- Chaplain Lt. (jg) Holmes: It must be wonderful to feel that one has lived such a perfect life... that forgiveness has never been necessary.
- Lee Ashley: [to Black as he explains his relationship with his wife] I must say, your sense of loyalty is a little deeper than your sense of decency.
- [last lines]
- Kate Connors: [as they are standing by unconscious and injured Black's bedside] Why don't you get some rest. You've been on your feet ever since yesterday. He won't come to for five or six hours.
- Lee Ashley: [staring intently at Black] I can wait. I can wait.
- Lee Ashley: [walking through the cemetery with Useless, who doesn't know who Lee is] How did Lieutenant Ashley die?
- Eustace Press: Like an amateur - squirmin' and squealin'. You know, they teach you how to throw a grenade and fire a mortar, but nobody ever teaches you how to die. I guess cuz that's the one thing in this world there there's no professionals at. You know, nobody comes back to tell you how to do it; you're on your own. When it's time for those last few gasps, everybody's an amateur.
- Kate Connors: You know what that's for? So you boys can have hot showers any time you want. Only showers in Noumea. Of course, if we don't paint it, you're all going to get splinters in your bottoms.
- Kate Connors: [to Lee] They're just trying to act like big shots. It's the ones that don't whistle at you you got to be careful of.
- Kate Connors: You're going to make the rest of us look like a lot of sharecroppers in those new uniforms.
- Lee Ashley: Well, they're nothing special.
- Kate Connors: Out here, anything that's new and not faded is something special - including what's inside the uniform too.
- Eddie Wodcik: Remember the dame I was tellin' you about that ran the settlement house down in my neighborhood? Well, this is her. This is Kate.
- Kate Connors: Get your suit. You can go for a swim. Beautiful beach.
- Lee Ashley: All right. Thanks, Kate.
- Kate Connors: I'm Kate Conners, Red Cross Club Director here. Anything special we can do for your boys?
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Yes. Don't call them boys and leave 'em alone.
- Kate Connors: She should be back by now. You undoubtedly have 20/20 vision. Can you see a girl swimming down there?
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: There's someone in a green bathing suit sunning herself.
- [picks up and looks through his binoculars at Lee]
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Hey, she's really something.
- Kate Connors: Any Peeping Toms in your family?
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: She's twinkling and twitching like an electric sign in Times Square. All she lacks down there is a man.
- Eddie Wodcik: Lilly? She doesn't exactly remind me of home and mother. That's the kind of female I'm talking about.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: During a war, women should be relegated to two categories: a skirt a man can make a pass at on leave or back home a wife, a mother, a sweetheart. One or the other. But, let your sweet little creatures come over here and try to provide a home away from home, the men get all mixed up.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Ashley? Ashley?
- Kate Connors: Did you know him?
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: No, I didn't. But, I'd certainly like to know his wife.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: I'm curious Colonel, were you ever bitten by a Red Cross worker?
- Kate Connors: No. But, I must confess it sounds interesting.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Now, down at this club in town, what do you girls do exactly?
- Lee Ashley: I think I'll leave the pleasure of enlightening you to some member of the Red Cross you know better than me.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: [holds up his binoculars] Oh, but Mrs. Ashley, I feel I already know you *very* well in deed.
- Lee Ashley: And I assure that's as well as you're ever likely to know me, Colonel.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: That horrible, sickened panic that comes while waiting for combat, is not so much from the fear of death, as it is the fear of proving inadequate as a man in front of men.
- Eddie Wodcik: Don't you never say things like that about her. Anybody talks dirty about her, I'll tear his tongue out. You understand?
- Lee Ashley: This is animal. It's nothing more. It's just violent and cheap!
- Kate Connors: At least you recognize it for what it is.
- Lee Ashley: Yes and I despise myself for it. But, there's nothing I can do, Kate. I'm rolling down a hill and I can't stop myself.
- Kate Connors: And he's just the kind to be waiting at the bottom.
- Lee Ashley: Oh, he's hard and cruel. There's nothing tender or gentle about him. He never asks me to do anything. He tells me! Why do I stand for it? I've never been treated this way before in my life!
- Kate Connors: That's why it's so fascinating.
- Lee Ashley: Oh, it isn't! It's degrading.
- Kate Connors: That's part of the fascination.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: You're a praying man, Chaplain. Peckinpaugh's a fighting Marine. It was his responsibility and he should have known better than to let the men pray with you lined up like canned goods on a shelf.
- Chaplain Lt. (jg) Holmes: Their ruthlessness is not confined to the enemy. They're becoming cruel and treacherous with each other! They need more than flame-throwers and pride in their own superiority. I am here to help them meet that other need.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: There's something breathless about you. Every time I look at you it's - like hearing music, seeing the ocean for the first time.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Trains used to make a 10 minute stop in the town where we lived. My mother used to send me down to the station and beg from the passengers. She knew they couldn't resist the hungry looking little Redskin. I hated every nickel I got. I hated the people that tossed them at me.
- Lee Ashley: I have some pride left. Not much, but some. I didn't want your sympathy any more than you wanted mine. And I wanted to be a wife to you and not a drunken joke around the Officer's Club when you're all sitting around *boasting* about your conquests. And I'm not going to be that funny story about the little blonde in Noumea! You're not going to have that chance! You dirty...
- Kate Connors: If you get married now, I'm going to have to ship you right home.
- Lee Ashley: Yes, I know.
- Kate Connors: You know it's against regulations for husband and wife to be in same theater of war.
- Lee Ashley: I know.
- Kate Connors: If I were you, I'd wait.
- Lee Ashley: No you wouldn't, Kate. We can't wait.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: During a war, it's amazing what a man will resort to to satisfy a desire of the moment. I suppose it's because he's not quite certain of how many moments he has left.
- Lee Ashley: They say that people who make a fetish of cleanliness are very often inwardly dirty. It's a sort of compensation.
- Eustace Press: [walking through the cemetery] I got more friends here than any place else. They're all wondering why they're there. I keep wondering why I'm here. Only a handful of us got out.
- Lee Ashley: How was it?
- Eustace Press: Rough.
- Lee Ashley: That's all any of you say. Rough? What does that mean?
- Eustace Press: Well, lady, when things are too rugged for words, that's rough.
- Lee Ashley: No, I don't hate him. He was trained to destroy - and he does it magnificently - and also completely. He's left me with nothing, not even the desire to hate - or forgive.
- Eustace Press: I would have clobbered a dame like that. But, he was kind of - he was kind of quiet. Shy. You'd think she'd have helped him. Build him up. Give him confidence. But, no, she just kept squeezin' it outta him. What makes a dame like that?
- Eustace Press: I'm glad you girls got here. It's awful good just to yack with a female. I'll probably talk your arm off.
- Eustace Press: You know something, when you get a second chance, you're awful lucky.
- [looks around the graveyard]
- Eustace Press: Don't I know it.
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Don't fill them with platitudes and religious superstitions. I want my men to be superstitious about only one thing: when they come face to face with a Jap in the bush, it want them to consider it very bad luck not to kill him first. And I don't want any of this "love thine enemy." If you must quote from the Bible, go to Samuel, "I've pursued my enemies and destroyed them. I did not turn back until I had consumed them." You're in the middle of a war and these men are fighting it!
- Chaplain Lt. (jg) Holmes: They're men, not animals. They've got souls!
- Lt. Col. Colin Black: Those we left in San Diego.