Quotes

• “Consider God’s handiwork; who can straighten what He hath made crooked?” Ecclesiastes 7:13

• “I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to.” Willard Gaylin

• “You keep your workstation so clean, Jerome (Vincent)” – Director Josef (opening line of film)

• “Has the committee approved the mission?  There’s been talk of delay” – Vincent

• “Jerome, never shy, pisses on command.  A beautiful piece of equipment there, Jerome, have I ever told you that… an exceptional example. I don’t know why my folks didn’t order one like that for me…” – Dr. Lamar

• “Have I ever told you about my son… Remind me to sometime” – Dr. Lamar

• “If you’re going to pretend that you don’t care, don’t look up” – Irene

• “The most unremarkable of events, Jerome Marlow, navigator first-class, is about to embark on a one year manned mission to Titan – fourteenth moon of Saturn – a highly prestigious assignment, although for Jerome selection was virtually guaranteed at birth.  He’s blessed with all the gifts required for such an undertaking, a genetic quotion second to none.  There is nothing truly remarkable about the progress of Jerome Marlow, except that I am not Jerome Marlow” – Vincent (Voice-Over)

• “A child conceived in love has a greater chance of happiness” – Vincent (during flashback)

• “From an early age I came to think of myself as others thought of me – chronically ill.  Every skinned knee and runny nose was treated as though it were life-threatening” – Vincent (during flashback)

• “You have specified hazel-eyes, dark hair, and fair skin.  I have taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions… premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism and addictive susceptibility, domestic violence, obesity, etcetera” – Geneticist

• “This child is still you.  Just the best of you” – Geneticist

• “I understood there was something altogether different running through my veins” – Vincent (during flashback of swimming)

• “The only way you’ll see the inside of a spaceship is if you were cleaning it” – Antonio (Vincent’s father)

• “It was the last time that we swam together out in to the open sea. Like always, knowing each stroke to the horizon would be one we’d have to make back to the shore.  Something was very different about that day – everytime Anton tried to pull-away he found me right there beside him until finally the impossible happened (Vincent saves Anton from drowning).  It was the one point in our lives that my brother was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak.  It was the moment that made everything else possible” – Vincent (during flashback)

• “I belonged to a new underclass no longer determined by your social status or the colour of your skin.  No, we now have discrimination down to a science” – Vincent

• “I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it” – Vincent

• “There is no gene for fate” – Vincent

• “You could go anywhere with this guy’s helix tucked under your arm” – German

• “As far as anyone’s concerned, he’s still a walking talking fully functioning member of society” – German (talking about Eugene)

• “They don’t care where you were born, just how.  Blood has no nationality” – German

• “My eyes are prettier’ – Eugene

• “Jerome (Eugene) never questioned my commitment again” – Vincent

• “Jerome had been engineered with everything he needed to get in to Gattaca, except the desire to do so” – Vincent (talking about Eugene)

• “It’s not too late to back out… This is the last day that you’re going to be you, and I’m going to be me” – Vincent (talking to Eugene)

• “Each day I would dispose of as much loose skin, fingernails, and hair as possible to limit how much of my in-valid self I would leave in the valid world.  At the same time Eugene prepared samples of his own superior body matter so that I might pass for him – customised urine pouches for the frequent substance tests, finger-tip blood sachets for security checks, and vials filled with other traces…  Eugene never suffered from the routine discrimination of a utero, a faith-birth, or an in-valid as we were called.  A valid, a vetro, a made-man he suffered under a different burden, the burden of perfection” – Vincent