Sarah Connor quotes from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Sarah Connor

Three billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare, a war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human Resistance. John Connor; my son. The first terminator was programmed to strike at me, in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was sent to strike at John himself, when he was still a child. As before, the Resistance was able to send a lone warrior. A protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.

Sarah Connor

Good morning Doctor Silberman. How's the knee?

Sarah Connor

It's like a giant strobe light, burning right through my eyes, but somehow I can still see. Oh, God. Look, you know the dream's the same every night, why do I have to--? The children look like burnt paper, black, not moving. And then, the blast wave hits them and they fly apart like leaves. It's not a dream, you moron. It's real. I know the date it happens! On August 29th, 1997, it's gonna feel pretty **** real to you, too! Anybody not wearing two million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day, get it?! You think you're safe and alive? You're already dead! Everybody! Him, you, you're dead already! This whole place! Everything you see is gone! You're the one living in a **** dream, Silberman! Because I know it happens! It happens!!

Sarah Connor

I feel much better now. Clearer.

Sarah Connor

You have to let me see my son. Please. Please.

Sarah Connor

There are 215 bones in the human body. That's one! Now don't move!

Sarah Connor

You're already dead, Silberman. Everybody dies, you know I believe it, so don't **** with me!

Sarah Connor

Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop, it would never leave him. And it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there and it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.

Sarah Connor

Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down. Skynet. Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not every day that you find out you're responsible for 3 billion deaths. He took it pretty well.

Sarah Connor

Yeah, right. How were you supposed to know? **** men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don’t know what it's like to really create something. to create a life. To feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction.

Sarah Connor

The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.

Sarah Connor

August 29, 1997, came and went. Nothing much happened. Michael Jackson turned 40. There was no Judgment Day. People went to work as they always do. Laughed, complained, watched TV, made love. I wanted to run to through the street yelling to grab them all and say, "Every day from this day on is a gift. Use it well." Instead, I got drunk. That was 30 years ago. But the dark future which never came still exists for me. And it always will, like the traces of a dream. John fights the war differently than it was foretold. Here, on the battlefield of the Senate, his weapons were common sense and hope. The luxury of hope was given me by the Terminator. Because if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.

Sarah Connor

NO FATE

Silberman

Morning Sarah.

Sarah

Good morning, Dr. Silberman. How's the knee?

Silberman

Fine, Sarah. She stabbed me in the kneecap with my pen a few weeks ago. Repeated escape attempts.

Silberman

Let's go back to what you were saying about those terminator machines. Now you think they don't exist?

Sarah

They don't exist. I know that now.

Silberman

But you've told me on many occasions about how you crushed one in a hydraulic press.

Sarah

If I had, there would have been some evidence. They would have found something at the factory.

Silberman

I see. So you don't believe anymore that the company covered it up?

Sarah

No. Why would they?

John

Does it hurt when you get shot?

Terminator

My body senses injuries. The data would be called "pain".

Sarah

John, help me with the light. [To Terminator]Will these heal up?

Terminator

Yes.

Sarah

Good. If you can't pass for human, you're not much good to us.

John

How long do you live - I mean, last, or whatever?

Terminator

A hundred and twenty years with my existing power cell.

John

Can you learn stuff that you haven't been programmed with? So you can be, you know, more human, and not such a dork all the time?

Terminator

My CPU is a neural-net processor. A learning computer. But Skynet presets the switch to read-only when we're sent out alone.

Sarah

Doesn't want you to do too much thinking, huh?

Terminator

No.

John

Can we reset the switch?

Sarah

Keep it under sixty-five. We don't want to be pulled over.

Terminator

Affirmative.

John

No, no, no, no, no. You gotta listen to the way people talk. You don't say "affirmative" or some shit like that. You say, "No problemo." And if someone comes off to you with an attitude, you say "eat me." If you wanna shine them on, it's "Hasta la vista, baby."

Terminator

Hasta la vista, baby.

John

Yeah, or "later, dickwad." Or if someone gets upset, you say "chill out." Or you can do combinations.

Terminator

Chill out, dickwad.

John

That's great! See, you're getting it.

Terminator

No problemo.

Terminator

In a few months, he will create a revolutionary type of microprocessor.

Sarah

Go on. Then what?

Terminator

In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Sarah

Skynet fights back.

Terminator

Yes. It launches its missiles against their targets in Russia.

John

Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?

Terminator

Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here.

Sarah

Jesus.

John

We got company.

Dyson

Police?

Sarah

How many?

John

All of 'em I think.

T-1000

Call to John.

Sarah

No.

T-1000

I know this hurts. Call John. [Extending another spike toward her eye] Call to John now.

Sarah

**** you.

Sarah

It's like a giant strobe light, burning right through my eyes. Somehow I can still see... Look, we know the dream's the same every night. Why do I have to--?

Silberman

Please continue.

Sarah

Children look like burnt paper... black... not moving... and then then the blast wave hits them... and they fly apart like leaves! [sobs]

Silberman

Dreams of cataclysm, the end of the world are very common.

Sarah

It's not a dream, you moron, it's real. I know the date it happens!

Silberman

I'm sure it feels very real to you.

Sarah

On August 29th, 1997, it's gonna feel pretty **** real to you, too! Anybody not wearing two-million sunblock is gonna have a real bad day, get it?!

Sarah

Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down. Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not every day that you find out you're responsible for three billion deaths. He took it pretty well.

Miles Dyson

I feel like I'm gonna throw up. You're judging me on things I haven't even done yet. How were we supposed to know?

Sarah

Yeah. Right. How were you supposed to know? **** men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something, to create a life, feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction–!

John

Mom! We need to be a little more constructive here, okay? We still have to stop this from happening, don't we?

But I thought... Aren't we changing things, I mean right now, changing the way it goes?

Dyson

That's right. There's no way I'm gonna finish the new processor, not now. Forget it. I'm out of it. I'll quit Cyberdyne tomorrow.

Sarah

That's not good enough.

Terminator

No one must follow your work.

Dyson

We have to destroy all the stuff at the lab; the files, the disk drives, everything, everything here. Everything. I don't care. [Realizes something] The chip. Do you know about the chip?

Sarah

What chip?

Dyson

They keep it in the vault at Cyberdyne. It must be from the other one, like you.

Terminator

The CPU from the first Terminator?

Sarah

Son of a bitch, I knew it!

Dyson

They told us not to ask where they got it.

Sarah

Those lying mother****ers!...

Dyson

It was scary stuff, but radically advanced. I mean, it was smashed, it didn't work, but...it gave us ideas, took us in new directions. I mean, things we would have never...All my work was based on it.

Terminator

It must be destroyed.