- Aviator Lundborg: Men are risking their necks for fame, a medal, promotion, or money. What's wrong with money, mm? Just a means to happiness.
- Roald Amundsen: But you don't look like a happy man, exactly. More like a man who's learned to be indifferent to unhappiness.
- Aviator Lundborg: I'm glad you know it all, Mr. Amundsen.
- Roald Amundsen: But you see, a man who is indifferent to his own unhappiness is indifferent to everything.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: What would you do?
- Roald Amundsen: Forgive myself... and sleep. Sleep, my friend. That's the proper thing. And dream.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: Biagi, you must try again and transmit.
- Biagi: Can't do anything, General. Battery is dead... like us.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: [punches Biagi in the face, knocking the man backwards] Did you feel that, Sergeant Biagi?
- Biagi: [stunned] Yes sir.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: Then you're not dead.
- Roald Amundsen: Oh, we took off in clear weather, but we flew into an Arctic storm.
- [in voice over as he is shown in flight over the remains of the envelope of Nobile's airship]
- Roald Amundsen: . It took us north, took us beyond radio contact with Kingsbay. It took us to the wreckage of your airship. When we saw the wreckage, it was difficult to know what we should do. To land was dangerous. But it was just as dangerous, almost as dangerous to stay in the air in the grip of that wind. And we could see people. So I ordered my pilot to land. And we crashed. My pilot was killed. Guilbaud was his name, Frenchman, very brave. The people we had seen looked very lifelike from the air. At least it seemed possible that there was life in them, and impossible not to land and find out. Now it was very clear that life had left them very long ago. I could find no food, no means of making fire. It was just a matter of time. luckily I did find something to help me pass the time.
- [Amundsen finds a book, partly encrusted in ice]
- Aviator Lundborg: [they are back in Nobile's apartment, and Lundborg is laughing] The book was a bit theatrical, wasn't' it?
- Roald Amundsen: Oh, and for whom would I have been performing?
- Aviator Lundborg: For yourself.
- Roald Amundsen: But that's not theatrical, it's necessary. The trick is to choose a good part.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: [aboard the Città di Milano] Captain, I want five land parties organized immediately. One can take the tractors, four with dogs. I also want to see your logbook.
- Giuseppe Romagna Manoja: General! These are your orders.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: Orders? What orders?
- Giuseppe Romagna Manoja: From Rome.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: [reading aloud] "In view of your extraordinary conduct... in abandoning the men in.."
- Giuseppe Romagna Manoja: It would be best, for the time being, for me to continue in command.
- Gen. Umberto Nobile: [appalled by his orders] What do they think that I've done?
- Giuseppe Romagna Manoja: They think you have done... what you have done, I suppose.