Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb quotes

View Quote Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love...Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I-I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.

View Quote For more than a year, ominous rumors have been privately circulating among high-level western leaders that the Soviet Union had been at work on what was darkly hinted to be the Ultimate Weapon, a Doomsday device. Intelligence sources traced the site of the top secret Russian project to the perpetually fog-shrouded wasteland below the arctic peaks of the Zhokhov Islands. What they were building, or why it should be located in such a remote and desolate place, no one could say.

View Quote Gee, I wish we had one of them Doomsday Machines, Stainsey.

View Quote Greenhouses can keep plant life, animals can be bred and slaughtered.

View Quote Hey Jack, how about we play a little guessing game shall we. How about I guess what the code is and-[Ripper kills himself]

View Quote I think I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts are in...I don't think it's quite fair to condemn the whole program because of a single slip up, sir.

View Quote I think we ought to all just bow our heads and give a short prayer of thanks for our deliverance. LORD, we have heard the wings of the Angel of Death fluttering over our heads from the Valley of Fear. You have seen fit to deliver us from the forces of evil...

View Quote I'm beginning to smell a big fat Commie rat. I mean, supposin' Kissof is lyin' about that fourth plane, just lookin' for an excuse to clobber us. I mean, if the spaghetti hits the fan, now we're really in trouble.

View Quote If you try any preversions [sic] in there, I'll blow your head off.

View Quote If...we were to immediately launch an all-out and coordinated attack on all their airfields and missile bases we'd stand a damn good chance of catchin 'em with their pants down. Hell, we got five to one missile superiority as it is. We could easily assign three missiles to every target and still have a very effective reserve force for any other contingency...An unofficial study [he rifles through the binder entitled World Targets in Megadeaths], which we undertook of this eventuality, indicate that we would destroy ninety percent of their nuclear capabilities. We would therefore prevail and suffer only modest and acceptable civilian casualties from the remaining force which would be badly damaged and uncoordinated.

View Quote In order to guard against surprise nuclear attack, America's Strategic Air Command maintains a large force of B-52 bombers airborne 24 hours a day. Each B-52 can deliver a nuclear bombload of 50 megatons, equal to 16 times the total explosive force of all the bombs and shells used by all the armies in World War Two. Based in America, the Airborne alert force is deployed from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic Ocean, but they have one geographical factor in common - they are all two hours from their targets inside Russia.

View Quote Jack, I am afraid I am going to have to ask you for the key to the door and the recall code, please.

View Quote Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth...Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments. One, where you got 20 million people killed, and the other where you got 150 million people killed.

View Quote My conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent, for reasons which, at this moment, must be all too obvious.

View Quote Now you listen to me, Colonel Bat Guano, if that is your real name!