Brad Neary: I don't understand these fractions.

Roy Neary: What's one third of sixty?

Brad Neary: [bewildered] That's a fraction, I don't understand them.

Roy Neary: [using a model train as an object lesson] Alright, let's say that this boxcar is sixty feet long, OK?, and one third of it is across this switch here, alright... And now another train is coming... Now, how far do you have to move this boxcar so that the other train doesn't smash it? Quickly Brad, there are thousands of lives at stake... Brad any answer...

[CRASH]
Claude Lacombe: Major Walsh, it is an event sociologique.
[Roy is shoveling soil into his kitchen window]

Roy Neary: Ronnie, if I don't do this, *that's* when I'm going to need a doctor.
Claude Lacombe: Mr. Neary, what do you want?

Roy Neary: I just want to know that it's really happening.
Roy Neary: [contemplating the lump shape] This means something. This is important.
Roy Neary: I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows... Dammit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important.
Roy Neary: I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad. It's okay, though. I'm still Dad.
[Roy's wife does not believe how he got the burns on his face]

Roy Neary: Well they're not moon burns, goddamnit.
Barry Guiler: You can come and play now.
Roy Neary: [checking the paper] Hey, you know what's playing tonight? Pinocchio! You guys have never seen Pinocchio, you're in luck!

Brad Neary: Aw, who wants to see some dumb cartoon rated 'G' for kids?

Roy Neary: How old are you?

Brad Neary: Eight.

Roy Neary: You wanna be nine?

Brad Neary: Yeah.

Roy Neary: Then you're going to go see Pinocchio tomorrow night.

[Brad makes a disgusted gesture, but shuts up]

Ronnie Neary: Roy, that is a terrific way to win over your children.

Roy Neary: I'm not serious, I'm just saying that I grew up with Pinocchio, and if kids are still kids, they're going to eat it up.

[Ronnie looks at him in disgust]

Roy Neary: Okay, I'm wrong, all right? I'm Wrong Roy.

[Yells at his youngest son, who is demolishing his sister's doll]

Roy Neary: TOBY! You are close to death! Come out here!

[Toby giggles, but obeys]

Roy Neary: Okay, let's have a vote. Tomorrow night you can play Goofy Golf, which is a lot of standing in line and shoving and pushing, and probably getting a 'zero,' or you can see Pinocchio, which is a lot of furry animals and magic, and you'll have a wonderful time. Okay? So let's vote.

[the kids all vote for golf]
David Laughlin: Have you recently had a close encounter?
Air Traffic Controller: TWA 517 do you want to report a UFO, over? TWA 517 do you want to report a UFO, over?

TWAPilot: [over radio] Negative, we don't want to report.

Air Traffic Controller: Air East 31, do you wish to report a UFO, over?

AirEast Pilot: [over radio] Negative, we don't want to report one of those either.

Air Traffic Controller: Air East 31, do you wish to file a report of any kind to us?

AirEast Pilot: [over radio] I wouldn't know what kind of report to file, Center.

Air Traffic Controller: Uh Air East 31, uh, me neither.
Project Leader: He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.
David Laughlin: Who flies crates like these anymore?

Project Leader: No one. These planes were reported missing in 1945.
Jillian Guiler: [on the police inquiring about her missing son] They asked me if I'd seen any strangers in the neighborhood.
[Trying to get his kids to look for UFOs at 4 AM]

Roy Neary: It's better than Goofy Golf!
Roy Neary: Is that it? Is that all you're gonna ask me? Well I got a couple of thousand goddamn questions, you know. I want to speak to someone in charge. I want to lodge a complaint. You have no right to make people crazy! You think I investigate every Walter Cronkite story there is? Huh? If this is just nerve gas, how come I know everything in such detail? I've never been here before. How come I know so much? What the hell is going on around here? Who the hell are you people?
David Laughlin: We didn't choose this place! We didn't choose these people! They were invited!

Claude Lacombe: They belong here more than we.
Roy Neary: I wanna speak to the man in charge.

David Laughlin: Mr. Lacombe is the highest authority.

Roy Neary: He isn't even an American.
Support Leader: [Looking the returnees] They haven't even aged. Einstein was right.

Team Leader: Einstein was probably one of them.
Roy Neary: You can't fool us by agreeing with us.
Ronnie Neary: Hey! This is not your toy to play with every time I turn around!
Scientist: That's a 2500 dollar globe! What are you guys doing?
Claude Lacombe: [to Roy Neary] I envy you.
Farmer: [at press conference to discuss UFOs] I saw Bigfoot once!

[everyone in thr room reacts. The Farmer stands up]

Farmer: Sequoia National Forest, 1951! It made a sound that I would not want to hear twice in my life.

[sits down]
Ronnie Neary: All right, everybody to bed!

Toby Neary: No, wait! Dad said we could watching The Ten Commandments!

Ronnie Neary: Roy, that movie is four hours long.

Roy Neary: I said they could watch the five commandments.
Ronnie Neary: [the Neary children watch The Ten Commandants on TV] You know, that movie is four hours long.

Roy Neary: I said they'd only watch five.
[last lines]

Barry Guiler: [looking up at the space ship flying away] Goodbye.
Project Leader: If everything's ready here on the Dark Side of the Moon... play the five tones.
Project Leader: [over a loudspeaker at The Dark Side of the Moon] Could we have the lights in the arena down 60 percent, please... 60 percent.

[the lights go down and running lights turn on one at a time up the runway]

Project Leader: I don't think we could have asked for a more beautiful evening, do you? Okay, watch the skies please... We now show uncorrelated targets approaching from the north-northwest.
Dirty Tricks #4: [Plotting about how to clear the Devil's Tower area of its population] Contaminated water. Affects people, crops, animals. Disease.

Dirty Tricks #3: Yeah, epidemic.

Dirty Tricks #1: What kind of disease?

Dirty Tricks #3: A plague. A plague epidemic.

Dirty Tricks #1: Nobody's gonna believe a plague in this day and age.

Dirty Tricks #2: *Anthrax.*

Dirty Tricks #4: Ranching country.

Dirty Tricks #3: Yes!

Dirty Tricks #2: There are a lot of sheep up in those hills.

Wild Bill: Wait, that's good, that's good, I like that. But it may not evacuate everybody. There's always some joker who thinks he's immune. What I need is something so scary it'll clear three hundred square miles of every living Christian soul.
Roy Neary: Just close your eyes and hold your breath and everything will turn real pretty.
Ronnie Neary: Roy, what did it look like?

Roy Neary: It was like an ice cream cone.

Ronnie Neary: What flavor?

Roy Neary: Orange. It was orange - and it wasn't like an ice cream cone. It was, it was more like a shell. You know, it was like this.

Ronnie Neary: Like a taco? Was it like one of those Sara Lee, um, moon-shaped cookies? Those crescent cookies? Don't you think I'm taking this really well? I remember when we used to come to places like this just to look at each other... and snuggle.
Toby Neary: Dad, after this can we throw dirt in MY window?
Barry Guiler: Clean everything up!
Brad Neary: He looks like a Fifty-Fifty Bar!
Roy Neary: [angrily] Who are you people?

Claude Lacombe: Mr. Neary, please, one more question.

David Laughlin: Have you recently had a close encounter... A close encounter with something very unusual?

Roy Neary: [cautiously] Who are you people?
Roy Neary: [as Lacombe and Laughlin show him a drawing of Devil's Tower] Yeah, I've got one just like it in my living room. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
[a farmer is one of several people, including Roy and Jillian, who witnesses three UFOs flying over an Indiana road]

Farmer: They can fly rings around the moon. But we're *years* ahead of them on the highway.
Soldier in gas mask: Are you OK sir?

Roy Neary: Yeah, I'm fine! And the only gas around here is from you guys farting around!
Ronnie Neary: [to Toby] Let go of this fence right now. You come with me. Do you want me to hit you? You let go of that fence!
Jillian Guiler: [watching two lights moving in the night sky] It's like Halloween for grownups.

Roy Neary: [funny and amazed] Trick or treat.
Hawker: And now, you're gonna be real disappointed and sorry if you don't have an early-warning system, such as a bird, a gas mask. Why, even my dog has a gas mask.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Quotes

Extended Reading

Close Encounters of the Third Kind short comments

Jamil 2022-03-22 09:01:21

O.O 2012-03-06 this world seems to be more and more and more and... confusing each day
Leta 2022-04-21 09:01:27

The visual effect is very good! But the plot, you said that you abandoned your wife and children to pursue UFOs and like-minded people. Is this still a man? !