- Dr. Snaut: Science? Nonsense! In this situation mediocrity and genius are equally useless! I must tell you that we really have no desire to conquer any cosmos. We want to extend the Earth up to its borders. We don't know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror. We struggle to make contact, but we'll never achieve it. We are in a ridiculous predicament of man pursuing a goal that he fears and that he really does not need. Man needs man!
- Dr. Snaut: When man is happy, the meaning of life and other eternal themes rarely interest him. These questions should be asked at the end of one's life.
- Kris Kelvin: But we don't know when life will end. That's why we're in such a hurry.
- Dr. Snaut: Don't rush. The happiest people are those who are not interested in these cursed questions.
- Dr. Snaut: Here!
- [picks up a book]
- Dr. Snaut: "They come at night. But one must sleep sometime." That's the problem. Mankind has lost the ability to sleep. You'd better read. I'm a little excited.
- Kris Kelvin: "I know only one thing, señor. When I... When I sleep, I know no fear, no hope, no trouble, no bliss, Blessings on him he who invented sleep. The common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd king, fool and wise man. There is only one bad thing about sound sleep. They say it closely resembles death."
- Dr. Snaut: "Never before, Sancho, have I heard you..."
- Kris Kelvin: To ask is always the desire to know. Yet the preservation of simple human truths requires mystery. The mysteries of happiness, death, and love. To think about it is to know one's day of death.
- Dr. Snaut: Maybe you're right, but try not to think about all that now.
- Kris Kelvin: Not knowing that day makes us practically immortal.
- Dr. Sartorius: Man was created by Nature in order to explore it. As he approaches Truth he is fated to Knowledge. All the rest is bullshit.
- Dr. Snaut: We don't want to conquer space at all. We want to expand Earth endlessly. We don't want other worlds; we want a mirror. We seek contact and will never achieve it. We are in the foolish position of a man striving for a goal he fears and doesn't want. Man needs man!
- Kris Kelvin: See, I love you. But love is a feeling we can experience but never explain. One can explain the concept. You love that which you can lose: Yourself, a woman, a homeland. Until today, love was simply unattainable to mankind, to the earth. Maybe we are here to experience people as a reason for love.
- Kris Kelvin: Guibariane did not die of fear, he died out of shame. The salvation of humanity is in its shame!
- Anri Berton, pilot: Knowledge is only valid when it's based on morality.
- Kris Kelvin: Man is the one who renders science moral or immoral. Remember Hiroshima?
- Anri Berton, pilot: Then don't make science immoral.
- Dr. Sartorius: In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge. Everything else is a whim.
- Kris Kelvin: Remember Tolstoy? His suffering over the impossibility of loving mankind as a whole? How much time has passed since then? Somehow I can't figure it out. Help me.
- Kris Kelvin: Why are we being tortured like this?
- Dr. Snaut: In my opinion, we have lost our sense of the cosmic. The ancients understood it perfectly. They never would have asked why or what for. Remember the myth of Sisyphus?
- Kris Kelvin: Well, anyway, my mission is finished. And what next? To return to Earth? Little by little everything will return to normal. I'll find new interests, new acquaintances, but I won't be able to devote all of myself to them.
- Kris Kelvin: Don't worry, I won't think you're insane.
- Dr. Snaut: Insane? God, you know absolutely nothing. Insane... that would be a blessing.
- Kris Kelvin: Didn't you say research should continue at any price?
- Anri Berton, pilot: You want to destroy that which we are presently incapable of understanding? Forgive me but am not advocate of knowledge at any price.
- Nik Kelvin, otets Krisa Kelvina: This house reminds me of my grandfather's house. I really liked it so we decided to build one just like it. I don't like innovation.
- Kris Kelvin: Suffering makes life seem dismal and suspicious. But I wont accept that, no I wont accept that. Is that which is indispensable to life also harmful to it? No, It's not harmful. Of course it's not harmful.
- Kris Kelvin: You know, it's really embarrassing but for some reason... I've completely forgotten your face.
- Hari: Please don't interrupt me. I'm a woman, after all.
- Dr. Sartorius: You're not a woman and you're not a human being. Understand that, if you're capable of understanding anything. There is no Hari. She's dead. You're just a reproduction, a mechanical reproduction. A copy. A matrix.
- Hari: Yes. Maybe. But I - I am becoming a human being. I can feel just as deeply as you. Believe me.
- Mat Krisa Kelvina: You don't look well. Are you happy?
- Kris Kelvin: Somehow that concept seems irrelevant here.
- Kris Kelvin: What was that?
- Dr. Snaut: I don't know. Then again, we've managed to determine a few things. Who was it?
- Kris Kelvin: She died 10 years ago.
- Dr. Snaut: What you saw was the materialization of your conception of her. What was her name?
- Kris Kelvin: Hari.
- Dr. Snaut: Everything began after we started experimenting with radiation. Wehit the Ocean's surface with strong X-ray beams. But it - incidentally, consider yourself lucky. After all, she's part of your past. What if it had been something you had never seen before, but something you had thought or imagined?
- Kris Kelvin: I don't understand.
- Dr. Snaut: Evidently the Ocean responded to our heavy radiation with something else. It probed our minds and extracted something like islands of memory.
- Kris Kelvin: Gibarian was not frightened. There are worse things. He died of hopelessness. He thought all this was happening only to him.
- Dr. Sartorius: My God! All these heartbreaking lamentations are nothing but second-rate Dostoyevsky.
- Dr. Snaut: Don't tell me you haven't tried a rope or a hammer. Did you happen to throw the inkwell like Luther? No?
- Kris Kelvin: Get some sleep.
- Hari: I don't know how to sleep. It's not sleep. It's somehow around me. It's as if it wasn't just inside of me, but much farther away.
- Dr. Sartorius: You've got a superb specimen.
- Kris Kelvin: That's my wife.
- Dr. Sartorius: Wonderful. Perfect. Then take a blood sample from your wife.
- Kris Kelvin: Why?
- Dr. Sartorius: It'll sober you up a bit.
- Dr. Snaut: If you see something out of the ordinary, something besides me and Sartorius, try not to lose your head.
- Kris Kelvin: What would I see?
- Dr. Snaut: I don't know, that sort of depends on you.
- Hari: Listen... I don't know myself at all. I don't remember. When I close my eyes, I can't recall my face. And you?
- Kris Kelvin: What?
- Hari: Do you know yourself?
- Kris Kelvin: Like all humans.
- Anri Berton, pilot: He's an accountant, not a scientist. You were right.
- Nik Kelvin, otets Krisa Kelvina: You and I are friends, but that doesn't mean you can say that about him.
- Anri Berton, pilot: Great. You and I have known each other for 20 years. It had to end someday.
- Dr. Sartorius: It's at least worth talking about duty.
- Nik Kelvin, otets Krisa Kelvina: Duty to whom.
- Dr. Sartorius: To truth.
- Nik Kelvin, otets Krisa Kelvina: You mean to people.
- Dr. Sartorius: You won't find truth there.
- Doktor Gribaryan, fiziolog: Kris, understand that this is not madness. It has something to do with conscience.
- Kris Kelvin: There are so few of us. A few billion altogether. A handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love.
- Kris Kelvin: When you turn into an utter cripple with no arms or legs, call us. We'll empty your chamber pot.
- Kris Kelvin: She's sleeping. Will she follow me?
- Dr. Snaut: Don't lock the door.
- Kris Kelvin: What door? It's just an apparition.
- Professor Messendzher: What we're talking about is far more serious than just the study of Solaristics. We're talking about the boundaries of human knowledge. Don't you think that by establishing artificial barriers we deliver a blow to the idea of limitless thought? By limiting our movement forward, we facilitate moving backwards.
- Anri Berton, pilot: I nevertheless repeat my question. What do you mean by saying the report of my observations in almost no way corresponds with reality? I saw everything with my own eyes. What do you mean by "almost"?
- Kris Kelvin: I think Solaristics has reached an impasse as a result of irresponsible daydreaming. I'm interested in the truth, but you want to turn me into a biased supporter. I don't have the right to make decisions based on impulses of the heart. I'm not a poet.
- Nik Kelvin, otets Krisa Kelvina: What did you have to offend him for? You're too harsh. It's dangerous to send people like you into space. Everything there is too fragile. Yes, fragile! The Earth has somehow become adjusted to people like you, although at what sacrifice!