- Captain Clark: Colonel, there's no such thing as "death with honor". Just death.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: I have no intention of dying now. But if I'm going to, allow me to choose where and how.
- Admiral Canaris: That meeting, you should have seen it, Radl. There was Hitler, first ranting, then cajoling, then perfectly rational... then raging and stamping like a - like the ringmaster of some freak circus! Goebbels, hopping from one foot to another like a - like a schoolboy. Bormann... hmph... a vulture, perched in the corner, watching, listening, never speaking. And Mussolini - Mussolini! - an automaton, Radl! And I looked round that room, and I wondered: am I the only one who can see it? And if so, what must I look like to them?
- [Seen fighting in a churchyard, speaks as he fights]
- Liam Devlin: It's all right, Father, I'm just telling him about the Holy Trinity. You know it? Footwork, timing, and hitting! And a little bit of dirty work. Learn these, my uncle'd say, and you'll inherit the Earth as surely as the meek.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: You are going to jump in those clothes?
- Liam Devlin: It might look a bit silly going down Mr. Steiner, but I'll be hell of a lot safer when I land on the ground. There is an old poem I know, which freely translated from the Irish says, "I realized fear one morning, when the blare of the fox-hunters sound. When they are all chasing after the poor bloody fox, it's safer to be dressed like a hound."
- Col. Max Radl: You're quite a literary man, Devlin.
- Liam Devlin: The truth be known, Colonel, I'm a bloody literary genius.
- Heinrich Himmler: So you see... Radl. Under the terms of that document, even I find myself under your personal command!
- SS-Obergruppenführer: Sturmbannführer Stauff was doing his duty!
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: He reminds me of something that I occasionally pick up on my shoe in the gutter! Very unpleasant, on a hot day. And if you have the dubious honor of commanding this senseless slaughter, I'd suggest you to keep him downwind at all times! That is, of course, if you can tell the difference anymore.
- Col. Max Radl: A wink from a pretty girl at a party results rarely in climax, Karl. But a man is a fool not to push a suggestion as far as it will go.
- [last lines]
- Liam Devlin: [Molly reading letter from Liam. The letter is read in Liam's voice] Molly, my love... as a great man once said, I have suffered to see change and yet nothing can ever be the same again. I came here to Norfolk to do a job... not to fall in love. By now you'll know the worst of me. Try not to think it. To leave you... is punishment enough. But it will not end here. For as they say in Ireland, we have known the days. Liam.
- [Devlin has just provided Steiner with a much-needed resource]
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Mr. Devlin, you are an extraordinary man.
- Liam Devlin: Col. Steiner, you're an extraordinary judge of character.
- Liam Devlin: Give me another one of those Bolshevik firecrackers. I think I fell asleep in the snow!
- Mrs. Wilde: [a German paratrooper has died while rescuing a drowning girl, revealing the plot to kidnap Churchill] Colonel, I understand none of this. And I don't wish you well. But I'm grateful for the life of my child.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: So am I.
- Liam Devlin: [to the pilot] How do I jump out of this thing?
- Pilot: Undo your safety belt. I turn the aircraft upside down, you drop out.
- Liam Devlin: [turning to Steiner] Has it occurred to you that piece of paper you keep waving about could just be a clever forgery?
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Why don't you fly to Berchestgarden and ask him yourself?
- Liam Devlin: Oh, let's not bother the man!
- Col. Max Radl: [reading mission orders from Hitler] "Herr Oberst Radl is acting under my direct and personal orders in a matter of the utmost importance to the Reich. All personnel, military and civil, without distinction of rank, will assist him in any way that Oberst Radl sees fit to demand... Adolf Hitler."
- Father Verecker: Colonel, my one consolation is that that thanks to my sister, your plot has failed.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Really? I thought the plot failed because one of my men died saving the little girl out there.
- Col. Max Radl: [Handing Devlin an envelope] Your complete instructions
- Liam Devlin: What - all of it?
- [Holds the envelope to his ear and crinkles it]
- Liam Devlin: No cyanide pill?
- Col. Max Radl: I couldn't conceive of a situation which would require you to take one!
- Col. Max Radl: Your meeting went well? The Führer had something specific in mind?
- Admiral Canaris: A simple exercise in logistics, nothing very complicated: he merely wants Winston Churchill brought from London to Berlin. And we are ordered to make a feasibility study. Today's Wednesday. By Friday he will forget it, but Himmler will not.
- Colonel Pitts: Where you from, son?
- Soldier: Omaha, sir.
- Colonel Pitts: By this time next year, pigeons are gonna be crappin' on statues of you across the whole damn state of Nebraska.
- Liam Devlin: Your nose turns up. Did anybody ever tell you that? And when you get angry, your mouth turns down at the corners.
- Molly Prior: I'm sure you could find a hundred things wrong with me, Mr. Devlin. A thousand. But you wouldn't throw me out of your bed on a wet Saturday night, I'm sure. But that's men for you! Anything is better than nothing.
- Liam Devlin: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, come here! You don't know the first thing about me. Even if you did, you'd know that I much prefer a warm Autumn afternoon under the pines, to a wet Saturday night any day. And the sand has a terrible way of gettin' where it shouldn't be.
- [starts to kiss Molly]
- Liam Devlin: Get out of here, before I let my mad passion run away with me. Go on, get! Get!
- Churchill's aide: That is one George Fowler lying there. He is a variety artist, of a sort. And a very brave man. Incredible! He knew this sort of thing could happen; he didn't even call out. Played it straight through to the end.
- Colonel Pitts: You speak English?
- Corporal Kuniski: Yes.
- Colonel Pitts: I'm gonna give you five minutes to lay down your arms, and surrender your hostages. You understand what I'm saying?
- Corporal Kuniski: Yes.
- Colonel Pitts: Where's your commanding officer?
- Corporal Kuniski: Yes.
- Colonel Pitts: ...Are you makin' fun of me, soldier?
- [Kuniski just grins]
- Colonel Pitts: God damn it!
- Liam Devlin: [after using a whistle to subdue a guard dog at the airfield] A little trick I learnt from an uncle I've got in Belfast.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: In the Middle Ages, they'd have burned you for that!
- Capt. von Neustadt: Who are these people?
- SS Officer: Well, Jews, sir!
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Jews?
- SS Officer: We are razing the ghetto to the ground! Burning them up! They've put up one hell of a fight, I can tell you!
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Oh? How? With umbrellas and crutches?
- Liam Devlin: You think I'd sell out.
- Col. Max Radl: It's just that you've been so expensive to buy in the first place.
- [the disguised Steiner gets into the jeep with Capt. von Neustadt]
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: [under his breath] Not too slowly...
- Colonel Kurt Steiner, Capt. von Neustadt: And on the *left... hand... side* of the road!
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: [about SS-Obergruppenführer] There you are. You see Hans? It's infallible. I can always tell a thorough-going bastard when I see one.
- Oberst Kurt Steiner: I have hostages.
- Captain Clark: [smiles wryly] Well, I can't see you bringing them out, women and children in front of you.
- [Steiner returns the smile, knowing his bluff has been called]
- Oberst Kurt Steiner: No.
- [turns into the church]
- Oberst Kurt Steiner: Let the villagers go, Altmann.
- Col. Max Radl: Are you familiar with the works of Jung, Karl?
- Karl: I am aware of the works of Jung, not familiar, Herr Oberst.
- Col. Max Radl: A very great thinker. A rational man And yet he speaks of something called synchronicity, events having a coincidence in time, creating the feeling that a deeper motivation is involved.
- Pamela Verecker: [In a state of total hysteria] Nazis are coming! Nazis! I saw parachutes... and that Irish handyman... he's a spy! We've got to tell someone... tell someone...
- Joanna Grey: [Calmly offering her a cup of drugged tea] There, there, my dear. Everything will be quite all right. Now sit down and have a nice cup of tea while I ring the authorities.
- [word of Col. Pitts's impulsive assault on the German paratroopers reaches the military headquarters]
- Captain Clark: Colonel Pitts is a man of, uh... limited combat experience.
- Maj. Corcoran: [deadpan] Apparently no longer.
- Captain Clark: Nope.
- SS Officer: Herr Oberst Radl? In the name of the Führer, you are under arrest.
- Col. Max Radl: May I be permitted to know the charge?
- Colonel Pitts: If anything happens to Churchill, because you're late, this country's gonna swing you from Big Ben by your balls.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: [WWII News Story] September 12, 1943, German paratroopers snatched Mussolini from his mountaintop prison in Italy.
- Admiral Canaris: This operation could make the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a sensible military exercise.
- Corporal Kuniski: Hello, Grandfather!
- Laker Armsby: [standing in a grave] Foreigners?
- Corporal Kuniski: Polish. Corporal Kuniski.
- Laker Armsby: Kuniski? Well, that's not your fault, son, is it?
- SS-Obergruppenführer: What am I to do with you, Herr Oberst? You're a military hero, awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords for gallantry. Yet responsible for the attempted escape of an enemy of the state, abetted by the mutinous conduct of your men! By rights, you should all be court-martialed.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Difficult decisions are the privilege of rank, Herr Gruppenführer. But, as for my men, they seem to feel a certain loyalty to me. I - don't suppose you could content yourself with my head and overlook their part in this thing? Huh?
- Liam Devlin: I'm working, you know, Colonel.
- Col. Max Radl: At the university. For a man like you, it would seem to be rather like a thoroughbred racing horse finding himself - pulling a milk cart.
- Liam Devlin: Oh, you got a way with words, Colonel.
- Liam Devlin: The top o' the morning to you. It's not Irish whiskey, but it'll do to be going on with.
- Col. Max Radl: The Führer comes up with an absurd suggestion that we emulate Skorzeny by abducting Churchill. Now, for political reasons, we are prodded into making a worthless report on this. And then, suddenly, synchronicity rears its disturbing head.
- Karl: Ja, Ja, I see that.
- Col. Max Radl: We receive a routine report with a brief notation that next month after visiting a local bomber command, Churchill will spend the weekend in a country manor less than 7 miles from a deserted coastline. At any other time, this report would mean nothing. At this particular *time*, and in that particular *file*, it becomes a circumstance which - titillates. A coincidence to - tease us.
- Col. Max Radl: Am I correct to assume your aim is still total victory against England?
- Liam Devlin: No, that's your aim. My aim is a united Ireland.
- Liam Devlin: I don't like soft target hits. I don't want to spend my days in Bayswater, mixing up explosives in my landlady's saucepan to blow up the arms and legs off a couple of passers-by. My fight is with the bloody British Empire - and I'll fight it on my own two feet.
- Col. Max Radl: You're still a supporter of the Irish Republican Army?
- Liam Devlin: Soldier of, Colonel. Once in, never out.
- Heinrich Himmler: You seem nervous, Herr Oberst. Please relax. Sit down.
- Col. Max Radl: May I smoke, Herr Reichsführer?
- Heinrich Himmler: No.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Of all the world's leaders, Churchill is probably the least protected, unlike the Führer.
- Colonel Kurt Steiner: Tell me something, Mr Devlin. Just why are you coming along?
- Liam Devlin: [after being thrown out the window of an English pub] Can't you tell? I'm the last of the world's great adventurers.
- Liam Devlin: You're with the Women's Voluntary Service.
- Molly Prior: I help out. When I have the time.
- Liam Devlin: Sort of, uhm, servicing the troops, is it?
- Molly Prior: I don't mind.
- Liam Devlin: Miss, I do believe you're a little bit of a tease.
- Molly Prior: Children tease, Mr Devlin, and I am almost 19.