- Roy Neary: I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad. It's okay, though. I'm still Dad.
- Roy Neary: Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. Is that it? Is that all you're gonna ask me? Well I got a couple of thousand goddamn questions, you know. I want to speak to someone in charge. I want to lodge a complaint. You have no right to make people crazy! You think I investigate every Walter Cronkite story there is? Huh? If this is just nerve gas, how come I know everything in such detail? I've never been here before. How come I know so much? What the hell is going on around here? Who the hell are you people?
- Support Leader: [Looking the returnees] They haven't even aged. Einstein was right.
- Team Leader: Einstein was probably one of them.
- Air Traffic Controller: TWA 517 do you want to report a UFO, over? TWA 517 do you want to report a UFO, over?
- TWAPilot: [over radio] Negative, we don't want to report.
- Air Traffic Controller: Air East 31, do you wish to report a UFO, over?
- AirEast Pilot: [over radio] Negative, we don't want to report one of those either.
- Air Traffic Controller: Air East 31, do you wish to file a report of any kind to us?
- AirEast Pilot: [over radio] I wouldn't know what kind of report to file, Center.
- Air Traffic Controller: Uh Air East 31, uh, me neither.
- Roy Neary: I wanna speak to the man in charge.
- David Laughlin: Mr. Lacombe is the highest authority.
- Roy Neary: He isn't even an American.
- David Laughlin: Who flies crates like these anymore?
- Project Leader: No one. These planes were reported missing in 1945.
- [Roy is shoveling soil into his kitchen window]
- Roy Neary: Ronnie, if I don't do this, *that's* when I'm going to need a doctor.
- David Laughlin: We didn't choose this place! We didn't choose these people! They were invited!
- Claude Lacombe: They belong here more than we.
- Brad Neary: I don't understand these fractions.
- Roy Neary: What's one third of sixty?
- Brad Neary: [bewildered] That's a fraction, I don't understand them.
- Roy Neary: [using a model train as an object lesson] Alright, let's say that this boxcar is sixty feet long, OK?, and one third of it is across this switch here, alright... And now another train is coming... Now, how far do you have to move this boxcar so that the other train doesn't smash it? Quickly Brad, there are thousands of lives at stake... Brad any answer...
- [CRASH]
- Jillian Guiler: [on the police inquiring about her missing son] They asked me if I'd seen any strangers in the neighborhood.
- Roy Neary: I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows... Dammit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important.
- Scientist: That's a 2500 dollar globe! What are you guys doing?
- Claude Lacombe: Mr. Neary, what do you want?
- Roy Neary: I just want to know that it's really happening.
- Ronnie Neary: Alright, everybody to bed!
- Toby Neary: No way! Dad said we could finish watching "The Ten Commandments"!
- Ronnie Neary: Roy, that movie is four hours long.
- Roy Neary: I told them they could watch only five commandments.
- Dirty Tricks #4: [Plotting about how to clear the Devil's Tower area of its population] Contaminated water. Affects people, crops, animals. Disease.
- Dirty Tricks #3: Yeah, epidemic.
- Dirty Tricks #1: What kind of disease?
- Dirty Tricks #3: A plague. A plague epidemic.
- Dirty Tricks #1: Nobody's gonna believe a plague in this day and age.
- Dirty Tricks #2: *Anthrax.*
- Dirty Tricks #4: Ranching country.
- Dirty Tricks #3: Yes!
- Dirty Tricks #2: There are a lot of sheep up in those hills.
- Wild Bill: Wait, that's good, that's good, I like that. But it may not evacuate everybody. There's always some joker who thinks he's immune. What I need is something so scary it'll clear three hundred square miles of every living Christian soul.
- Soldier in gas mask: Are you OK sir?
- Roy Neary: Yeah, I'm fine! And the only gas around here is from you guys farting around!
- [Roy's wife does not believe how he got the burns on his face]
- Roy Neary: Well they're not moon burns, goddamnit.
- Roy Neary: [checking the paper] Hey, you know what's playing in town? "Pinocchio"! You guys have never seen "Pinocchio". You guys have never seen "Pinocchio", you're in luck!
- Brad Neary: Aw, who wants to see some dumb cartoon rated 'G' for kids?
- Roy Neary: How old are you?
- Brad Neary: Eight.
- Roy Neary: You wanna be nine?
- Brad Neary: Yeah.
- Roy Neary: Then you're going to go see Pinocchio tomorrow night.
- [Brad makes a disgusted gesture, but shuts up]
- Ronnie Neary: Roy, that is a wonderful way to win over your children.
- Roy Neary: I'm not serious, I'm just saying that I grew up with "Pinocchio", and if kids are still kids, they're going to eat it up.
- [Ronnie looks at him in disgust]
- Roy Neary: Okay. Okay, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I'm Wrong Roy, alright.
- [Yells at his youngest son, who is demolishing his sister's doll]
- Roy Neary: Toby! You are close to death! Come out here!
- [Toby giggles, but obeys]
- Roy Neary: Okay, now, I'm gonna give you your choice. I'm not gonna be biased in any way. Tomorrow night you can either play Goofy Golf, which means a lot of waiting and shoving and pushing and probably getting a zero or you can see "Pinocchio" - which is a lot of furry animals and magic and you'll have a wonderful time. Okay? Now, let's vote.
- Brad Neary, Toby Neary: Golf!
- Barry Guiler: Toys! Toys!
- Jillian Guiler: Oh, my God!
- Barry Guiler: You can come and play now. You can come and play now. Come in through the door.
- Jillian Guiler: One, two, three!
- Barry Guiler: Mom, look! The sun's here!
- Jillian Guiler: Oh, my God!
- [a farmer is one of several people, including Roy and Jillian, who witnesses three UFOs flying over an Indiana road]
- Farmer: They can fly rings around the moon. But we're *years* ahead of them on the highway.
- Howard K. Smith: Good evening. At the top of the news tonight, a rail disaster. At Devil's Tower, Wyoming, a trainload of dangerous chemical gas went off the rails and forced the widest area evacuation in the history of these controversial army rail shipments. Presently, much of the surrounding area has been closed to the public for three weeks for renovations in the National Park there.
- David Laughlin: These people strangers to you?
- [placing photographs of people on the table, one is of Jillian]
- Roy Neary: Yeah. Except for her.
- David Laughlin: [interpreting for Lacombe] And the two of you felt compelled to be here?
- Roy Neary: Yeah, you might say that.
- David Laughlin: But what did you expect to find?
- Roy Neary: An answer! That's not crazy, is it?
- Project Leader: [over a loudspeaker at The Dark Side of the Moon] Could we have the lights in the arena down 60 percent, please... 60 percent.
- [the lights go down and running lights turn on one at a time up the runway]
- Project Leader: I don't think we could have asked for a more beautiful evening, do you? Okay, watch the skies please... We now show uncorrelated targets approaching from the north-northwest.
- Ronnie Neary: Roy, what did it look like?
- Roy Neary: It was like an ice cream cone.
- Ronnie Neary: What flavor?
- Roy Neary: Orange. It was orange - and it wasn't like an ice cream cone. It was, it was more like a shell. You know, it was like this.
- Ronnie Neary: Like a taco? Was it like one of those Sara Lee, um, moon-shaped cookies? Those crescent cookies? Don't you think I'm taking this really well? I remember when we used to come to places like this just to look at each other... and snuggle.
- Roy Neary: [angrily] Who are you people?
- Claude Lacombe: Mr. Neary, please, one more question.
- David Laughlin: Have you recently had a close encounter... A close encounter with something very unusual?
- Roy Neary: [cautiously] Who are you people?
- David Laughlin: Excuse me. Excuse me. Before I got paid to speak French, I used to read maps. This first number is a longitude. Two sets of three numbers. Degrees, minutes and seconds.
- Roy Neary: [as Lacombe and Laughlin show him a drawing of Devil's Tower] Yeah, I've got one just like it in my living room. Who are you people?
- Jillian Guiler: [watching two lights moving in the night sky] It's like Halloween for grownups.
- Roy Neary: [funny and amazed] Trick or treat.
- Hawker: And now, you're gonna be real disappointed and sorry if you don't have an early-warning system, such as a bird, a gas mask. Why, even my dog has a gas mask.
- David Laughlin: Where's the pilot? I don't understand! Where's the crew? Hey! How the hell did it get here?
- Roy Neary: I saw something last night that I can't explain.
- Ronnie Neary: I saw something last night *I* can't explain.
- Roy Neary: I'm going out there again tonight, you know.
- Ronnie Neary: No, you're not.
- Roy Neary: Yes, I am.
- Ronnie Neary: No, you're not.
- Roy Neary: Yes, I am.
- Ronnie Neary: No, you're not.
- Roy Neary: Wake up! Honey, Ronnie, wake up! You're not gonna believe what I saw! Ronnie?
- Ronnie Neary: [in bed sleeping] No, don't! Not now.
- Roy Neary: No, no, listen! Ronnie, I never would have believed it! There was this - eh - in the cab there was this whole - it went - it was - there was a red whoosh!
- Ronnie Neary: Roy, look, don't talk about this until you know what you're talking about, okay?
- Roy Neary: Ronnie, that's crazy. If I can't talk about it, then how will I know what's going on?
- Ronnie Neary: What?
- David Laughlin: I don't believe it. I don't believe it! I don't believe it.
- Project Leader: It's the Cotopaxi.
- David Laughlin: Why is it here?
- Project Leader: Beats the *shit* out of me.