- Temple Grandin: ...They'll be very calm. Nature is cruel but we don't have to be; we owe them some respect. I touched the first cow that was being stunned. In a few seconds it was going to be just another piece of beef, but in that moment it was still an individual. It was calm... and then it was gone. I became aware of how precious life was. I thought about death and I felt close to God. I don't want my thoughts to die with me. I want to have done something.
- Temple Grandin: My name is Temple Grandin. I'm not like other people. I think in pictures and I connect them.
- Eustacia: Temple, look at me. Look at me. Do you know how people tell each other things with their eyes? This is me telling you that I love you and I respect you.
- Temple Grandin: [long tearful pause] I will never learn how to do that.
- Eustacia: I know.
- Temple Grandin: [voiceover] I've always wanted to understand the gentleness that other people feel by being hugged by their mothers. And now I've made a machine that lets me do that. It feels like a wire gets reconnected. Like something gets repaired.
- Professor Shanklin: Mooing? You want to do research and write your master's on mooing?
- Temple Grandin: Curves. Cattle like curves. They don't moo at curves.
- Temple Grandin: Sir, Scottsdale Feedlot signed off on my cattle agitation study.
- Professor Shanklin: Smells like half the herd signed it first
- Temple Grandin: No, sir. Cattle can't do that.
- [Temple tries to leave the funeral]
- Eustacia: Temple, are you alright?
- Temple Grandin: I'm leaving now.
- Eustacia: It isn't over yet.
- Temple Grandin: I said goodbye when I saw him, he isn't there. I've got him in my mind.
- Eustacia: I have done everything that I can for Temple, and if it isn't good enough, then it just isn't good enough. But you cannot even begin to imagine the chaos, the upheavals, the tantrums and the pain.
- [emphasis]
- Eustacia: Her pain.
- Dr. Carlock: You seem to be acting as if you have done something wrong, when it's obvious you've done everything right. I think she's terrific.
- Temple Grandin: Spooked cattle don't act straight. They get bruised, scraped, drowned... that all cost money. It takes a good half an hour to calm a herd, and that all cost money too. It's not a good way to run a stockyard. I believe what's good for cattle is also good for business.
- Temple Grandin: Of course they're gonna get slaughtered. You think we'd have cattle if people didn't eat 'em everyday? They'd just be funny-lookin' animals in zoos. But we raise them for us. That means we owe them some respect. Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be. I wouldn't want to have my guts ripped out by a lion, I'd much rather die in a slaughterhouse if it was done right.
- Dr. Carlock: It seems to me that you should be the one to design ... the slaughterhouse ...
- Temple Grandin: [interrupting] We can easily do a way where they don't feel pain and they don't get scared.
- Dr. Carlock: Did you hear what I said, Temple? I think you're the one who should design it.
- Temple Grandin: I've eaten bulls' testicles! Ate them in my aunt's ranch. Regularly! This is a waste!
- Dr. Carlock: And trust me, we know how different she is.
- Eustacia: Different, not less.
- Dr. Carlock: Different, but not less.
- Betty Goscowitz: How wonderful that we bumped into each other
- Temple Grandin: [thrilled, chuckling] A door opened and I went through it.
- Betty Goscowitz: Yes, you did. And I held it.
- Red Harris: I don't normally tell people what I'm going to write but Miss Grandin, this is a masterpiece.
- Jeff Brown: How'd you get on with old Don Michaels over at Scottsdale?
- Temple Grandin: I told him I've eaten bull testicles, sir.
- Temple Grandin: But stepping into the flight zone panics the cattle, and they change from soft moos to loud mooing. Like, prey animals don't make noises that will draw attention to them unless they're trying to warn other members of the herd.
- Professor Shanklin: So they're warning each other they're going to be slaughtered?
- Temple Grandin: No, no, no, sir. The loud mooing is the same whether they're gonna be dipped, driven around a hard corner or taken to slaughter. I mean, they have no idea what's gonna happen to them...
- Professor Shanklin: [interjecting] I'm glad we agree on that.
- Temple Grandin: [rambling on] ... but they're spooked. And spooked cattle don't act straight. They get bruised, scraped, drowned, and that all costs money. And it takes a good half hour to calm a herd and that costs money, too. It's not a good way to run a stockyard.
- Aunt Ann: I think it's time for bed, young lady. We get up with the rooster around here.
- Temple Grandin: [Temple gets a mental image of them on the roof going cockadoodledoo along with the rooster and then she looks puzzled]
- Temple Grandin: [watching a cow be slaughtered] Where does it go?
- Don Micheals: Meat processing.
- Temple Grandin: No, where does it go? It was here, and now it's meat. Where did it go?
- Don Micheals: Professor, I think maybe your young lady here ought to consider another line of work.
- Temple Grandin: I've lots of important information on all this and I need Mr. Michaels to sign off on it.
- Randy: Don? Don don't sign nothing.
- Temple Grandin: I need Mr. Michaels to sign...
- Randy: You're not hearing me right. Don don't sign nothing. I sign everything around here. His signature, but I do the signing.
- Uncle Mike: Noone ever expected it. It's nothing short of a miracle.
- Temple Grandin: It's a miracle!
- Temple Grandin: [Temple has a mental image of Christ walking on water as bells chime and a choir sings]