Cloud Atlas (film)

"I will not be subjected to criminal abuse."

"Composing is a crusade. Sometimes you slay the dragon. Sometimes it slays you."

"You must have misheard me. I said I had a melody, not a malady!"

"Lonesome night. Babbits bawlin', wind bitin' the bone. Wind like this full of voices. Ancestry howlin' at you, yibberin' stories. All voices tied up into one. One voice different, one voice whisperin' out there, spyin' from the dark. That fangy devil Ol' Georgie hisself. Now you hear up close and I'll yarn you about the first time we met, eye to eye."

"Nay, this life all rot n' luck n' no smilin' in some yarnin'. In rear's time, I ever fessed the secret of Sloosha's Hallow. Adam, my bro' by law, n' his son n' me be trekkin' back from Honokaa Market. It was Adam's custom to kowtow his ancestry with offerin's n' honorin's. Suddenwise, that fangy devil's eyes, I felt'em."

"Prescients come barterin' twice a year, their ships creep-crawlin' on waves, just floatin' on the Smart o' the Old Uns."

"Why words slink n' slide off a tongue, when we need them most? If my tongue'd been more bold, could I have stopped all that diresomes about to happen?"

"Now kin n' bros n' half-strangers, yay, even the Abbess, all come knockin', to gape in wonderment like Sonmi herself was sittin' in our kitchen."

"Questions about Prescients n' their whoahsome Ship poured thick n'fast... No one queried what fusion engine was... cos they didn't want to look stoopit in front o' the gatherin'. True really was, Meronym answered the questions, but no answer ever quenched your curio. All o' that answerin' done was teach everyone to not trust her, nay, not a flea..."

"...goats, and so do herders, they're known for housing temper."

"True-true."

"Even as I was watching "Cloud Atlas" the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time — but I no longer believe repeated viewings will solve anything. To borrow Churchill's description of Russia, "it is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." It fascinates in the moment. It's getting from one moment to the next that is tricky. Surely this is one of the most ambitious films ever made. The little world of film criticism has been alive with interpretations of it, which propose to explain something that lies outside explanation. Any explanation of a work of art must be found in it, not taken to it."

"Clouds do not really look like camels or sailing ships or castles in the sky. They are simply a natural process at work. So too, perhaps, are our lives. Because we have minds and clouds do not, we desire freedom. That is the shape the characters in "Cloud Atlas" take, and how they attempt to direct our thoughts. Any concrete, factual attempt to nail the film down to cold fact, to tell you what it "means," is as pointless as trying to build a clockwork orange. But, oh, what a film this is! And what a demonstration of the magical, dreamlike qualities of the cinema. And what an opportunity for the actors. And what a leap by the directors, who free themselves from the chains of narrative continuity. And then the wisdom of the old man staring into the flames makes perfect sense."

"Death, Life, Birth..."

"Future, Present, Past..."

"Love, Hope, Courage..."

"Everything is connected."

"Halle Berry"

"Jim Broadbent"

"Hugo Weaving"

"Jim Sturgess"

"Ben Whishaw"

"James D'Arcy"

"Keith David"

"David Gyasi"

"Susan Sarandon"

"Hugh Grant"

"Raevan Lee Hanan"