- Julian Osborne: The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use without committing suicide.
- Adm. Bridie: There's one thing that always bothered me, Hosgood. A girl like you - why no young men?
- Lt. Hosgood (Bridie's secretary): They never asked me. I guess maybe it was the uniform.
- Adm. Bridie: [Toast] To a blind, blind world.
- Julian Osborne: The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn't any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained - - by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use - - without committing suicide. Everybody had an atomic bomb, and counter-bombs, and counter-counter bombs. The devices outgrew us; we couldn't control them. I know, I helped build them. God, help me. Somewhere, some poor bloke probably looked at a radar screen and thought he saw something. He knew that if he hesitated one-thousands of a second - his own country would be wiped off the map. So - So, he pushed a button - and the world went - - crazy. And, and...
- Moira Davidson: There isn't time. No time to love... nothing to remember... nothing worth remembering.
- Morgan: They pushed us too far! They didn't think we'd fight, no matter what they did!
- Julian Osborne: And they were wrong. We fought. We expunged them. And we didn't do such a bad job on ourselves.
- Dwight Towers: Mr. Osborne, he's doing a good job for us. He's not used to this kind of duty. He's not feeling well; just a little claustrophobia.
- Lungren: Beg your pardon, sir?
- Dwight Towers: Professor needs a drink.
- Moira Davidson: All I want to know is: if everybody was so smart, why didn't they know what would happen?
- Dwight Towers: They did.
- Moira Davidson: Well, I - I can't take it. I - oh, yes, I can take it! But, it's unfair. It's unfair because I didn't do anything. And nobody I know did anything.
- Julian Osborne: There was a choice. It was build the bombs, and use them - or risk the United States, the Soviet Union, and the rest of us, would find some way... to go on living.
- Morgan: [scoffs] That's wishful thinking if ever I heard it.
- Julian Osborne: [softly] I'm not against wishful thinking. Not now.
- Peter: Now, this is a special kind of - - sleeping pill. I had a devil of a time getting 'em. But, I wanted you to have them on hand and to make sure you knew how to use 'em. - - What happens with the radiation is that you get - you get ill - and you start feeling sick and then you are sick and you go on being sick. You can't keep anything down. You may feel better for awhile; but, but it always comes back. You get weaker.
- Mary: And this cures it.
- Peter: Darling, you know nothing cures it. This ends it.
- Adm. Bridie: Would you have a glass of sherry - with an old man?
- Lt. Hosgood (Bridie's secretary): No, sir. But, I would very much like to have one with you, sir.
- Julian Osborne: We're all doomed, you know. The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us. Doomed by the air we're about to breathe. We haven't got a chance!
- Mary: Stop it! I won't have it, Julian. I won't! There is hope. There has to be hope. There's always hope. We just can't go on like this. We can't. We - we...
- Moira Davidson: You know, I think I've discovered why you fascinate me. Shall I tell you?
- Dwight Towers: Uh-huh.
- Moira Davidson: Because you take me for granted. I know women aren't supposed to like that sort of thing, but somehow I do. I've been treated in every other way. Like a child. And sometimes like - well, like things I've probably deserved. But I've never been pushed around in - in such a nice way and treated something like a wife. - - I suppose what I mean is - like an American wife.
- Elderly Woman at Holmes Party: My second husband was an American. We traveled all over the world - and everywhere we went he say to people, "I am an American. I am an American." They finally shot him in one of those eastern countries.
- Julian Osborne: In the end, somehow granted the time for examination, we shall find that our so called civilization was gloriously destroyed by a handful of vacuum tubes and transistors. Probably faulty.
- Moira Davidson: A very nice man asked me to wait here. I don't think he knew what to do with me.
- Dwight Towers: That's debatable.
- Dwight Towers: Is your invitation to spread a little fertilizer still open?
- Moira Davidson: [Smiles, laughs] Can you stay for a few day?
- Moira Davidson: I wouldn't really mind... if you could forget entirely who I am... I don't like myself very much anyway.
- Julian Osborne: Who would ever have believed that human beings would be stupid enough to blow themselves off the face of the Earth?
- Mary: [as she is bent over wearing a bathing suit, Peter snaps a towel on Mary's behind] Peter, how could you!
- Peter: Oh, I don't know, really, I just held the towel like this and...
- Mary: Very funny.
- Peter: You're starting to get your figure back, arent' ya... You know, after Jennifer and all. Little here. A little there.
- Moira Davidson: When the dentist is drilling your tooth, what do you think about? The nicest thing or sex or what?
- Dwight Towers: Fishing. Trout fishing - in a clean mountain stream.
- Peter: Have you ever been to San Francisco?
- Julian Osborne: Yes, I have. A week on the way down. I met a lovely girl. Longest, loveliest legs I've ever seen. Full of martinis - both of them. The legs, I mean.
- Moira Davidson: Dwight... even if you don't like me, would you please hold on to me just for a moment longer?
- Moira Davidson: You're looking for me.
- Dwight Towers: Am I?
- Moira Davidson: I'm Moira Davidson. M-O-I-R-A. It was a very fashionable name when... my mother was young and impressionable. I'm a throwback.
- Dwight Towers: Where's Holmes?
- Moira Davidson: Oh, he's decking the halls with holly. He sent me for better or worse.
- Dwight Towers: Better, I'd say.
- Moira Davidson: I'm your date - or, whatever you call it.
- Dwight Towers: Is there a place where I might stop where I can get a little breakfast?
- Moira Davidson: What?
- Dwight Towers: A little breakfast.
- Moira Davidson: Do you mean that in addition to everything else, I have to watch you eat bacon and eggs and all that muck?
- Moira Davidson: My obvious job was to seduce you. So, I suppose my pride is hurt. I also feel ashamed.
- Moira Davidson: I can't pretend any longer, Julian. I'm afraid. I have nobody, and I'm afraid.
- Julian Osborne: What about Dwight?
- Moira Davidson: He's married. He's married to a girl named Sharon, And they have two children.
- Julian Osborne: Mm-hmm, i know.
- Moira Davidson: [sighs] but if things were different, If she were alive, I'd do anything... Any mean trick I know to get him.
- Adm. Bridie: It's a reasonably important appointment, as things go these days.
- Adm. Bridie: That's getting to be quite a phrase, isn't it ? "these days."
- Adm. Bridie: You find yourself using it?
- Peter: You find yourself using it? Yes, sir. I'm afraid I do