Libertarianism in media

"When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic — "High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L" — a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They kept hooking hardware into him — decision-action boxes to let him boss other computers, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory. Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number of neuristors. And woke up."

""Soul?" Does a dog have a soul? How about cockroach?"

"I spent time then soothing Mike down trying to make him happy, having figured out what troubled him — thing that makes puppies cry and causes people to suicide: loneliness. I don't know how a long a year is to a machine that thinks a million times faster than I do. But must be too long."

"That we were slaves I had known all my life — and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold — but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves."

"As it says in Bible, God fights on side of heaviest artillery."

"(Correction — are no homely women. Some more beautiful than others.)"

"Genius is where you find it."

"I'm a Fifth Internationalist, most of the Organization is. Oh, we don't rule out anyone going our way; it's a united front. We have Communists and Fourths and Ruddyites and Societians and Single-Taxers and you name it. But I'm no Marxist; we Fifths have a practical program. Private where private belongs, public where it's needed, and an admission that circumstances alter cases. Nothing doctrinaire."

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame. . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world. . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

"Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead — but first get permit."

"Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory."

"I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

"Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled."

"One way or other, what you get, you pay for."

"This air isn't free, you pay for every breath."

"Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it."

"First, what is it you want us to pay taxes for? Tell me what I get and perhaps I'll buy it."

"In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies."

"Suppose instead of election a man were qualified for office by petition signed by four thousand citizens. He would then represent those four thousand affirmatively, with no disgruntled minority, for what would have been a minority in a territorial constituency would all be free to start other petitions or join in them. All would then be represented by men of their choice. Or a man with eight thousand supporters might have two votes in this body. Difficulties, objections, practical points to be worked out — many of them! But you could work them out. . . and thereby avoid the chronic sickness of representative government, the disgruntled minority which feels — correctly! — that it has been disenfranchised."

"Whatever you do, do not let the past be a straitjacket!"

"Comrades, I beg of you — do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."

"You have put your finger on the dilemma of all government — and the reason I am an anarchist. The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government — sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive — and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?"

"I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent — the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority... while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third is it not likely that you would be better off without it?"

"In writing your constitution let me invite attention to the wonderful virtue of the negative! Accentuate the negative! Let your document be studded with things the government is forever forbidden to do. No conscript armies... no interference however slight with freedom of press, or speech, or travel, or assembly, or of religion, or of instruction, or communication, or occupation... no involuntary taxation."

"What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing."

"Seems to be a deep instinct in human beings for making everything compulsory that isn't forbidden."

"Oratory is a null program."

"Some logics get nervous breakdowns. Overloaded phone system behaves like frightened child. Mike did not have upsets, acquired sense of humor instead. Low one. If he were a man, you wouldn't dare stoop over. His idea of thigh-slapper would be to dump you out of bed — or put itch powder in pressure suit."

"Excuse me, I did not mean to criticize your planet."

"Women are scarce; aren't enough to go around — that makes them most valuable thing in Luna, more precious than ice or air, as men without women don't care whether they stay alive or not."

"At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is "the will of the people" ... but the problem changes only superficially."

"You listening, Bog? Is a computer one of Your creatures?"

"But I was born free."

"Who is John Galt?"

"He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points."

"She was twelve years old when she told Eddie Willers that she would run the railroad when they grew up. She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought—and never worried about it again."

"There is no necessity for pain—why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who will not accept its necessity?—we who hold the love and the secret of joy, to what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom?"

"It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener."

"Man? What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur."

"I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not."

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

"He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. No, he thought, not an assurance of victory—who can ever have that?—only the chance to act, which is all one needs. Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror: being delivered to destruction with one's hands tied behind one's back."

"As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn. ... As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt's Torch was the last thing they saw on earth."

"She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth . . . To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his . . . No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired . . . A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience."

"Inasmuch as the formula of Rearden Metal is my own personal secret, and in view of the fact that the Metal costs much less to produce than you boys can imagine, I expect to skin the public to the tune of a profit of twenty-five per cent in the next few years." "What do you mean, skin the public, Mr. Rearden?" asked the boy. "If it's true, as I've read in your ads, that your Metal will last three times longer than any other and at half the price, wouldn't the public be getting a bargain?" "Oh, have you noticed that?"

"Wasn't it evil to wish without moving—or to move without aim?"

"Do you know what that banquet was like? It's as if they'd heard that there are values one is supposed to honor and this is what one does to honor them—so they went through the motions, like ghosts pulled by some sort of distant echoes from a better age. I . . . I couldn't stand it."

"Don't ever get angry at a man for stating the truth."

"I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

"You see, Dr. Stadler, people don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue—a highly intellectual virtue—out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt."

"Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own—they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal— for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them—while you'd give a year of your life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear."

"Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"

"I'd take no pride in any hopeless longing. I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it."

"There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they're afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that's all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns—just somebody naming the exact nature of what it is you're doing?"

"So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth."

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade—with reason, not force, as their final arbiter—it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability—and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?"

"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires."

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not yet discovered; that no man may be smaller than his money. Is that the reason why you call it evil?"

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun."

"In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law, men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter."

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed."

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are."

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice—there is no other—and your time is running out."

"Madam, when we'll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won't be of any earthly use to save them. And I'm heartless enough to say that when you'll scream, 'But I didn't know it!'—you will not be forgiven."

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kinds of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of lawbreakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

"When you felt proud of the rail of the John Galt Line," said Francisco, the measured rhythm of his voice giving a ruthless clarity to his words, "what sort of men did you think of? Did you want to see that Line used by your equals—by giants of productive energy, such as Ellis Wyatt, whom it would help to reach higher and still higher achievements of their own?" "Yes," said Rearden eagerly. "Did you want to see it used by men who could not equal the power of your mind, but who would equal your moral integrity—men such as Eddie Willers—who could never invent your Metal, but who would do their best, work as hard as you did, live by their own effort, and—riding on your rail—give a moment's silent thanks to the man who gave them more than they could give him?" "Yes," said Rearden gently. "Did you want to see it used by whining rotters who never rouse themselves to any effort, who do not possess the ability of a filing clerk, but demand the income of a company president, who drift from failure to failure and expect you to pay their bills, who hold their wishing as an equivalent of your work and their need as a higher claim to reward than your effort, who demand that you serve them, who demand that it be the aim of your life to serve them, who demand that your strength be the voiceless, rightless, unpaid, unrewarded slave of their impotence, who proclaim that you are born to serfdom by reason of your genius, while they are born to rule by the grace of incompetence, that yours is only to give, but theirs only to take, that yours is to produce, but theirs to consume, that you are not to be paid, neither in matter nor in spirit, neither by wealth nor by recognition nor by respect nor by gratitude—so that they would ride on your rail and sneer at you and curse you, since they owe you nothing, not even the effort of taking off their hats which you paid for? Would this be what you wanted? Would you feel proud of it?" "I'd blast that rail first," said Rearden, his lips white. "Then why don't you do it, Mr. Rearden? Of the three kinds of men I described—which men are being destroyed and which are using your Line today?" They heard the distant metal heartbeats of the mills through the long thread of silence. "What I described last," said Francisco, "is any man who proclaims his right to a single penny of another man's effort."

"All your life, you have heard yourself denounced, not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those qualities of character which are your highest pride. You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been called anti-social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads. You have been called ruthless for the strength and self-discipline of your drive to your purpose. You have been called greedy for the magnificence of your power to create wealth. You, who've expended an inconceivable flow of energy, have been called a parasite. You, who've created abundance where there had been nothing but wastelands and helpless, starving men before you, have been called a robber. You, who've kept them all alive, have been called an exploiter. You, the purest and most moral man among them, have been sneered at as a 'vulgar materialist.' Have you stopped to ask them: by what right?—by what code?—by what standard?"

"The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt."

"Your own moral code—the one you lived by, but never stated, acknowledged or defended—was the code that preserves man's existence. If you were punished for it, what was the nature of those who punished you? Yours was the code of life. What, then, is theirs?"

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders-what would you tell him to do?" "I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?" "To shrug."

"I thought that any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return. But I see that I was wrong. You were getting your food unearned and you concluded that affection did not have to be earned, either. You concluded that I was the safest person in the world for you to spit on, precisely because I held you by the throat. You concluded that I wouldn't want to remind you of it and that I would be tied by the fear of hurting your feelings. All right, let's get it straight: you're an object of charity who's exhausted his credit long ago."

"Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that 'the good' was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they believe to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it—well, so does any burglar. There is only this difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act."

"If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition—which you cannot force—that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there—I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine—I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me—use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action."

"I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it and to do it well. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people—the fact that my work is of greater value than the work of my neighbors and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability—I refuse to apologize for my success—I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. If this is what the public finds harmful to its interests, let the public destroy me. This is my code—and I will accept no other."

"If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own—I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: 'The public be damned, I will have no part of it!'"

"He was seeing the enormity of the smallness of the enemy who was destroying the world. He felt as if, after a journey of years through a landscape of devastation, past the ruins of great factories, the wrecks of powerful engines, the bodies of invincible men, he had come upon the despoiler, expecting to find a giant—and had found a rat eager to scurry for cover at the first sound of a human step. If this is what has beaten us, he thought, the guilt is ours."

"Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. [...] He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut."

"Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws—and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying."

"“The nation which had once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor.”"

"We don't have to go to extremes," said Mouch hastily. "We don't want to frighten people. We want to have them on our side. Our top problem is, will they . . . will they accept it at all?"

"What I actually am, Mr. Rearden, is a policeman. It is a policeman's duty to protect men from criminals—criminals being those who seize wealth by force. It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman's duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property—then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman."

"Dagny, you're more fortunate than I. Taggart Transcontinental is a delicate piece of precision machinery. It will not last long without you. It cannot be run by slave labor. They will mercifully destroy it for you and you won't have to see it serving the looters. But copper mining is a simpler job. D'Anconia Copper could have lasted for generations of looters and slaves. Crudely, miserably, ineptly—but it could have lasted and helped them to last. I had to destroy it myself."

"It seems monstrously wrong to surrender the world to the looters, and monstrously wrong to live under their rule. I can neither give up nor go back. I can neither exist without work nor work as a serf. I had always thought that any sort of battle was proper, anything, except renunciation. I'm not sure we're right to quit, you and I, when we should have fought them. But there is no way to fight. It's surrender, if we leave—and surrender, if we remain. I don't know what is right any longer." "Check your premises, Dagny. Contradictions don't exist."

"We never demanded the one payment that the world owed us—and we let our best reward go to the worst of men. The error was made centuries ago, it was made by Sebastian d'Anconia, by Nat Taggart, by every man who fed the world and received no thanks in return. You don't know what is right any longer? Dagny, this is not a battle over material goods. It's a moral crisis, the greatest the world has ever faced and the last. Our age is the climax of centuries of evil. We must put an end to it, once and for all, or perish—we, the men of the mind. It was our own guilt. We produced the wealth of the world—but we let our enemies write its moral code."

"Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn't know. We thought it was good. No, that's not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need."

"What's whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it's all one pot, you can't let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings are all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it's not right for me to own a car until I've worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth—why can't he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed?"

"It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn't belong to him, it belonged to 'the family', and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his 'need'—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife's head colds, hoping that 'the family' would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it's miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest between six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother's. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?"

"Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less. Don't ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there's always ways to get the rotten ones. You don't break into grocery stores after dark and you don't pick your fellow's pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it's to get stinking drunk and forget—you do."

"Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel's worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker. He wouldn't marry, he wouldn't help his folks back home, he wouldn't put an extra burden on 'the family.' Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn't marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra 'disability allowance,' they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, 'the family' was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in 'need' than the rest of us could ever imagine—they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed."

"God help us, ma'am! Do you see what we saw? We saw that we'd been given a law to live by, a moral law, they called it, which punished those who observed it—for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got."

"Nobody can divide a factory's income among thousands of people, without some sort of a gauge to measure people's value. Her gauge was bootlicking. Selfless? In her father's time, all of his money wouldn't have given him a chance to speak to his lousiest wiper and get away with it, as she spoke to our best skilled workers and their wives. She had pale eyes that looked fishy, cold and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance. And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'."

"The guff gave us a chance to pass off as virtue something that we'd be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn't a man voting for it who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man rich and smart enough but that he didn't think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his better's wealth and brain. But while he was thinking that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who'd get unearned benefits, too. He forgot about all his inferiors who'd rush to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors. The worker who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need entitled them to an icebox like his own. That was our real motive when we voted—that was the truth of it—but we didn't like to think it, so the less we liked it, the louder we yelled about our love for the common good."

"What good would our need do to a power plant when its generators stopped because of our defective engines? What good would it do to a man caught on an operating table when the electric light went out? What good would it do to the passengers of a plane when its motor failed in mid-air? And if they bought our product, not because of its merit, but because of our need, would that be the good, the right, the moral thing to do for the owner of that power plant, the surgeon in that hospital, the maker of that plane? Yet this was the moral law that the professors and leaders and thinkers had wanted to establish all over the earth. If this is what it did in a single small town where we all knew one another, do you care to think what it would do on a world scale?"

"'I will put an end to this, once and for all,' he said. His voice was clear and without feeling. That was all he said and started to walk out. He walked down the length of the place, in the white light, not hurrying and not noticing any of us. Nobody moved to stop him. Gerald Starnes cried suddenly after him, 'How?' He turned and answered, 'I will stop the motor of the world.' Then he walked out."

"Miss Taggart, we have no laws in this valley, no rules, no formal organization of any kind. We come here because we want to rest. But we have certain customs, which we all observe, because they pertain to the things we need to rest from. So I'll warn you now that there is one word which is forbidden in this valley: the word ‘give.’"

"She smiled. "I know, this is a place where one employs nothing but aristocrats for the lousiest kind of jobs." "They’re all aristocrats, that's true," said Wyatt, "because they know that there's no such thing as a lousy job—only lousy men who don't care to do it.""

"What's wealth but the means of expanding one's life? There's two ways one can do it: either by producing more or by producing it faster. And that's what I'm doing: I'm manufacturing time." "What do you mean?" "I'm producing everything I need, I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life."

"Here, we trade achievements, not failures—values, not needs. We're free of one another, yet we all grow together. Wealth, Dagny? What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish."

"There is only one kind of men who have never been on strike in the whole of human history. Every other kind and class has stopped, when they so wished, and have presented demands to the world, claiming to be indispensable—except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. Well, their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do and what happens when they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Taggart. This is the mind on strike."

"We've heard so much about strikes, and about the dependence of the uncommon man upon the common. We've heard it shouted that the industrialist is a parasite, that his workers support him, create his wealth, make his luxury possible—and what would happen to him if they walked out? Very well. I intend to show the world who depends on whom, who supports whom, who is the source of wealth, who makes whose livelihood possible and what happens to whom when who walks out."

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago. Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it."

"I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't."

"We do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it—and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life."

"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice."

"Did it ever occur to you, Miss Taggart, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires—if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another—if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer's wealth, the artist who envies a rival's higher talent—they're all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune, or an immortal fame—they will merely destroy production, employment and art. A wish for the irrational is not to be achieved, whether the sacrificial victims are willing or not. But men will not cease to desire the impossible and will not lose their longing to destroy—so long as self-destruction and self-sacrifice are preached to them as the practical means of achieving the happiness of the recipients." "No one’s happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy."

"I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle."

"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie - the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on."

"She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted."

"All of you welfare preachers—it's not unearned money that you're after. You want handouts, but of a different kind. I'm a gold-digger of the spirit, you said, because I look for value. Then you, the welfare preachers . . . it's the spirit that you want to loot. I never thought and nobody ever told us how it could be thought of and what it would mean—the unearned in spirit. But that is what you want. You want unearned love. You want unearned admiration. You want unearned greatness. You want to be a man like Hank Rearden without the necessity of being what he is. Without the necessity of being anything. Without . . . the necessity . . . of being."

"Guilt is a rope that wears thin."

"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors—between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it."

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him; survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its contents are not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action."

"To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality."

"Devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking."

"The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap."

"When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit."

"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins."

"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death."

"You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live."

"The good, say the mystics of the spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself [...] The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question."

"It's not a sacrifice to renounce the unwanted. It is not a sacrifice to give your life for others, if death is your personal desire. To achieve the virtue of sacrifice, you must want to live, you must love it, you must burn with passion for this Earth and for all the splendor it can give you—you must feel the twist of every knife as it slashes your desires away from your reach and drains your love out of your body. It is not mere death that the morality of sacrifice holds out to you as an ideal, but death by slow torture."

"From the rites of the jungle witch-doctors, which distorted reality into grotesque absurdities, stunted the minds of their victims and kept them in terror of the supernatural for stagnant stretches of centuries—to the supernatural doctrines of the Middle Ages, which kept men huddling on the mud floors of their hovels, in terror that the devil might steal the soup they had worked eighteen hours to earn—to the seedy little smiling professor who assures you that your brain has no capacity to think, that you have no means of perception and must blindly obey the omnipotent will of that supernatural force: Society—all of it is the same performance for the same and only purpose: to reduce you to the kind of pulp that has surrendered the validity of its consciousness." "But it cannot be done to you without your consent. If you permit it to be done, you deserve it."

"Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind."

"You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you're incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others—that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler—that you're unable to earn your living by use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser."

"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute."

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

"In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."

"To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true."

"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life."

"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, […] a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality."

"The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of 'human rights' versus 'property rights,' as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body."

"Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle."

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach and fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law."

"You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value—you have now established an unselfish society where they trade extortion for extortion. Your system is a legal civil war, where men gang up on one another and struggle for possession of the law, which they use as a club over rivals, till another gang wrests it from their clutch and clubs them with it in their turn, all of them clamoring protestations of service to an unnamed public's unspecified good. You had said that you saw no difference between economic power and political power, between the power of money and the power of guns—no difference between reward and punishment, between purchase and plunder, between pleasure and fear, between life and death. You are learning the difference now."

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it."

"In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours."

"I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

"Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them."

"Get the hell out of my way!"

"From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!""

"Atlas Shrugged is not merely a novel. It is also — or may I say: first of all — a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society…. You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: "You are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.""

"There have even been outright bad writers blessed by the visitation of a poetic title. Ayn Rand had one with The Fountainhead, and another with Atlas Shrugged: a bit of a mouthful... Yet if those were not two of the worst books ever written - the worst books ever written don't even get published - they were certainly among the worst books ever to be taken seriously."

"I never made it through either of Rand’s two big novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. To enjoy either, I suspect, you had to have encountered Rand in adolescence, when so many of life’s lasting enthusiasms are forged. In recent years, a few friends have urged Rand on me, and I dutifully tried both novels more than once. Each time, I found myself oscillating between fits of the giggles, at the awful prose, and irritation, at the jejune philosophy."

"Like her other works of fiction and nonfiction, the book Atlas Shrugged manages to be both deeply sinister and deeply ridiculous, which isn’t so easy to do. Today there is a very small minority of economists who take her ideas seriously. There are virtually no biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, ethologists, geneticists or evolutionary theorists who do. Her ideas about the individual simply do not fit the objective research about how our species behaves and prospers."

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

"(T)he idealized world Ayn Rand has created to facilitate her wishful theorizing has no more logical connection to our real one than a world in which an author has imagined humanity ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt. This is most obviously revealed by the fact that in Ayn Rand’s world, a man who self-righteously instigates the collapse of society, thereby inevitably killing millions if not billions of people, is portrayed as a messiah figure rather than as a genocidal prick, which is what he’d be anywhere else."

"Big Boss: Solid Snake! I've been expecting you... I am the supreme commander of the FOXHOUND unit... And... The leader of the fortress of Outer Heaven, Big Boss! I gave this mission to you, a rookie, thinking I could use you to fool the rest of the world... But you were too good. You went too far! Solid Snake! I'm not going down alone. I'm taking you with me! Prepare to die!"

"Solid Snake: This is Solid Snake... Metal Gear has been destroyed. Operation Intrude N313 was a success! No big deal, the job is done, that's all... No big deal... I'm coming back now... OVER"

"Big Boss: ...can you hear me? Solid Snake... I'm not dead... Someday, I'll get even with you. Someday... we will meet again!"

"[Intro text] Lt. Snake, we received information from our intelligence man at the enemy's base. They have a weapon. Is it Metal Gear, which you destroyed 3 years ago? Go to the enemy base with 2 men. The pilot knows the route."

"Big Boss: You destroyed Metal Gear 1 and made me a cyborg. Now I want revenge."

"Big Boss: The nightmares? They never go away, Snake. Once you've been on the battlefield, tasted the exhilaration, the tension... it all becomes part of you. Once you've awakened the warrior within... it never sleeps again. You crave ever bigger tensions, ever bigger thrills. As a mercenary, I'd think you would have realized that by now. You care nothing for power, or money, or even sex. The only thing that satisfies your cravings is war! All I've done is give you a place for it. I've given you a reason to live."

"Revolver Ocelot: Gift of the silver tongue. They say it's the mark of a good officer... and of a liar. Americans are too in love with the sound of their own voice to speak the truth."

"Solid Snake: Life isn't just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies...what we've seen, heard, felt...anger, joy and sorrow...these are the things I will pass on. That's what I live for. We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light.We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with. The human race will probably come to an end some time, and new species may rule over this planet. Earth may not be forever, but we still have the responsibility to leave what traces of life we can. Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing."

"Hans: [to Snake] Are you familiar with the term "doppelganger"? Everyone has two personalities in them. One of them a persona for everyday public life, and the other the exact opposite. The personality lurking in one's subconscious is referred to as the "Shadow" in psychological terms. The Shadow negates its symmetrical opposite, the "Light" persona, and in some cases grows to the same level. If it manages to grow large enough, it takes on its own shape, separates from the body, and can walk around on its own. And that, my friend, is why we're both here."

"La Clown: If I die here, it means I'm not the hero. The hero is supposed to survive to the end. So... I guess that makes me the villain. The villain is always supposed to take the hero's side right before dying."

"Alice: The Children of Hamelin looked up to you as a hero. You were a man created by those in power and performed mighty works for them. The Legendary Hero—Solid Snake. That's what we were always taught. [...] Our pledge was, "May me someday be great like the honorable and mighty Snake.""

"Lucy: You're a cloned soldier—patterned after the legendary Solid Snake. We recovered his body from Lobito Island and created you through a fusion of his cells and our data. You were our Model 3, Snake."

"Venus: Don't worry about Snake. He's been to hell and back. He's a survivor, you know. Always has been, always will be. Takiyama: ... Venus: He'll be just fine. I'm always right about these things."

"Dalton: What do you plan to do once your wounds heal up? Got any ideas? Snake: No plans. Just a personal goal. Dalton: And what would that be? Snake: To keep on living. All this time, I've been searching for my past. And now I know that I don't have one. I was manufactured in a lab. I'm not even a real human. I've got no past, and might not have much of a future. Nothing. But I'm alive. I was made to be a weapon. And I don't have squat to my name. But... as long as there's air in my lungs and blood in my veins, I'm gonna live. Right? Dalton: You're half right. You're way off about having nothing, though."

"Paz: In school, I also learned that peace is an unnatural state for human society. And that war is a constant threat to our relationship with others."

"Snake: [to Amanda] There's always another reason to keep on living."

"Snake: Chico, growing up means choosing how you're gonna live your life. [...] Treasure your memories, Chico. No matter what happens, keep them safe. [...] Nothing to be ashamed of. Pain gets the better of us all. [...] Remember, real heroes, are never as polished as the legends that surround them."

"In a statement that shows both an ignorance of source material and a lack of critical thinking, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kartapolov stated during a parliamentary roundtable that the Metal Gear series of games is an example of United States Intelligence services seeking to manipulate “public consciousness and especially young people” against the Russian government. To clarify the problems with such a statement, first we need to recall that Hideo Kojima is the creator of the series, and he was born and raised in Japan. Second, the games were produced in Japan by Konami, a Japanese entertainment and gaming conglomerate. Third, the first game in the series was released in 1987 and the story remains largely the same. Fourth, examining the content of the games, such as Metal Gear Solid, reveals an overall critique of the stockpiling of nuclear arms, and is highly critical of the United States in this regard."

"More than anything, the themes of Metal Gear Solid are simply phantom whispers of the Cold War, where stocking piling [sic] and creating a bigger weapon is all that matters. The Moscow Times adds that Kartapolov continued in his statement by adding that these projects were “aimed at encouraging active protest activity and dissatisfaction with the country's authorities among young people.” In the broadest possible sense, this is not incorrect, but the dissatisfaction in these games is aimed at all governments who abuse their power with the goal of creating weapons of mass destruction."

"As far as a character that’s evolved with the hardware, that would have to be Snake. If you look at the original Metal Gear, he was a very silent type of character—-he didn’t speak much. Probably the reason for that is, on that hardware, we were unable to make the characters speak. You could compare it to movies. The original Metal Gears were kind of like silent-era movies and Metal Gear Solid 1 is when it became talkies and sound movies. But at the same time with Metal Gear Solid 1, he could speak but there still wasn’t emotion on the face. So everything had to be done through the voices. He had to say whether or not he liked something or if he was feeling hot or it hurt. Everything had to be explained vocally. Then we saw 2000, the next step in his evolution, where we could have emotion on his face. We get things like motion-capture and try to make games realistic and believable. That was the next stage in his evolution. For Metal Gear Solid 4, we were able to get more resolution and add more detail to the faces. We added wrinkles and we added the aspect of age to the equation. So: telling a story through wrinkles. If you really look at the evolution of Snake, the character, it’s also looking at the evolution of the gaming industry and hardware. I think that’s something that’s pretty unique to Snake as a character and you don’t see it in any other form of media where the character evolves with hardware."

"... ...!? This better not have anything to do with that Magitek-riding, Imperial witch!!!"

"I won't leave you until your memory returns!! By the way, this secret entrance might be useful some day. Don't forget about it!"

"I PREFER the term "treasure hunter"!"

"I would say that guy is missing a few buttons..."

"Terra...wait for me. I'll be back. And please, don't let a lecherous young king, who shall remain nameless, near you!"

"Hey! Call me a treasure hunter, or I'll rip your lungs out!"

"It's a little tight, but the price was right."

"These are a little large, but it'll do!"

"Gotta get to Narshe on the fly!"

"Bloody Kefka, we are your worst enemy!"

"YOWZA! Izzat... you!?"

"That ribbon suits you."

"Not a word of this to anyone, O Shrouded One..."

"I think I'm gonna..."

"Hey, squidball! Don't you ever learn?"

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with Kefka!"

"I'll never let go. I promise."

"You almost ate it trying to get that silly trinket!"

"The rest of you wait here. I smell a rat..."

"Even if it was only a little, I doubted you. But I am still your friend..."

"Nuts! Gotta to get to Narshe on the fly."

"Dammit! Gotta to get to Narshe on the fly."

"First of all, your beauty has captivated me! Second... I'm dying to know if I'm your type... I guess your ...abilities... would be a distant third."

"Guess my technique's a bit rusty..."

"You see, there are more girls here than grains of sand out there. I can't keep track of 'em all!"

"He'd slit his momma's throat for a nickel!"

"Look, don't you have a family? Just shut up and take it."

"If something were to happen to me, all the world's women would grieve!"

"If it's heads, you win..... We'll choose whatever path we want, without any regrets...."

"Yeah. I got to know the gal who brought us tea. After a while she just blurted out the whole plan!"

"Watch your mouth! There's ladies present! I was a perfect gentleman!"

"Think a "bear" like me could help you out in your quest?"

"...That's General Leo.. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy."

"I'm getting sick of this! Thou art such a pain in the...! Confound it all! I'm starting to talk like you!"

"Kid's got quite a lip!"

"No. Mr. Thou is THAT one. Over THERE!"

"Uh... Why's everyone singing?"

"Big brother, I didn't abandon the kingdom. Now I know why I have these stupid muscles!"

"You think a minor thing like the end of the world was gonna do me in?"

"So, you finally hit pay dirt, eh?"

"Can we really trust the Empire? I have an awful feeling about this..."

"Gau, how many times do I have to tell you, stop eating with your fingers?"

"Leave us. The dog eats strangers..."

"The reaper is always one step behind me..."

"I'm working for the Empire, but don't worry, I'm not going to kill you!"

"I can't help you. You must look within for answers."

"In this world are many like me who've killed their emotions. Don't forget that."

"My allegiance is to the Empire. I have no right to fight with you."

"Interceptor!!!!!"

"Baram! I'm going to stop running. I'm going to begin all over again..."

"My life is a chip in your pile. Ante up!"

"A two-headed coin..? How low can you get? I love it!"

"I can't be attached to anything... otherwise I couldn't be a gambler."

"Why not? Nothing to lose but my life... and I got that for free!"

"Daryl, I'm starting to sound like you."

"Nonsense! I'll win the Falcon from you when I beat you in a race around the world!"

"We're gonna get us another one.... another airship, that is!"

"Urgh! For the time being, I don't own the skies!"

"I'm just a gambler... I just want to be left alone... This world is too chaotic for me. What's worse, I've lost my wings..."

"Thou art so... odd."

"I HATE Machines!"

"Thou (repeated quote)"

"Elayne! Owain!"

"We can't have ye two prancing 'round all day!"

"You licentious howler!"

"You just have to show technology who's boss!"

"Dear Lola, I am writing to beg for your forgiveness. I am guilty of perpetuating a terrible lie. I have only now realized the error of my ways. I hope I can correct a great wrong. Your boyfriend, who you thought was in Mobliz, passed away some time ago. I have been writing in his stead. We humans tend to allow the past to destroy our lives. I implore you not to let this happen. It is time to look forward, to rediscover love, and embrace the beauty of life. You have so much life left to live.... Cyan"

"The world before the fall, Lovely is the light of dawn, Noble is the heart of man..."

"I encountered Sir Gau in Maranda. He said he "Get Strong, Smash Kefka"."

"I will no longer live in the past. We must all look toward the future now."

"These are…they're…um sort of a…minor diversion of mine…"

"Oh! Must thou embarrass me so?"

"…Dost thou truly think so?"

"Thou art…alive!?"

"I shall go with thee! We must not abandon this world to Kefka!"

"But…however did thou find me? W-wait! T-tell me thou did not read my letters…!"

"What an intriguing apparatus!"

"I love thee…I love thee more than anything."

"I am Cyan Garamonde, your worst nightmare."

"Mr. Thou! Mr. Thou!"

"You... angry... me?"

"I'm Gau! I your friend...FRIEND! I join you again!"

"Gau find short cut."

"Pretty Song!"

"...ooh...Gau...high place...not good...don't like..."

"Smells like parents' house here. Why so familiar?"

"Shiny, shiny! Gau like!"

"Fa-ther alive…Gau H-appy."

"This should be fun. When do we leave?"

"I am GOGO, master of the simulacrum... My miming skills will astonish you."

"Kupo...po!"

"An old dude named Ramuh taught me your language, kupo! He kept showing up in my dreams and telling me to help you, kupo! So... I'm gonna help you, kupo!"

"The hair! Watch the hair! I'm not a stuffed animal, kupo!"

"I'm your boss, kupo! You're gonna join us, kupo!"

"Help me! Kupo!!!"

"What a cute doggy!"

"Fuddy duddy."

"Waaaaaaahhhh! I'm gonna paint your portrait!"

"Say, sweetie, would you pose for a portrait?"

"Who is this puffed up aerobics instructor, anyway?"

"You! You old fool! You're still standing?!"

"Grandpa! Who are these people? Can they use magic, too?"

"And what a terrible actor you are!"

"It's too hot out here, grandpa!"

"Whatcha want with me? Espers? Espers, hmm.. haven't heard that word in a long while..."

"Flames, BEGONE!"

"I have a special little granddaughter!"

"All of you have that sparkle in your eyes…Well, this old man’s not giving up, either!"

"So full of energy! I must be the only one getting old…"

"So there I was, creeping through those caves that seemed to go on forever…I finally reached the deepest, darkest cavern and there he is, right in front of me. I stared the ugly brute straight in the eye, raised my staff, and let him have it. Bam! Thwack! Pow! Right in the kisser! Oh, I wish you could've been there to see me…"

"So I guess our town's little secret is out now..."

"All right, make some room for me."

"NOT...A...THING."

"Phooey! Emperor Gesthal's stupid orders! Edgar, you pinhead! Why do you have to live in the middle of a stinking desert?!? These recon jobs are the pits! ...AHEM! There's SAND on my boots!"

"Oh, Edgar... You know you only stand to lose from trying to hide her from us! Hee-hee-hee... I truly hope nothing happens to your precious Figaro!"

"Oh? Then...welcome to my barbecue! Hee-hee-hee!"

"Son of a Submariner! You'll pay for this!"

"Once Leo's gone, I can turn this water into a flowing river of poison! Anyone who touches it'll be pushing up daisies! Hee-hee..."

"(About the prisoners of the castle his men are to poisoned) Who cares? They're the ones who were stupid enough to get caught by the enemy!"

""Wait", he says... Do I look like a waiter?"

"Hee-hee... Nothing beats the sweet music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison! Uwee-hee-hee!"

"I'm a god! I'm all-powerful! Uwee-hee-hee... I'll collect more Espers... I'll extract their magic... And then... ... ... I'll revive the Warring Triad! I've already drained all your powers! You're useless to me now! You too! Take a hike!"

"Gah! How dare they put me in a place like this! ...Hmph! I just can't believe it! What a bore."

"Read my lips - mercy is for wimps! There's a reason "oppose" rhymes with "dispose"...If they get in your way, kill them!"

"Oh dear...you wanna fight me?! This is just dreadful!"

"How 'bout a little Magitek mayhem?"

"I don't care for the appearance of this pitiful little hamlet... So burn it!!"

"This little hamlet has too much boring and not enough burning... TORCH EVERYTHING!"

"I'd say you're all charged up, boys and girls...or whatever... Say, remind me to show you my Magicite collection someday! You might see a few familiar faces!!! Now for a little Magicite hocus-pocus...!"

"Ooh! They're warm to the touch! What treasures!"

"You really are a slow one. And always, always...ALWAYS such a little goody two-shoes!!!"

"Ouch! B-blood... Blood! Blood!!! You vicious brat! Argh... Grrr...! You know, you really are a stupid... Vicious... Arrogant, whiny, pampered, backstabbing, worthless... LITTLE BRAT!!!"

"I hate hate hate hate hate hate... hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE YOU! (alternate version of the previous line from the original SNES translation)"

"Run! Run! Or you'll be well done!"

"Oh dear... Well, I guess I was a bit hasty in calling you a useless old man before... NOW you're useless!"

"I've acquired the ultimate power! Observe...Such magnificent power! You're all nothing more than fleas compared to me now! Embrace your destruction... It is the fate of all things."

"I will destroy everything... I will create a monument to non-existence!"

"Why do people insist on creating things that will inevitably be destroyed? Why do people cling to life, knowing that they must someday die? ...Knowing that none of it will have meant anything once they do?"

"Why do you build, knowing destruction is inevitable? Why do you yearn to live, knowing all things must die? (alternate version of the previous line which appears in the Anthology FMV)"

"And did you all find your "somethings" in this broken world that just won't die?"

"Bleh! You people make me sick! You sound like lines from a self-help book! If that's how it's going to be... I'll snuff them all out! Every last one of your sickening, happy little reasons for living!"

"Hee-hee-hee! But what fun is destruction if no "precious" lives are lost?"

"Life... Dreams... Hope... Where do they come from? And where do they go...? Such meaningless things... I'll destroy them all!"

"The end draws near..."

"The end comes...beyond chaos"

"What a delicious morsel! I wanna get my tentacles around her...! (about to attack Terra)"

"Gwee-hee-hee... You're up the creek without a paddle! And I'm not gonna let you through! ... Does that make me a bad octopus?"

"Uwee hee hee... Game over!"

"Yaaaouch! Seafood soup! (after being burned)"

"Seafood soup is NOT on the menu! (an alternate version to the above line in FFVI Advance)"

"Muscle heads? Hate 'em! (referring to Sabin)"

"Uh, well, Mom always said I was a slow learner... but I eat FAST!!"

"Oh, all right, Uncle Ulty REALLY wants you to paint his portrait!"

"Silence Knave! You are in the presence of octopus royalty! A lowborn thug like you could never defeat me!"

"I have more lives than I do arms!"

"Well, whadduya want I should do?"

"I'm nothing more than a stupid octopus! (after seeing his portrait)"

"Look at me! I'm a receptionist! G'fa, ha, ha! (in the Colosseum in the World of Ruin)"

"Imp! Pal! Buddy! (about to use his "Imp Song" spell)"

"I owe you one, so I'm gonna jam up your opera! (in a letter at the Opera House)"

"Mwa ha ha! Let's see if Maria can shrug THIS off!"

"Long time no see! You've changed! Did ya miss me?"

"I ain't no garden-variety octopus!"

"Don't tease the octopus, kids!"

"N'ghaaa! This is heavier than I thought! It'll take me 5 minutes to drop it! (referring to the four-ton weight in the opera scene)"

"You must hate it when I show up...Too bad!"

"You called?"

"Havin' fun yet?"

"Thwarted again! I feel like such a sucker. Well, kids, hate to ink and run...... but I AM an octopus!"

"You know, just the other day I was taking a snooze, when he came along and decided to start gnawing on my head. Let me tell ya, the guy's got sharp teeth! (referring to Typhon)"

"I'd try not to make him mad... He gets hungry when he's irritated. (referring to Typhon)"

"He's not so great with words, but his strength'll blow you away! Heh-heh... (referring to Typhon)"

"Looks like I lose again! But today I brought along a buddy of mine! Mr. Typhon! Come on down!!! (referring to Typhon)"

"I know what you're thinking... "Man, that was cheap"! So sorry, so sorry..."

"Albrook/Alburg resident: How can you make a Gil in a world like this?"

"Banon/Bannan: Once, when people were pure and innocent, there was a box they were told never to open. But one man went and opened it anyway. He unleashed all the evils of the world: envy... greed... pride... violence... control... All that was left in the box was a single ray of light: Hope. We now confront those evils... And you are that last ray of light, our only hope..."

"Cid: Wow! All of a sudden I have a granddaughter!"

"Chadarnook/Chadnook: G'fu, fu, fu...Who're these numbskulls? No one...NO ONE...is going to remove me from this fine new painting!!"

"Dadaluma: Good day, fine sirs, how may I be of service? I hate fighting so I better let you pass!"

"Duncan: The Earth yawned open to take me, but I scrambled to safety!"

"Figaro Guard: Kefka's "One shy of a six pack!""

"Figaro Guard (FFVI Advance): I hear that some fanatical members of the Cult of Kefka insist on spelling Kefka's name with Cs instead of Ks. That just seems silly to me. Kefka's Kefka. He's still the same villain, no matter how you spell his name."

"General Leo: Shut up, Kefka. I oughta...."

"Gestahl/Gastra: Soldiers of the Empire! We stand at the dawn of a new age! The lost power of magic has returned to us! We are the chosen ones!"

"Gestahl/Gastra: Celes, child... You alone are special. Why don't I give you and Kefka the task of creating progeny to populate my new Magitek Empire?"

"Gestahl/Gastra: I'm simply going to put you to sleep using the very power you unleashed! What's so funny? Well then, it's only suitable that you fall asleep laughing!"

"Imperial soldier: Returner Scum!"

"Imperial soldier: Hey, you! You're Returners!"

"Imperial soldier: Scram, you blockhead."

"Imperial soldier: I'm not buying anything!"

"Imperial soldier: Three cheers for the Empire!"

"Imperial soldier: I oppose peace!"

"Kaiser Dragon/CzarDragon: Humans and their unsatiable greed... Your lust for power always leads to a lust of blood... This place is a sanctuary for wayward souls... What business have you filthy creatures here? You slaughter my bretheren, and befoul their rest with the profanity of your continued existence... You should not have come here. In the name of all dragonkind, I shall grant you the death you so desire. I am the dealer of destruction... I am the font from which fear springs... I am Kaiser... And your time is at an end."

"Mayor of Thamasa: Magic is forbidden!"

"Mayor of Thamasa: Welcome! Magic? What is this Magic?"

"Maranda/Miranda Citizen: A knight came here recently... He was amazing! But his heart was full of chaos... When he can cope with the pain, he'll be the mightiest warrior alive."

"Mobliz/Molbriz kid: I wanna see Katrin's baby!"

"Narshe/Narche/Nalch guards: Mashine-riding self-important swine! Take this!"

"Narshe/Narche/Nalch resident: Narshe is a neutral city! We want no war here, but that %#$@& empire won't listen!"

"Narshe/Narche/Nalch resident: Magic? Pshaw, what nonsense!"

"Old man: Deathgaze? I'd rather take an acid bath than fight that thing!"

"Rachel: I have to go now... ...I'll always love you... You must now cast off the anguish you've been harboring inside for so long.. Today I set your heart free. You must learn to love yourself again, and regain your self respect. ...... Phoenix! Be reborn again!! And give your power... to Locke!!"

"Ramuh/Ramah: Gestahl's methods are incorrect. You can't drain a live Esper of all its power. It is only when we are reduced to Magicite that our abilities can be transferred in total..."

"South Figaro Resident: We may be thieves, but at least we have goals in life!"

"South Figaro Kid: Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! I'm Magitek Armor!"

"South Figaro Resident: If the "Light of Judgement" burns down our town 100 times, we'll rebuild it 200 times! Wait, does that even make sense?"

"Thief in Zozo: Zozo!? Never heard of it."

"Thief in Zozo: Great people here!"

"Ultima Buster/Atma: I am the one known as Ultima... Forged an eternity ago and left here... Forgotten in the mists of time... Long have I pondered what I should do... Long, long have I pondered... But now it seems I have an answer..."

"Ultima Weapon/AtmaWeapon: My name is Ultima... I am power both ancient and unrivaled... I do not bleed, for I am but strength given form... Feeble creatures of flesh, your time is nigh!"

"Siegfried/Ziegfried: Aha! The ox bellows! Allow me to introduce my blade!"

"Siegfried/Ziegfried: Ha, ha, ha. Give up?"

"Remember, Remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

"Good evening, London. I thought it time we had a little talk. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin … I suppose you're wondering why I've called you here this evening. Well you see, I'm not entirely satisfied with your performance lately…. I'm afraid your work's been slipping, and … and well, I'm afraid we've been thinking about letting you go. Oh, I know, I know. You've been with the company a long time now. Almost … Let me see. Almost ten thousand years! My word, doesn't time fly? It seems like only yesterday… I remember the day you commenced your employment, swinging down from the trees, fresh-faced and nervous, A bone clasped in your bristling fist … "Where do I start, sir?" You asked, plaintively. I recall my exact words: "There's a pile of dinosaur eggs over there, youngster," I said smiling paternally the while. "Get sucking." Well, we've certainly come a long way since then, haven’t we? And yes, yes, you're right, in all that time you haven’t missed a day. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Also please don't think I've forgotten about your out-standing service record, or about all of the invaluable contributions that you've made to the company … Fire, the wheel of agriculture … It's an impressive list, old-timer. A jolly impressive list. Don't get me wrong. But … well, to be frank, we've had our problems, too. There's no getting away from it. Do you know what I think a lot of it stems from? I'll tell you … It's your basic unwillingness to get on within the company. You don't seem to want to face up to any real responsibility, or to be your own boss. Lord knows, you've been given plenty of opportunities … We've offered you promotion time and time again, and each time you've turned us down: "I couldn't handle the work, Guv'nor," you wheedled. "I know my place" To be frank, you're not trying, are you? You see, you've been standing still for far too long, and it's starting to show in your work … And I might add, in your general standard behaviour. The constant bickering on the factory floor has not escaped my attention … Nor the recent bouts of rowdiness in the staff canteen. Then of course there's … Hmmmm. Well, I didn't really want to have to bring this up, but … Well, you see I've been hearing some disturbing rumours about your personal life. No, never you mind who told me. No names, no pack drill … I understand that you are unable to get on with your spouse. I hear that you argue. I am told that you shout. Violence has been mentioned. I am reliably informed that you always hurt the one you love … The one you shouldn't hurt at all. And what about the children? It's always the children who suffer, as you're well aware. Poor little mites. What are they to make of it? What are they to make of your bullying, your despair, your cowardice and all your fondly nurtured bigotries? Really, it's not good enough, is it? And it's no good blaming the drop in work standards upon bad management, either … Though, to be sure, the management is very bad. In fact, let us not mince words … the management is terrible! We've had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them? It was you! You who appointed these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you! While I'll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious incompetents, who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous and unproven machines. All you had to say was "NO." You have no spine. You have no pride. You are no longer an asset to the company. I will however, be generous. You will be granted two years to show me some improvement in your work. If at the end of that time you are still unwilling to make a go of it … You're fired. That will be all. You may return to your labors."

"Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all."

"I didn't put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars."

"Though recognition's been delayed by its circuitous construction, now the pattern, long concealed, emerges into view. Is it not fine? Is it not simple, and elegant, and severe? How strange, after the long exacting toil of preparation, it takes only the slightest effort and less thought to send this brief, elaborate amusement on its breathless, hurtling race. The merest touch, no more, and everything falls into place. The pieces can't perceive as we the mischief their arrangement tempts. Those stolid law-abiding queues, so pregnant with catastrophe. Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late."

"There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof."

"Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain, everybody. Everybody has their story to tell…"

"Anarchy wears two faces, both Creator and Destroyer. Thus Destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators can then build a better world. Rubble, once achieved makes further ruins' means irrelevant. Away with our explosives, then! Away with our Destroyers! They have no place within our better world. But let us raise a toast to all our bombers, all our bastards, most unlovely and most unforgivable, let's drink their health, then meet with them no more."

"Why does everything need a big demonstration? I ask the simplest question and it's like Alice In Wonderland."

"I give up on the puzzles. I just want to turn the page upside down and read the answers."

"My name is Adam Susan. I am the leader. Leader of the lost, ruler of the ruins. I am a man, like any other man. I lead the country that I love out of the wilderness of the twentieth century. I believe in survival. In the destiny of the Nordic race. I believe in fascism. Oh yes, I am a fascist. What of it? Fascism… a word. A word whose meaning has been lost in the bleatings of the weak and the treacherous. The Romans invented fascism. A bundle of bound twigs was its symbol. One twig could be broken. A bundle would prevail. Fascism … strength in unity. I believe in strength. I believe in unity. And if that strength, that unity of purpose, demands a uniformity of thought, word and deed then so be it. I will not hear talk of freedom. I will not hear talk of individual liberty. They are luxuries. I do not believe in luxuries. The war put paid to luxury. The war put paid to freedom. The only freedom left to my people is the freedom to starve. The freedom to die, the freedom to live in a world of chaos. Should I allow them that freedom? I think not. I think not. Do I deserve for myself the freedom I deny to others? I do not. I sit here within my cage and I am but a servant. I, who am master of all that I see… I see desolation. I see ashes. I have so very much. I have so very little. I am not loved, I know that. Not in soul or body. I have never known the soft whisper of endearment. Never known the peace that lies between the thighs of a woman. But I am respected. I am feared. And that will suffice. Because I love. I, who am not loved in return. I have a love that is far deeper than the empty gasps and convulsions of brutish coupling. Shall I speak of her? Shall I speak of my bride? She has no eyes to flirt or promise. But she sees all. Sees and understands with a wisdom that is Godlike in its scale. I stand at the gates of her intellect and I am blinded by the light within. How stupid I must seem to her. How childlike and uncomprehending. Her soul is clean, untainted by the snares and ambiguities of emotion. She does not hate. She does not yearn. She is untouched by joy or sorrow. I worship her though I am not worthy. I cherish the purity of her disdain. She does not respect me. She does not fear me. She does not love me. They think she is hard and cold, those who do not know her. They think she is lifeless and without passion. They do not know her. She has not touched them. She touches me, and I am touched by God, by Destiny. The whole of existence courses through her. I worship her. I am her slave. No freedom ever was so sweet. My love, I would stay with you forever, would spend my life with you. I would wait upon your every utterance and never ask the merest splinter of affection. Fate… Fate… I love you."

"You will be SILENT, Mr Almond! Your incompetence has cost us our oldest symbol of authority and a jarring propaganda defeat! Do you understand what happened last night? … And you allowed them to do it. I want this creature and his associates found Mr Almond. I want his head … or by God I'll have yours instead! You will consult Mr Dascombe at Jordan Tower before making any official pronouncements. That will be all, Mr Almond. England prevails."

"Laughing, cheering, crying: They at least have not forsaken me … But why can't I feel anything for them? There's only me here, isn't there? I've known since childhood no one else is real. Just me and God. No boil upon the driver's neck; no stinking leatherette, no crowds, … I'd talk to my creator, about Nigger boys on the estate; and men, naked in bed, rubbing together, rubbing, pushing … When I grew weak, we'd talk. I talked to God, while colleagues laughed … but I was vindicated: God was real, embodied in a form that I could love. When I first saw her screens, her smooth unyielding lines … not as a woman, with strange sweat and ugly body hair, but something cold, hard; sensual. We loved, my God and I. But then … them she betrayed me. Now there's nothing. Now I am alone … except for them; waving beyond the glass. I'll try to love them more. They're all I have. Should I wave back? It mustn't look rehearsed, or insincere, but be instead a gesture from the heart … as spontaneous as their own. They love me. I pass on. England prevails."

"I think he's a psychopath, leader. I use the word in the most precise sense."

"I still don't know who codename V is, but I think I know what he is."

"Despite their faults those two men were human beings; and he slaughtered them like cattle."

"What's holding me back in my life … what's holding me back except..me?"

"They told me, "Son, you're special, you were born to do great things." You know what? They were right."

"Would you kindly pick up that ? [when the player does so] I don't know how you survived that plane crash, but I've never been one to question Providence. I'm Atlas, and I aim to keep you alive. Now keep on moving... we're gonna have to get you to higher ground. Take a deep breath and step out of the . I won't leave you twisting in the wind."

"Now, would you kindly find a or something? Bloody Splicers sealed Johnny in before they... Goddamn Splicers."

"Listen – I've got a family. I need to get them out of here. But the Splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, then maybe, just maybe... I know you must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now, but you're the only hope I'll ever see my wife and child again. Go to Neptune's Bounty... Find my family... Please."

"Plasmids changed everything. They destroyed our bodies, our minds. We couldn't handle it. Best friends butchering one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell."

"Careful now... Would you kindly lower that weapon for a minute? [when the player sees the Little Sister harvesting a corpse] You think that's a child down there? Don't be fooled. She's a Little Sister now. Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong on the surface, well, that don't count for much down in Rapture. Those Little Sisters, they carry ADAM – the genetic material that keeps the wheels of Rapture turning. Everybody wants it; everybody needs it. [a Splicer approaches the Little Sister, who then screams, causing the Big Daddy to appear] That's the Big Daddy. She gathers ADAM, he keeps her safe."

"[after the player escapes from the Welcome Center] Now you've met Andrew Ryan, the bloody King of Rapture. Now find your way to Emergency Access."

"If you want to use the Emergency Access, you'll be needing Dr. Steinman's key. He's the one what runs this place. But I don't expect him to hand it to you out of the milk of human kindness. Steinman ain't that kind, and frankly, I'm not even sure he's still human."

"All roads in Rapture lead to Ryan. The security, the Splicers, the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters: he pumps some kind of chemical scent in the air, pheromones they call it, makes them all dance to his tune."

"[encountering the first Little Sister to either harvest or rescue] Listen, boyo: You won't survive without the ADAM those... Things... Are carrying. Are you prepared to trade your life, the lives of my wife and child for Tenenbaum's little Frankensteins?"

"[if the player chooses to harvest the first Little Sister] That ADAM should do the trick. You did the right thing. Just remember: them things aren't people no more. And it's Dr. Tenenbaum they've got to thank for it."

"[if the player chooses to save the first Little Sister] Tenenbaum's playing you for a sap. Those things may look like wee little girls, but looks don't make it so. You'll need all the ADAM you can get to survive."

"Now you've had the pleasure of Andrew Ryan's company. He's the one who built this place, and he's the one who run it into the ground. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Maybe he went mad. Maybe the power got to him. Maybe he just decided he didn't like people. Whichever way you slice it, good men died."

"[about Peach Wilkins] Grown man, jumping at ghosts. Fontaine's dead and everybody knows it. In the ground for months, and half the place still jumping at his shadow. Christ, even Ryan. You never mind all that. We got work to do."

"Me wife, Moira – she's a right pain in the neck. But she's a beauty and she means the world to me. I can't help but feel God's punishing me for bringing her and Patrick to this place. I thought this would be a better life for us. Can you imagine a bigger fool than that?"

"[devastated] Moira... Patrick... Ain't that just like Ryan. Waits until we're almost out, and then he pulls the string! We'll find the bastard! We'll find him and we'll tear his heart out!"

"[when the player encounter propaganda posters about him] You might hear things about me, see my name about. Think what you will. There was a time when I cared about politics, but it's just an excuse men use to kill one another. I'm done with all that. I just want to see the sunlight again."

"I'm gonna need you to listen to me. I'm no sort of botanist, but I think Ryan has just killed Arcadia. The man's put something foul into the air. Bottom of the ocean, boyo. All the oxygen comes from the trees. No trees, no oxygen. Give me a spell to think... Ryan's woman in Arcadia is an old betty named Langford. An okay sort, but not above doing a dirty job for a dollar. If she's still kicking around, I'm sure she's gonna want to save her trees. After all, she planted the damn things."

"[after Ryan poisons Langford] Every time we get a yard ahead, Ryan goes and moves the goal line down to the other side of the field!"

"[about the Splicers] Why do they wear those masks? Maybe there's a part of them that remembers how they used to be, how they used to look. And they're ashamed."

"Ryan's handed the keys to Fort Frolic over to a guy named Sander Cohen. Cohen's an artist, says some. He's a Section Eight, says I. I've seen all kinds of cutthroats, freaks, and hard cases in my life, but Cohen, he's a real lunatic, a dyed-in-the-wool psychopath..."

"[after completing Sander Cohen's masterpiece] What happened to you? I've been trying to raise you for a dog's age. Never mind. Would you kindly leg it over to the 'sphere and head to Hephaestus? It's time to settle up with Ryan."

"Watch yourself. Ryan's stirring. We best keep to our knitting. It's time to either run the table or go home empty. Ryan's got the genetic key to Rapture. We get that from him and we get out of this hellhole. We don't, then you and I are ghosts. Now, would you kindly head to Ryan's office and kill the son of a bitch? It's time to finish this."

"Hurry now, grab Ryan's genetic key! [Jack does so] Now would you kindly put it in that goddamn machine?! [when he does] Aaah! Nice work, boy-o! [laughs evilly, then speaks in a Bronx accent] It's time to end this little masquerade. There ain't no "Atlas", kid. Never was. Someone in my line of work takes on a variety of aliases. Hell, once, I was even a Chinaman for six months. But you've been a sport, so I guess I owe you a little honesty. Name's Frank Fontaine."

"I gotta say, I had a lot of business partners in my life, but you... 'Course, the fact that you were genetically conditioned to bark like a cocker spaniel when I said "Would You Kindly" might've had something to do with it, but still... Now, as soon as that machine finishes processing the genetic key you fished off Ryan, I'm gonna run Rapture tits to toes. You've been a pal. You know what they say: never mix business with friendship. Thanks for everything, kid. Don't forget to say "Hi" to Ryan for me."

"And now you've got hooked up with Tenenbaum, huh, kid? She's a regular Mother Goose. All right, fun's fun, kid, but now ... go get stepped on by a Big Daddy, would you kindly? [nothing happens] Huh? I says, would you kindly go get stepped on by a Big Daddy? [pause] Ah. Seems like Mother Goose has been playing around in your egg salad. If you won't dance to that tune, I got others. "Code Yellow". [Jack cries out in pain] I just told your brain to tell your heart to stop beating. Not right off the bat, mind you. The heart's a stubborn muscle. But, not that stubborn."

"Ryan's flesh and blood. Why'd I go to the trouble? Otherwise you'd have been cut in two by the first Security Bot you crossed paths with. But not Ryan. He made it so his security would recognize his genetic structure. With half his genes, you ain't immune, but you got just enough to throw them metallic mooks off their game."

"That Tenenbaum ain't what you think. Florence Nightengale, huh? That'll all come crashing down 'fore you can say "canned tomatoes". I've seen good bunco, and I've seen great bunco. But, when you waltz through Rapture and World War II without even a scratch? You got more than leprechauns watching over you."

"ADAM's the ultimate score, kid. No more grifts. No more scams. A monopoly on ADAM makes Standard Oil look like the Piggly Wiggly. All that's left is burying the bodies... And, when they're already six miles under the Atlantic, you got one helluva head start!"

"You think you're some kind of hero? I ordered you up from Suchong like a Chinese dinner: a little from column A, a little from column B. What do you plan on going back to? Your fake family? Your phony dreams? Putting you out of your misery will be the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you."

"Made Ryan good and mad when I started playing the charity angle. Fontaine's Home for the Poor. 'Fore I knew it, I was calling myself Atlas and leading an army. Ryan and his precious Rapture. You don't have to build a city to make people worship you... Just make the chumps believe they're worth a nickel."

"I'm gonna miss this place. Rapture was a candy store for a guy like me. Guys who thought they knew it all. Dames who thought they'd SEEN it all. Give me a smart mark over a dumb one every time."

"[angered] You broke the spell?! [pause] But layin' all your chips on Mother Goose – it's not like you never been double-crossed before, you know what I'm sayin'? Hoof it to Point Prometheus. We'll discuss this like men. You, me, a submarine topside, and more ADAM than you could possibly imagine."

"All right, all right, you looking to slug it out? I'm game. But I've got all the ADAM in the city, pal. And now, I'm jake to take her out for a spin..."

"Last chance, kid. You pack it in now, and I'll leave this dump to you and Frau Kraut. You keep on comin', and Rapture a fish tank."

"Look around you, kid. You think two-bit heroics count for a fig in this pit? You're staring down the puke stain of Ryan's busted dream. You think there's something worth saving down here? Then you deserve to gargle with the rest of these scrubs."

"Where you gonna go? Your life? Your family? They're a fairy tale, kid. No more real than something you read about in the Saturday Evening Post. Poor bastard. A motherless freak whipped up in a half-baked science experiment."

"[laughs cruelly] I really wound you up with that wife and child bit: [in Atlas' voice, mockingly;] "Oh, me poor Moira! Ah, me wee baby Patrick!" [laughs again, normal voice;] Maybe one day I'll get me a real family. They play well with the suckers."

"Don't know what I was thinkin'. Never spliced up once the whole time I was down here in this aquarium. Figured it was bad to mix business with pleasure, but whooo! Forget all the nose-candy and floor polish I been wastin' time with! This stuff is the mother's milk!"

"Hah! That might be enough for the working scrubs and the pencil pushers, but I need more, more. I want to splice 'till there ain't nothing left to splice with!"

"I remember when me and the Kraut put you in that sub. You were no more than two. You were my ace in the hole, but you were also the closest thing I ever had to a son. And that's why this hurts. Betrayal, kid. Life ain't strictly business."

"I had you built! I sent you topside! I called you back, showed you what you was, what you was capable of! Even that life you thought you had? That was something I dreamed and had tattooed inside your head! Now, if you don't call that family, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS!"

"We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us."

"A man chooses. A slave obeys."

"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not to the sweat of his brow? "No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor." "No," says the man in the , "it belongs to God." "No," says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone." I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

"Good evening, my friends. I hope you are enjoying your celebration; it has been a year of trials for us all. Tonight I wish to remind each of you that Rapture is your city. It was your strength of will that brought you here, and with that strength you shall rebuild. And so, Andrew Ryan offers you a toast. To Rapture, 1959. May it be our finest year."

"[upon finding out Jack is in Rapture] So tell me, friend, which one of the bitches sent you? The wolf, or the CIA jackal? Here's the news: Rapture isn't some sunken ship for you to plunder, and Andrew Ryan isn't a giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle. And with that, farewell, or dasvidaniya, whichever you prefer."

"[before the player picks up the Incinerate Plasmid] A Parasite wanders the halls. We rebuilt the city, and the doubters send a fly to spoil our ointment. One thousand ADAM to the man or woman who pins its wings."

"[to Jack over the radio, after the submarine explodes] You ooze in like an assassin and then you try to sneak out like a thief. You're no CIA spook. Who are you? Why have you come here? There's two ways to deal with a mystery...uncover it, or eliminate it."

"I came to this place to build the impossible. You came to rob what you could never build. A , gaping at the gates of Rome. Even the air you breathe is sponged from my account. Well, breathe deep ... so later you might remember the taste."

"[speaking to Jack over the radio in Arcadia] On the surface, I once bought a forest. The Parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground. God did not plant the seeds of this Arcadia; I did. [Arcadia fills with poisoned gas]"

"Julie, we made a business deal, you and I, did we not? Money changed hands. Let me read to you from the agreement... Section 3, Subsection 4: 'Ryan Corp maintains exclusive rights to the creation, use, and exploitation of the Lazarus Vector'. [floods Langford's office with poisoned gas] Ownership is civilization, Julie. Without it, we're back in the swamp..."

"Why are you so resistant to the traditional methods of separating a man from his soul? You're not CIA, are you? You belong to Atlas, the one roach I can't seem to exterminate. Don't worry. I just need time to find the proper poison."

"A worm looks up and sees the face of God! But look around...it's a regular convention of worms in here. They all had mothers, fathers, people who loved them. They got married, fucked their wives. What makes you think you're any different? I haven't chosen a spot for you on the wall yet. Let me know if you have a preference."

"Rapture is coming back to life. Even now, can't you hear the breath returning to her lung? The shops reopening, the schools humming with the thoughts of young minds? My city will live. My city will thrive. And, when that day comes, we'll use your tombstone for paving tiles."

"A man builds a city at the bottom of the sea. That's a marvel. Another man happens to be on a plane that crash lands on the same city in the middle of the ocean. Why, that sounds more like... A miracle."

"Imagine the will it took to create a place like this. And what have you built? Nothing, you can only loot and break. You're not a man... you're just a termite at ."

"So far away from your family, from your friends, from everything you ever loved. But, for some reason, you like it here. You feel something you can't quite put your finger on. Think about it for a second, and maybe the word will come to you: Nostalgia."

"Though my physical defences fall, you'll not defeat me. My strength is not in steel and fire, but in my intellect and will. You hear me, Atlas?! Andrew Ryan offers you nothing but ashes!"

"[as Jack enters Rapture Central Control room] Even in the book of lies, sometimes you find truth. There is indeed a season for all things. And now that I see you flesh-to-flesh and blood-to-blood, I know I cannot raise my hand against you. But know this: you are my greatest disappointment. Does your master hear me? Atlas! You can kill me, but you will never have my city! My strength is not in steel and fire, that is what the parasites will never understand. A season for all things! A time to live, and a time to die. A time to build... And a time TO DESTROY! [suddenly sets core to self-destruct] Come now, my child. There is one final thing to discuss."

"[casually playing golf in his office as Jack approaches] The assassin has overcome my final defense, and now he's come to murder me. In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No. A man chooses; a slave obeys. You think you have memories: a farm, a family, an airplane, a crash, and then this place. Was there really a family? Did that airplane crash, or was it ? Forced down... Forced down by something less than a man. Something bred to sleepwalk through life until they are activated by a simple phrase, spoken by their kindly master. Was a man sent to kill, or a slave? A man chooses; a slave obeys. Come in. [Ryan's office door opens; Jack approaches] Stop, would you kindly? [Jack obeys] Would you kindly? Powerful phrase. Familiar phrase? [Jack recalls all the times Atlas said "Would you kindly"] Sit, would you kindly? [Jack sits] Stand, would you kindly? [Jack stands, Ryan motioning him up with his club] Run. [Jack runs away from Ryan] Stop! [Jack stops] Turn. [Jack turns to face Ryan] A man chooses; a slave obeys. [hands Jack his golf club] Kill! [Jack strikes Ryan in the head] A man chooses...! [Jack strikes again] A slave obeys! [Jack strikes again; Ryan grabs Jack as he screams in agonizing pain] OBEY!! [Jack lodges the golf club in Ryan's skull; Ryan falls over dead]"

"To build a city at the bottom of the sea! Insanity. But where else could we be free from the clutching hand of the Parasites? Where else could we build an economy that they would not try to control, a society that they would not try to destroy? It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea. It was impossible to build it anywhere else."

"I will dictate no laws. The Great Chain moves slowly, but with wisdom. It is our impatience that invites in the Parasite of big government. And once you've invited it in, it will never stop feeding on the body of the city."

"What is the difference between a Man and a Parasite? A Man builds. A Parasite asks, "Where is my share?" A Man creates. A Parasite says, "What will the neighbors think?" A Man invents. A Parasite says, "Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God...""

"Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"[On Protectors/“Big Daddies” and Gatherers/“Little Sisters”] On my walk today I had my first encounter with a pair of them… he, a lumbering palooka in a foul-smelling diving suit, and she, an unwashed moppet in a filthy pink smock. Her pallor was off, green and morbid, and there was a rather unpleasant aspect to her demeanor, as if she were in an altogether different place than the rest of us. …I understand the need for such creatures, I just wish they could make them more presentable."

"I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck."

"Atlas radioed on ahead. Says you were looking for an invite to the fisheries. Nuts, I say. But, if'n you heads up to the wharf master's office and find ol' Peach a Research Camera, maybe I could manage an invite."

"Just remember, sonny friend: I smell an ounce of Fontaine on you, and I'll have you in a box! Atlas gives you the vouch, but I ain't turning my eye just on his say so!"

"The wharf rat didn't get himself wet. You got something for me and my crew, or are you just looking to get criticized? You set here a spell. I needs to put on some coffee. Maybe puts on silverware and the like."

"Now, I bet when your boss waggled out of Hell, he done told the Devil he'd be right back, and the Devil says "Sure thing, Mr. Fontaine. I'll hold you a spot." Ryan promised Fontaine was dust, and now here you are, doing his dirty. I guess that makes Ryan a bum and you a –"

"With genetic modifications, beauty is no longer a goal, or even a virtue; it is a moral obligation. Do we force the healthy to live with the contagious? Do we mix the criminal with the law-abiding? Then why are the plain allowed to mingle with the fair?!"

"Today I had lunch with the Goddess. "Steinman," she said… "I'm here to free you from the tyranny of the commonplace. I'm here to show you a new kind of beauty." I asked her, "What do you mean, goddess?" "Symmetry, dear Steinman. It's time we did something about symmetry...""

"Why do we have two eyes? Is there some law that says we must? Two arms, two legs, two ears, two breasts..."

"No, Goddess! He'll ruin everything! Get 'im! Have your harpies tear 'im to bits!"

"What can I do with this one, Aphrodite? She WON'T - STAY - STILL! I want to make them beautiful, but they always turn out wrong! That one, too fat! This one, too tall! This one, too symmetrical! And now... What's this, Goddess? An intruder?! He's ugly! Ugly, ugly, UGLY!"

"My trees! It wasn't you, was it? No... Ryan...! I think I've got a way to save the trees, it's a genetic vector that- Oh, look who I'm talking to... Could you find me a sample of Rosa Gallica for me? Look in the Grotto... I've got to keep working while there's still time..."

"You've brought the Rosa Gallica? Well, what you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Send it through the Pneumo! [when the player does so] Yes, this is perfect... Perfect... [the door to her office opens] Come on up to my office... I'm letting you in now... I think I've got just the thing to put the green back in this forest."

"[passing the Bot Shutdown Panel in the office] I've got the security system in this joint hacked, so those turrets won't bite. Come on up to my office."

"[when Ryan addresses her over the radio; fearful] Mr. Ryan? [Ryan poisons the air in Langford's office] No... Wait... No! Please! [begins choking] MR. RYAN! [chokes to death]"

"[after cutting communications with Atlas] Ah, that's better. Atlas, Ryan, Atlas, Ryan, duh duh duh, duh duh duh. Time was, you could get something decent on the radio. The artist has a duty to seduce the ear and delight the spirit, so say goodbye to those two blowhards, and hello to an evening with Sander Cohen! Now, I haven't seen a sign of real life down here in months. Let's see if you're just another Johnny-come-lately, or maybe something more delicious."

"Ohhhh, I can smell the malt vinegar in this one. I've waited so long for something tasty to come to this little burg, but all that pass are yokels and rubes. Where are my manners? Come in, come in! Sander Cohen awaits you, at the Fleet Hall! WELCOME – to – Fort Frolic! No need to thank me for jamming the transmission of those boors Atlas and Ryan. Let them have their squabble. The artist, yes, the artist, knows there is richer earth to till. For example, I test you, little moth, but for a reason. I test all my disciples. Some shine like galaxies, and some... some burn like a moth at the flame! Come now, into my home."

"I know why you've come, little moth. You've your own canvas. One you'll paint with the blood of a man I once loved. Yes, I'll send you to Ryan. But first you must be part of my masterpiece. Go to the atrium. Hurry now. My muse is a fickle bitch with a very short attention span."

"Do you see it? When I am dust, this is what they'll point to! My Quadtych! My masterpiece. Go ahead. Don't be afraid. Touch it."

"And here's the glorious news: this is just the moment of conception! Out in this place there are three men, all former disciples of mine, all connected by a common thread... Betrayal. Find them, little moth, and immortalize their mortality in my Quadtych. Go. Once they've been sent to their reward, you shall go to yours... and to Ryan."

"You flutter all around the Fort, taking life as you go. You're not a moth, you're an angel. I've never painted an angel... Maybe I should."

"That's three of four...what's that look? You don't like it, do you? I don't need to be judged by you, by anyone! Screw you!! Screw all you fucking Doubters!!! Here's what I say to all of you!!!!"

"I'm sorry for that outburst. You'll have to forgive an old fool his artistic temperament. The birth is so close now. The labor pains can blur the judgment and drive the passions of even the finest spirits."

"[after the player completes the Quadtych] You'll find your path to Ryan is now clear. Tell him Sander said hello..."

"War a terrible thing. Japanese kill every man in my city, except for Suchong. Suchong have opium. Very good opium. This war, terrible thing, too, but not for Suchong."

"You become Big Daddy, it's a one-way street."

"Fontaine scary son of a bitch, but Ryan cheap son of a bitch. You can no reuse protector suit. Take a man, graft skin and organs straight into suit, otherwise suit not work. Ryan say Big Daddy too expensive. Ryan can go suck egg."

"Once Big Daddy is ready, nobody cross the Big Daddy."

"[referring to Brigid Tenenbaum] That’s quite a little monster Fontaine's dug up. When she does speak, which is almost never, her accent is thick and grating. Her hair is filthy and she seems to wear the same mustard-stained jumper day after day. But I've got to hand it to Frank: Tenenbaum is the all-time diamond in the rough. No formal training, no experience... but put her in front of a gene sequence, and she's Mozart at the harpsichord."

"[to Jack, after shooting Splicer near a Little Sister] Stay away from her, or it is you who will be shot next!"

"[when Jack starts approaching the Little Sister] Here! [Jack turns to her] There is another way; Use this... [throws Jack a Plasmid bottle] ...free them from their torment... I will make it to be worth your while... Somehow."

"[if the player chooses to harvest the Little Sister] How can you do this thing? To a child? But there are other Little Ones who have need of your help... Will you be as cruel to them?"

"[if the player chooses to save the Little Sister] The path of the righteous is not always easy, yes? The reward will become clear in time. Be patient."

"[audio diary "Hatred"] One of the children came and sat in my lap. I push her off, I shout, "Get away from me!" I can see the ADAM oozing out of the corner of her mouth, thick and green. Her filthy hair hanging in her face, dirty clothes, and that dead glow in her eye... I feel... hatred, like I never felt before, in my chest. Bitter, burning fury. I can barely breathe. And suddenly, I know, it is not this child I hate."

"Welcome back, child. Welcome to the city where you were born. You are angry at Fontaine, yes? Now you know the truth. You are his tool, brought back to Rapture to save him."

"While you sleep, I undo some of Fontaine's mental conditioning. His control is no longer complete, but he can still pull some very unpleasant strings. We made your mind with many locks und keys. Fontaine has most of those keys, but not all. Suchong designed your mind, taught Fontaine to control you. You might find answers in Suchong's flat in Mercury Suites."

"[after player takes the first dose of Lot 192] Yes! The compound is taking hold. The effects of the mental suggestion are now gone, but there will certainly be side effects. [the player's Plasmids start changing randomly] Lot 192 has reorganized your entire Plasmid structure. I should have known you would need a larger dosage. You'll have to locate another dosage to fully remove the effects."

"[about Fontaine] What is this you wait for? Go und get this idiot!"

"[after Fontaine escapes] Scheisse! You let him get away! I need a moment for thinking. Ah! Ach, of course! This will be no problem. Find a Big Daddy und search his body. I would suggest you to be finding a dead one."

"You see the suit control system? Sehr gut. Get it. That is step one of turning you into one of those disgusting Big Daddies. The only way to get through that door Fontaine went through is to have a little one open it for you. Und they'll only trust you if you look like, sound like, und even smell like one of those big, stinking brutes."

"Ah, look at you. You look just the same as those... [remorseful] Ah, what things we have done... What things."

"It would mean very much to me if you will be gentle with the girls. Mein kleines maedchen."

"[about the cured Little Sisters] Ach, look at them. Even though they are physically free of the need to gather, Suchong's mental conditioning still holds them to their terrible task. For sins such as this we can never atone."

"[If player has harvested every Little Sister] They offered you everything, yes. And in return you gave them what I have come to expect of you: brutality! You took what you wanted, all the ADAM, all the power! And Rapture trembled, but in the end even Rapture was not enough for you! Your father was terrified the world would try to steal the secrets of his city! But not you, for now have stolen the terrible secrets of the world!"

"[If player has harvested at least one Little Sister] They offered you everything, yes? And in return you gave them what you always did... brutality. You took what you wanted — all the ADAM, all the power — and Rapture trembled. But in the end even Rapture was not enough for you. Your father was terrified that the world would try to steal the secrets of his city. For you now have stolen the terrible secrets of the world."

"[If player has saved every Little Sister] They offered you the city... And you refused it. And what did you do instead? What I have come to expect of you: You saved them. You gave them the one thing that was stolen from them: A chance. A chance to learn, to find love, to live. And in the end what was your reward? You never said, but I think I know... A family."

"I was at German prison camp only of sixteen years old when I realize I have love for science. German doctor, he make experiment. Sometime, he make scientific error. I tell him of this error, and this make him angry. But then he asks, "How can a child know such a thing?" I tell him, "Sometimes, I just know." He screams at me, "Then why tell me?" "Well," I said, "if you're going to do such things, at least you should do them properly.""

"This little Sea Slug has come along and glued together all the crazy ideas I've had since the war… it doesn't just heal damaged cells, it… resurrects them… I can bend the double helix… black can be reborn white, tall, short, weak, strong…"

"[to the tune of Frere Jaques] Mr. Bubbles, Mr. Bubbles, are you there? Are you there? Come and give me lollies, come and bring me toffees. Teddy bears… teddy bears."

"I traded You, oh Lord, for Mammon, and what did it get me, huh?!"

"He died for you, for YOU, you SON OF A BITCH!""

"You ungrateful bastard! He offered you salvation, and you shit on him!"

"Where is he Madonna? Where is the little sinner?"

"Run, run to your devil! I'm sure HE will help you!"

"Closed the theater? Why? Because there's a war on? Bastards!"

"What's that, fella'? You think I'm prettier than Garbo, huh? Well…"

"She was up for the part as well, but then they found her in a salt pond."

"Who needs to make it on Broadway theatre|Broadway? When you can make it here."

"It's my part! Mine!"

"You gotta be rich, down here, to meet a lady. They don't care how nice you are."

"The lies, the money... the lies, The money..."

"All I wanna do is meet someone... but this fucking place is poison."

"I know you're here! And I'm itching for a fight."

"Things were supposed to work out for me, down here...! RYAN! When's my turn, you son of a bitch?!"

"Hm, my nerves must be shot. Florida, make me a hot toddy."

"You call that tenderloin? If you serve that in any respectable hotel in New York, they'd laugh you out of town!"

"You know what they do to vagrants in Rapture? They hang them!"

"Go and run! That's all your time is good for!"

"Nothing there, but we should bring in the hounds from the stables, just the same."

"I- I try to help, but- sometimes I- I make mistakes... I try to help! But sometimes I- I make mistakes."

"Can't somebody clean this place up? Scrub it down! It's crawling, crawling!"

"When is a fever not a fever…? When I say it isn't!"

"Toxic! Septic! UNSANITARY!"

"You're crawling! You're sick!"

"What I was trying to do with BioShock was to say, ‘Okay, well, [in Atlas Shrugged] that’s a utopia where Ayn Rand, who made the philosophy, made all the rules, and all the characters were under her control. What if things weren’t under everybody’s control?’ And I think that’s the problem with utopias — we bring ourselves to it, you know? We think we’re leaving our problems behind but – I don’t mean this in a cynical way – we are the problem. Like whatever social problems that occur come out of us. It’s not like they fall out of the sky. I think people think they’re going to go to a utopian society, and I think it’s not really possible."

"Armin Shimerman – Andrew Ryan"

"Greg Baldwin – Frank Fontaine"

"Karl Hanover – Atlas"

"Anne Bobby – Brigid Tenenbaum"

"T. Ryder Smith - Sander Cohen"

"Peter Francis James – Dr. J.S. Steinman"

"Susanne Blakeslee – Prof. Julie Langford"

"Juliet Landau – Little Sisters"

"Some trees flourish, others die. Some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. Some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. Ain’t nothing fair. You know that."

"Sure, civilization may be dull, but the alternative, Mr. Marston, is hell."

"John made it... He's the only one. Rest of us... no. But... I tried. In the end... I did."

"I can't fight my own nature, none of us can."

"Arthur Morgan - Roger Clark"

"Micah Bell - Peter Blomquist"

"Dutch van der Linde - Benjamin Byron Davis"

"John Marston - Rob Wiethoff"

"Bill Williamson- Steve J. Palmer"

"Abigail Marston - Cali Elizabeth Moore"

"John "Jack" Marston Jr. - Marissa Buccianti (child) and Ted Sutherland (teen)"

"Sadie Adler - Alex McKenna"

"Charles Smith - Noshir Dalal"

"Hosea Matthews - Curzon Dobell"

"Josiah Trelawny - Steven Gevedon"

"Karen Jones - Jo Armeniox"

"Kieran Duffy - Pico Alexander"

"Lenny Summers - Harron Atkins"

"Leopold Strauss - Howard Pinhasik"

"Mary-Beth Gaskill - Samantha Strelitz"

"Molly O'Shea - Penny O'Brien"