Twelve Monkeys quotes

View Quote Jeffrey Goines: Well, see here's my theory on that. When I was institutionalized, my brain was studied exhaustively in the guise of mental health. I was interrogated, I was x-rayed, I was examined thoroughly — [cups his crotch, mimes turning his head and coughing] AH-HACK!! Then they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model, they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next say, ten years? Which they then, filtered through a probability matrix of some kind t-to-to-to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. So you see, huh huh — she knew I was gonna lead the Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the pages of history before it ever even occurred to me. She knows everything I'm ever gon' to do before I know it myself. How's that?

View Quote Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs for example.
James Cole: Germs?
Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. Eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person. Along comes this doctor, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do they call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, up to the 20th century, last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger at this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. James, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is a plot made up so they could sell disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right?
What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts... I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.

View Quote L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.
Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L. J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.
L.J. Washington: Don't mock me my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

View Quote [sighs] Get out of my chair!

View Quote All I see are dead people.

View Quote Cassandra ... was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it. Dr. Kathryn Railly: Cassandra in Greek legend, you recall, was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.

View Quote Do you realize where he thinks he comes from?

View Quote I am insane, and you are my insanity.

View Quote I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend? James Cole: Jose — psst! Jose, what's going on?
Jose: Bad news, man
James Cole: Volunteers?
Jose: Yeah. And they said your name.
[pause]
Jose: Hey, maybe they'll give you a pardon, man.
James Cole: [sarcastic] Yeah, that's why none of the volunteers come back. They all get a pardon.

View Quote I'm looking for the Army of the Twelve Monkeys.

View Quote Look, hey — all of these nuts could just make phone calls, they could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all these poor sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere, plague of madness... There's no such thing as right and wrong; just popular opinion.

View Quote My father is God! I worship my father!

View Quote My father's going to be very upset when he hears about this! And when my father gets upset, the ground SHAKES!

View Quote Oh, wouldn't it be great if I was crazy? Then the world would be okay.

View Quote Sorry. Sorry. I got a little agitated. The thought of escape crossed my mind, and then suddenly — suddenly — suddenly I felt like bending the ****ing bars back, ripping the goddamn window frames and eating them — yes, eating them! Leaping, leaping, leaping! Colonics for everyone! All right! You dumbasses. I'm a mental patient. I'm supposed to act out!