Orca (1977)

Richard Harris: Captain Nolan

Photos 

Quotes 

• Captain Nolan : I brought this gun to shoot him. Yes, yes I did. But I knew when it came time to do it, I couldn't do it. So I got to thinking and I thought, Well if what-if what you say is right. That whales can communicate. Then I thought I'd look at him. Right in the eye. And I'd tell him the killing of his wife and his child was a terrible accident. That I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I'd tell him that I was sorry. I hope he'd forgive me.

• Rachel : [while listening to Orca's sounds through a hydrophone]  What is he saying?

  Captain Nolan : You're me, he says... I'm you, he says... you're my... drunk driver... he says...

• Captain Nolan : He loved his family... more than I loved mine.

• Captain Nolan : Can you commit a sin against an animal?

  Priest : Why, you can commit a sin against a blade of grass. Sins are really against oneself.

• [Captain Nolan has just seen the orca kill a member of his crew after the orca knocked the house into the ocean. He then looks out to the water & sees the killer whale leaping out of the water, breaching] 

  Captain Nolan : You revengeful sonofabitch! You win!

  [the orca keeps breaching, as if taunting Captain Nolan] 

  Captain Nolan : You want revenge? Well, you'll have it! I'll come out and fight you! You revengeful sonofabitch!

  [Nolan's boat, the 'Bumpo', steams out of the little harbor the next morning with the fishermen watching as he goes to fight the orca] 

• Captain Nolan : [as the harpooned orca screams in pain]  He sounds almost human...

• Rachel : There's a word for you.

  Captain Nolan : And I've been called it. Many times.

• Rachel : Did I tell you that that animal has a right to be left alone?

  Captain Nolan : No, but I have a notion you're about to.

• Captain Nolan : Orcas. I can't stop thinking about them. Nature's greatest pricks, the end point of millions of years of evolutionary arseholery.

• Captain Nolan : If you're so sure I can't catch a killer whale, why are you so upset?

  Rachel : Listen, you won't catch one, but you might butcher a couple dozen in the attempt!

  Captain Nolan : Oh, that's not my style at all.

• Captain Nolan : I won't fight him at all.

  Rachel : But you'll murder him - you'll sit here safe on the jetty, and shoot him through the eye? You're not a man, you're an animal! Its creatures like you science should be observing!