (1995): in 18 of its 37 quotes
Most scenes with: Sheriff Doug Barnum (2), Jessie Caldwell (2), Lindsey Kelloway (2)
I want to go home. Do you understand that? I want to go home. … I saw that I don't like what you do. Any of you. … You pretend to be my friend, the way you pretend everything. A friend doesn't lock you up. A friend doesn't take you away from your home, and say that its for your own good. How long do you really think I'll let you keep me here?
More lines from Powder
8 quotes Powder Powder Referring to the inability of televisions to function in his presence.
Powder They were afraid to touch me after a while — my grandma and grandpa. They got really scared.
Powder Have you ever listened to people from the inside? Listened so close you can hear their thoughts — and all their memories. Hear them think from places they don't even know they think from?
Powder She says she believes in miracles now, and that you should too. … She thinks I'm an angel. Come to take her home, and to bring you and Steven together again, and remind you of how much you still are in each other's hearts.
Powder To Sheriff Doug Barnum, about his dying wife's thoughts, as he prepares to set up a mind connection between them.
Powder She didn't go some place… your wife. I felt her go. Not "away", just "out" — everywhere.
Powder To Sheriff Doug Barnum, after the death of his wife.
Scenes with Powder
9 scenes Powder I've never been to school. I've read about it though.
But, you said you read all these books? [Picking up a copy of Moby-Dick] : Have you read this book? … I know college kids who couldn't wade through this one.
Powder Pick a page.
Jessie [looks into book]: 216.
Powder [reciting from memory] : "Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it."
You know that whole book?
Powder I know them all. [Jessie steps out and gazes at the cellar lined with books].
Powder The worst day I can remember was in a hospital.
What day was that?
Powder The day I was born.
Your grandmother tutored you — did she ever say anything about it?
Powder She said I was a fast learner.
Yeah, well, I think that's about to fall into the "no shit" category.
Dr. Aaron Stripler Your I.Q. scored right off the charts Jeremy. There isn't even a classification for you it was so high. All of your tests indicate you have the most advanced intellect in the history of humankind. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Powder If you thought I was that advanced would you ask me if I understood? … You're not here to ask me questions. You're here to find out how I cheated. It's the only way you can make sense of it. It's what you need to believe. But I don't need you to believe in me, Doctor Stipler, and I'm not interested in any of your tests. I'm not interested in you or anything else here. I'm interested in going home.
Powder When a thunderstorm comes up, I can feel it inside. When lightning comes down, I can feel it wanting to come to me. Grandma said it was God. She said the white fire was God. Do you believe in God, Sheriff? That it was God who took my mother?
Hey — took your mother? Your grandfolks told you that?
Powder I remember it.
Jessie [in regards to the Deputy being taken away in an ambulance after Powder transmits to him the feelings of the dying deer he had shot]: What did happen? Why won't you tell anyone?
Powder I let him see. I opened him up and I let him see. He just couldn't see what he was doing, so I helped him.
What are people like, on the inside?
Powder Inside most people there's a feeling of being separate — separated from everything.
And?
Powder And they're not. They're part of absolutely everyone, and everything.
Everything? I'm part of this tree? Part of Zach barking over fences? You're telling me that I'm part of some fisherman in Italy, on some ocean I've never even heard of? There's some guy sitting on death row — I'm part of him too?
Powder You don't believe me.
It's hard to believe that — all of that.
Powder That's because you have this spot that you can't see past. My grams and gramps had it, the spot where they were taught they were disconnected from everything.
So that's what they'd see if they could? That they're connected?
Powder And how beautiful they really are. And that there's no need to hide, or lie. And that it's possible to talk to someone without any lies, with no sarcasms, no deceptions, no exaggerations or any of the things that people use to confuse the truth.
I don't know a single person who does that.
Lindsey [As she communicates with Powder through his touch]: Your father. Your father hurt you a long time ago. You're so sad — he made you so sad. He thought you were ugly, and he kept saying that you weren't… — I'm sorry.
Powder Do you? Do you?
Do I what?
Powder Do you think I'm ugly?
I don't know what I think when I look at you. But sometimes I think, I think you're the most beautiful face I've ever seen.
"It's become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity."
Powder Albert Einstein.*
I look at you, and I think that someday our humanity might actually surpass our technology.
* Though this is quoted as Einstein in Voices of Truth : Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers, and Healers (2000) by Nina L. Diamond, p. 429, there are no published sources of this statement yet located earlier than its occurence in this film.
