Contact quotes

View Quote Alien: You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

View Quote David Drumlin: Ellie, still waiting for E.T. to call?

View Quote Jay Leno: So it turns out there's life on other planets. Boy, this is really going to change the Miss Universe contest, you know what I mean?

View Quote Ted Arroway: Small moves, Ellie, small moves.

View Quote David Drumlin: I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world.
Ellie Arroway: Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it.

View Quote Dr. Kent Clark: Dr. Arroway will be spending her precious telescope time listening for... uh... listening for...
Ellie Arroway: Little green men.

View Quote Ellie Arroway: Occam's razor. You ever heard of it?
Palmer Joss: Hack-em's Razor. Sounds like some slasher movie.

View Quote Ellie Arroway: Why did you do it?
Palmer Joss: Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion.
Ellie Arroway: I told the truth up there. And Drumlin told you exactly what you wanted to hear.

View Quote Executive: We must confess that your proposal seems less like science and more like science fiction.
Ellie Arroway: Science fiction. You're right, it's crazy. In fact, it's even worse than that, it's nuts. You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an airplane, you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon? Atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history.

View Quote Michael Kitz: Your having sent this announcement all over the world may well constitute a breach of national security.
Ellie Arroway: This isn't a person-to-person call. You can't possibly think that a civilization sending this kind of message would intend it just for Americans.
Michael Kitz: I'm saying you might have consulted us; obviously, the contents of this message could be extremely sensitive.
Ellie Arroway: You want to classify prime numbers?

View Quote Palmer Joss: By doing this, you're willing to give your life, you're willing to die for it. Why?
Ellie Arroway: For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... I don't know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?

View Quote Palmer Joss: What are you studying up there?
Ellie Arroway: Oh, the usual. Nebulae, quasars, pulsars, stuff like that. What are you writing?
Palmer Joss: The usual. Nouns, adverbs, adjective here and there.

View Quote Rachel Constantine: [about Adolf Hitler] Twenty million people died defeating that son of a bitch, and he's our first ambassador to outer space?
Ellie Arroway: Actually the Hitler broadcast from the...
David Drumlin: [interrupting] '36 olympics was the first television transmission of any power that went in to space. That they recorded it, and sent it back, is simply a way of saying "hello, we heard you."
Michael Kitz: Or, "Sieg Heil, you're our kind of people."

View Quote Rachel Constantine: I assume you read the confidential findings report from the investigating committee.
Michael Kitz: I flipped through it.
Rachel Constantine: I was especially interested in the section on Arroway's video unit. The one that recorded the static?
Michael Kitz: Continue.
Rachel Constantine: The fact that it recorded static isn't what interests me.
Michael Kitz: [pauses] Continue...
Rachel Constantine: What interests me is that it recorded approximately eighteen hours of it.
Michael Kitz: That is interesting, isn't it?

View Quote Senator: You come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts. Only a story that, to put it mildly, strains credibility... Are you really going to sit there and tell us that we should just take this all on faith?
Ellie Arroway: Is it possible that it didn't happen? Yes. . . . As a scientist I must concede that. I must volunteer that.
Kitz: Then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony and admit that this journey to the center of the galaxy, in fact, never took place?
Arroway: Because I can't. I had an experience. I can't prove it. I can't just explain it. But everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever: a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not - that none of us is alone. I wish I could share that emotion, that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and that hope that I felt, but... that continues to be my wish.