quotes


Captain Ramius: We will pass through the American patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest city, and listen to their rock and roll... while we conduct missile drills.

Seaman Jones: [Jonesy is teaching Beaumont] Hear it now?
Beaumont: [resigned] No.
Seaman Jones: Beaumont, at CalTech we used to do this in our sleep! You hear it now?
Beaumont: Wait a minute...
Seaman Jones: Uh oh...
Beaumont: Disparaged surface clutter...
Seaman Jones: Yeeeesssss?
Beaumont: I should go to SAPS?
Seaman Jones: Correct! Seaman Beaumont, Signal Algorithmic Processing System. Give it a week and you'll be teaching at CalTech. So, like Beethoven on the computer, you have laboured to produce... a biologic.
Beaumont: A what?
Seaman Jones: A whale, Seaman Beaumont, a whale. A marine mammal that knows a hell of a lot more about sonar, then you do. Train her around to 269 and lets try it again?

[telling young Sonarman Beaumont about Jones's most embarrassing moment]
Watson: Seaman Jones here is into music in a big way, and he views this whole boat as his own personal, private stereo set. Well, one day he's got this piece of Pavarotti...
Seaman Jones: It was Paganini.
Watson: Whatever.
Seaman Jones: It was Paganini.
Watson: Look, this is my story, okay?
Seaman Jones: Then tell it right, COB. Pavarotti is a tenor, Paganini was a composer.
Watson: So anyway, he's got this music out in the water, and he's listening to it on his headsets, and he's just happy as a clam. And then all hell breaks loose. See, there's this whole slew of boats out in the water...
Seaman Jones: Including one WAY out at Pearl!
Watson: Including one way the hell out at Pearl. All of a sudden, they start hearing, Pavarotti...
Beaumont: Pavarotti!
Watson: Coming up their asses!

Jeffrey Pelt: Listen, I'm a politician which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.

Jeffrey Pelt: I can't ask any of these characters to go. One, they don't believe in it. Two, they'd never stake their reputation on a hunch. Whereas you...
Jack Ryan: ...are expendable.
Jeffrey Pelt: Something like that.

Watson: Y'know, I seen me a mermaid once. I even seen me a shark eat an octopus. But I ain't never seen no phantom Russian submarine.

[Ryan is on board a plane experiencing violent turbulence]
Navigator C-2A: What's the matter Commander? You don't like flying, huh? Aw, this is nothing! You should've been with us five, six months ago! Whoa! You talk about puke! We ran into a hailstorm over the Sea of Japan. Everybody's retching their guts out! The pilot shot his lunch all over the windshield, and I barfed on the radio! And it wasn't that lightweight stuff either, it was that chunky industrial waste puke!
[offers him the candy bar he's been eating]
Navigator C-2A: Hey, you want a bite?
Jack Ryan: Jack, next time you get a bright idea just put it in a memo!

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in... Arizona. Actually, I think I will need two wives.
Captain Ramius: Oh, at least.

Jack Ryan: [imitating the Admiral] "The average Rooskie, son, don't take a dump without a plan." Wait a minute. We don't have to figure out how to get the crew off the sub. He's already done that, he would have had to. All we gotta do is figure out what he's gonna do. So how's he gonna get the crew of the sub. They have to want to get off. How do you get a crew to want to get off a submarine? How do you get a crew to want to get off a nuclear sub...[eureka!]

[to himself, just before being lowered off a helicopter]
Jack Ryan: Next time, Jack, write a goddamn memo.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: Central Intelligence Agency... Now, there's a contradiction in terms.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: [Ramius comments in Russian to Borodin that Mancuso is a "buckaroo". Ryan laughs] What's so funny?
Jack Ryan: Ah, the Captain seems to think you're some kind of... cowboy.
Captain Ramius: [in Russian] You speak Russian.
Jack Ryan: [in Russian] A little. It is wise to study the ways of ones adversary. Don't you think?
Captain Ramius: [in English] It is.

Jack Ryan: I'm not an agent, I just write books for the CIA.
[a torpedo is racing toward them]
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Torpedo impact, 20 seconds.
Captain Ramius: [to Ryan] What books?
Jack Ryan: Pardon me?
Captain Ramius: What books did you write?
Jack Ryan: I wrote a biography of, of Admiral Halsey, called "The Fighting Sailor", about, uh, naval combat tactics...
Captain Ramius: I know this book!
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Torpedo impact...
Captain Ramius: Your conclusions were all wrong, Ryan...
Capt. Vasili Borodin: ...10 seconds.
Captain Ramius: ...Halsey acted stupidly.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: You, you speak English?
Red October Officer: Yes, sir.
Capt. Bart Mancuso: Get your butt over here!

[Shootout in the missile room]
Captain Ramius: Hey, Ryan, be careful what you shoot at. Most things in here don't react too well to bullets.
Jack Ryan: Right.
[Moves closer to enemy, who fires several shots at him]
Jack Ryan: *I* have to be careful what *I* shoot at?

Jack Ryan: [to himself] "Ryan, some things in here don't react well to bullets." Yeah, like me. I don't react well to bullets.

[USS Dallas is being chased by a torpedo, heading towards the surface]
Lieutenant Commander Thompson - USS Dallas: Come on, Big D. Fly!

Bill Steiner: Hey I think someone just shot a torpedo at us!
Capt. Bart Mancuso: No shit, Buckwheat, now get the hell out of here!

Captain Ramius: "... and the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home." Christopher Columbus.
Jack Ryan: Welcome to the New World, sir.