- Noreen Vanderslice: Do you feel it?
- Betsy Solverson: Feel what?
- Noreen Vanderslice: My aunt lost her bosom to cancer. Said it felt like somebody took a hot poker and put it through her heart.
- Betsy Solverson: No. Not like that. Not yet. You know how sometimes you get a peach from the bowl and one side is ripe and yellow and the other is black and moldy? That - that's the only way I can think to describe it.
- Noreen Vanderslice: Camus says knowin' we're gonna die makes life absurd.
- Betsy Solverson: Well, I don't know who that is. But I'm guessing he doesn't have a 6-year-old girl.
- Noreen Vanderslice: He's French.
- Betsy Solverson: Ugh, I don't care if he's from Mars. Nobody with any sense would say something that foolish. We're put on this earth to do a job. And each of us gets the time we get to do it. And when this life is over and you stand in front of the Lord... Well, you try tellin' him it was all some Frenchman's joke.
- Mike Milligan: Do you know what the definition of the word "sovereignty" is?
- Ricky G: What am I? The professor from "Gilligan's Island"?
- Mike Milligan: [chuckles] Sovereignty is absolute power and authority.
- Ricky G: Like a king?
- Mike Milligan: Exactly. Which is who I am - your king.
- Ricky G: Uh... It's America, brother. We don't do kings.
- Mike Milligan: Oh, we do. We do. We just call them something else. See, today is my coronation day. And on coronation day, I've always believed a new king should start his reign with an act of kindness.
- Ricky G: Right on.
- Mike Milligan: And an act of cruelty...
- Peggy Blumquist: I never meant for any of this to happen. You know? Not to Ed. Not to anybody. I just wanted to be someone.
- Lou Solverson: Well, you're somebody now.
- Peggy Blumquist: No, see? I wanted to choose, be my own me. Not be defined by someone else's expec... And then, that guy, that stupid guy, walked out into the... Why'd he have to do that?
- Lou Solverson: You mean the victim?
- Peggy Blumquist: No. That's not fair. 'Cause I'm a victim, too. Was a victim first, before him.
- Lou Solverson: Victim of what?
- Peggy Blumquist: You wouldn't understand. You're a man. It's a lie, okay, that you can do it all, be a wife and a mother and this self-made career woman, like there's 37 hours in a day. And then when you can't, they say it's you, you're faulty, like... like... like you're inferior somehow. And, like... like, if you could just get your act together, until you're half mad with...
- Lou Solverson: People are dead, Peggy.
- Ricky G: Remind me which one you are, again? The kid Otto had with the maid?
- Mike Milligan: You see the shotgun, right?
- Ricky G: You couldn't afford a real one?
- Mike Milligan: [smirks] Times are tough, friend-o.
- Ricky G: Hey, why do you think I'm stealing the silver?
- Lou Solverson: I was there at the end, you know? After the war, when Saigon fell, on the USS Kirk patrolling the coast. And when the country went, it went fast. And we had, like, you know, 24 hours to get everybody out. And not just Americans, but... our allies, the South Vietnamese, all packed onto boats and helicopters. We stood on the deck and waved them in. And one by one, they'd land, unload, and then we'd push the whirlybirds into the sea. The damndest thing.
- Lou Solverson: But then, this Chinook comes. And those things - you can't just land one on a ship this size. So we wave them off. But the pilot's got his whole family inside, and he's running out of fuel, so it's now or never. So he hovers over the deck. People start... jumping - scared or not - onto the ship. There's a baby - literally a-a tiny baby - and the mother just - just drops him. And one of my boys... like catching a ball, just sticks out his hands.
- Lou Solverson: [sighs] So, now everybody's out, and I'm thinking, "How the heck is this pilot" - right? - "How's he gonna get out?" But he maneuvers off the port bow, and he hovers there for the longest time doing, you know, what we learned later - uh, takin' off his flight suit. And somehow he rolls the bird on its side, and just before it hits the water, he jumps. 6,000 pounds of angry helicopter parts flyin' all around him. And somehow he makes it.
- [chuckles]
- Lou Solverson: How'd he do that?
- Lou Solverson: [Talking to Peggy] Your husband, he said he was gonna protect his family no matter what. And I acted like I didn't understand, but... I do. It's the rock we all push - men. We call it our burden, but it's really our privilege.
- Hank Larsson: I started thinkin', which I know is dangerous. But, you know...
- [sighs]
- Hank Larsson: The things I've seen, you know, in the war... and at home, on the job. So - so much senselessness, violence, you know? And I got - I got - I got to thinkin' about - about miscommunication. Like, how - isn't that the root of it? Conflict. War - does - doesn't it all come down to - to language? Right? The - the words we say and the words we hear, which aren't always the same thing. So, I thought, you know, what if there was one language - a u - a universal language of symbols? 'Cause pictures, to my mind, are - are - are clearer than words.
- [last lines]
- Betsy Solverson: Good night, Mr. Solverson.
- Lou Solverson: Good night, Mrs. Solverson. And all the ships at sea.
- [to Peggy]
- Ed Blumquist: You're always trying to fix everything, but sometimes nothing's broken. Everything's working just fine.
- Hamish Broker: It's 9 to 5, mostly, but management rewards initiative, so, uh, nights, weekends, whatever gets the job done. You'll be working closely with the accounting department, looking for ways to optimize revenue. Shorter shipping routes, less palms to grease, that kind of thing.
- Mike Milligan: [frowns] The accounting department?
- Hamish Broker: Yeah. And this whole, uh, Western thing, that's gotta go. Get something gray or pinstripe with a white shirt, a real tie. And cut your hair, okay? The '70s are over, for Christ's sake.
- Mike Milligan: See, I thought... well, in the old days, when a guy conquered a place...
- Hamish Broker: You want the old days? Go work in a coal mine. This is the future. Look, you and I got off on the wrong foot, but you seem like a good kid, so let me give you a tip. The sooner you realize there's only one business left in the world - the money business, just ones and zeros - the better off you're gonna be.
- Ed Blumquist: Peg, I don't think we're gonna make it.
- Peggy Blumquist: Don't you say that, Ed Blumquist. We come this far. We're gonna go all the way.
- Ed Blumquist: No. I'm saying... even if we get out of this, I don't think we're gonna make it. You and me.
- Peggy Blumquist: What are you saying?
- Ed Blumquist: We're just too different.
- Peggy Blumquist: Don't say that. This - what we've been through, adversity - that's what... that's what seals the bond, makes us stronger.
- Ed Blumquist: Peg.
- Peggy Blumquist: Like... like... like how a bone heals.
- Ed Blumquist: Peg.
- Peggy Blumquist: No, no! I know I had my doubts, I know, but I'm... I'm sure now.
- Ed Blumquist: Peg.
- Peggy Blumquist: I'm sure.
- Ed Blumquist: Will you just let me talk? You're always trying to fix everything, but sometimes nothing's broken. Everything's working just fine. If you can't see that, if you don't know that...
- Peggy Blumquist: Ed...
- Ed Blumquist: I love ya. I do. All I'm ever gonna want is to get back to what we had.
- Lou Solverson: I'm gonna take Peggy Blumquist back to Minnesota.
- [clears his throat]
- Lou Solverson: If anyone's got a problem with that, after the week I've had, they can keep it to themselves...
- The Book: I'm assuming you want more than just a skin peel. Something structural - a whole new man, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. What'll you do then, I wonder? Join a new empire?
- Hanzee Dent: Maybe start one of my own.
- The Book: So that it, too, may one day collapse and fall into the sea. Do I take it you'll try to get revenge on Kansas City, apprehend those responsible? 'Cause you can bet Kansas City will be heavily guarded.
- Hanzee Dent: Not apprehend. Dead. Don't care "heavily-guarded". Don't care "into the sea". Kill and be killed. Head in a bag.
- [in his native language]
- Hanzee Dent: There's the message.
- Mike Milligan: [to Gale Kitchen] Well... I'm bushed. Think I'm gonna go take a nap. You should get some rest too. For in the morning, we journey home to bathe in that warm champagne that is corporate praise. Who knows? Maybe they'll even throw us a parade. I love a parade.
- Noreen Vanderslice: [to Betsy] Doc says you had a reaction to those pills they gave ya. Told them they were supposed to kill the cancer, but he says the pills may kill you first.
- Peggy Blumquist: I never meant for any of this to happen. You know? Not to Ed. Not to anybody. I just wanted to be someone.
- Lou Solverson: Well, you're somebody now.
- [I just wanted to be someone]