Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said yes to a divorce.
Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) You understand, captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist.
Willard Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Willard He was one of those guys that had that weird light around him. You just knew he wasn't going to get so much as a scratch here.
Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Willard Someday this war's gonna end. That'd be just fine with the boys on the boat. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore.
Willard I began to wonder what they really had against Kurtz. It wasn't just insanity and murder. There was enough of that to go around for everyone.
Willard The bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.
Willard What do you think, Chief?
Chief (Albert Hall) I don't think. My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this boat, so I don't. But one look at you and I know it's gonna be hot, wherever it is.
Willard quoting Kurtz In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action--what is often called ruthless--what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.
Willard quoting Kurtz As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid lying morality, and so I am beyond caring.
Willard It was a way we had over here of living with ourselves. We'd cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a band-aid.
Willard Could we, uh, talk to Colonel Kurtz?
Photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) Hey man, you don't, uh, you don't talk to the colonel, you listen to him.
Photojournalist quoting Kurtz Do you know that "if" is the middle word in "life"?
Photojournalist apologizing for severed heads adorning Kurtz's headquarters The heads. You're looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far. He's the first one to admit it.
Willard They told me that you had gone totally insane, and, uh, that your methods were unsound.
Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) Are my methods unsound?
Willard I don't see any method at all, sir.
Kurtz Are you an assassin?
Willard I'm a soldier.
Kurtz You're neither. You're an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.
Photojournalist This is the way the fucking world ends. Look at this fucking shit we're in, man. Not with a bang, a whimper. And with a whimper I'm fucking splitting, Jack!
Willard If the generals back in Nha Trang could see what I saw, would they still want me to kill him? More than ever, probably.
Kurtz It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.
Kurtz We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We'd left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying, he couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile, a pile of little arms.
Kurtz These were not monsters, these were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who were filled with love. But they had the strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment--without judgment--because it's judgment that defeats us.
Kurtz We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their aeroplane because it's obscene.
Kurtz The horror! The horror!