[from trailer]

Javier: What are you reading?

Luisa Rey: Old letters.

Javier: Why do you keep reading them?

Luisa Rey: I don't know. Just trying to understand why we keep making the same mistakes... over and over.
[from trailer]

Robert Frobisher: A half-finished book is, after all, a half finished love affair.
[from trailer]

Vyvyan Ayrs: That's it! The music from my dream.

Robert Frobisher: I call it the "Cloud Atlas Sextet".
[from trailer]

Isaac Sachs: Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. I feel like something important has happened to me. Is this possible? I just met her, and yet... I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey.
[from trailer]

Robert Frobisher: I believe there is a another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.
[repeated line]

Mr. Meeks: I know, I know!
Timothy Cavendish: Soylent Green are people!
Timothy Cavendish: I will not be subjected to criminal abuse.
Timothy Cavendish: We cross and re-cross our old paths like figure-skaters.
Haskell Moore: There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive; if you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you will exist a pariah to be spat at and beaten-at worst, to be lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? No matter what you do it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.

Adam Ewing: What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?
Sonmi-451: Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.
Isaac Sachs: Fear, belief, love phenomena that determined the course of our lives. These forces begin long before we are born and continue after we perish.
[Dr. Goose is tending to Adam]

Adam Ewing: I don't know what would have happened without you there.

Dr. Henry Goose: Well, for starters, you would have died!

[laughs]

Adam Ewing: I don't know how to repay you.

Dr. Henry Goose: Adam, I am a doctor. A tiger cannot change his stripes.
Luisa Rey: You seem nervous. Do I make you nervous, Isaac?

Isaac Sachs: No. Actually, just the opposite.
Archivist: On behalf of my Ministry and the future of Unanimity, I want to thank you for the final interview. Remember, this isn't an interrogation or trial. Your version of the truth is all that matters.

Sonmi-451: Truth is singular. Its "versions" are mistruths.
Timothy Cavendish: [narrating] While my extensive experience as an editor has led me to a disdain for flashbacks and flash forwards and all such tricksy gimmicks I believe that if you, dear Reader, can extend your patience for just a moment, you will find that there is a Method to this tale of Madness.

Timothy Cavendish: [to himself] Look. I was Dermot Hoggins' publisher. Not his shrink, not his astrologer. And the ruddy bloody truth is that I had no idea what the man was going to do that night.
[Frobisher is misplaying Ayrs' composition]

Vyvyan Ayrs: [pained] Stop. Please. You're hurting me. You must have misheard me. I said a "melody", not a "malady".

[Jocasta enters]

Jocasta Ayrs: Vyvyan?

Vyvyan Ayrs: Jocasta! Deliver me.

Jocasta Ayrs: What's going on here? Who is this?

Jocasta Ayrs: I see. Should I be introduced?

Vyvyan Ayrs: There's really no point. The boy is as useful as the clap. Fortunately, he'll be much easier to get rid of.
[Old Sixsmith notices the "shooting star"-shaped birthmark]

Old Rufus Sixsmith: That's a very peculiar birthmark.

Luisa Rey: Yeah, my mom was sure it was going to be cancerous and kept trying to get me to remove it, but... I kinda like it.

Old Rufus Sixsmith: I knew someone who had a birthmark that was similar to that.

Luisa Rey: Who was it?

Old Rufus Sixsmith: Someone I cared about very much.
Timothy Cavendish: [narrating] In the darkness, I suddenly saw the light. Blood has always trumped water. If the Hogginses brutes wanted to turn this into a family affair, they'd find the Cavendish clan more than ready for the task at hand.
Cavendish Look-A-Like Actor: This is a violation of the ruddy Incarceration Act! I will not be subjugated to criminal abuse!
Archivist: [about Yoona taking Somni to the lost-and-found room] Why didn't you report Yoona-939 to Seer Rhee the next day?

Sonmi-451: I couldn't.

Archivist: Why?

Sonmi-451: Because she trusted me.

Archivist: But your actions violated the Fifth Catechism.

Sonmi-451: That's true.

Archivist: How did you justify this transgression?

Sonmi-451: She was my friend.
Abbess: [in a trance] Bridge'a'broken, hide below, Hands'a'bleedin', can't let go, enemy sleepin', don't slit that throat.
Mr. Meeks: Don't leave me here!
Archivist: What if no one believes this... truth?

Sonmi-451: Someone already does.
Robert Frobisher: My dearest Sixsmith, I shot myself through the roof of my mouth this morning with Vivian Ayrs' Luger. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate suicide is a coward's act. Couldn't be further from the truth. Suicide takes tremendous courage. Don't let them say I killed myself for love. Had my infatuations, but we both know in our hearts who is the sole love of my short, bright life.
Robert Frobisher: Sixsmith. I climb the steps of the Scott Monument every morning and all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don't worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. Moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.
Robert Frobisher: [narrating] Dinner of pheasant with Bordeaux rich as buttercream. How I love to listen to men of distinguished lives sing of past follies and glories. The only broken note in the entire evening was Ayrs' wife, Jocasta, excusing herself early. Sensed the buried bone. Later I asked Ayrs about it, he said Kesselring had introduced Jocasta to him. I pried, had Kesselring been in love with her. The subject was a prickly one.

Vyvyan Ayrs: Jocasta was a Jew. Obviously the relationship was impossible.

Robert Frobisher: Why obviously?

Vyvyan Ayrs: Can you really be so ignorant of what is happening in Germany?

Robert Frobisher: [continues narration] At this point in my life all I know, Sixsmith, is that this world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.
Sonmi-451: That ship... that ship must be destroyed.

Hae-Joo Chang: Yes.

Sonmi-451: The systems that built them must be torn down.

Hae-Joo Chang: Yes.

Sonmi-451: No matter if we're born in a tank or a womb, we are all Pureblood.

Hae-Joo Chang: Yes.

Sonmi-451: We must all fight and, if necessary, die to teach people the truth.

Hae-Joo Chang: This is what we have been waiting for.
Robert Frobisher: I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed. Yours eternally, R.F.
Timothy Cavendish: Never forget Herman Melville, writes a ripping yarn about a big white whale which is summarily dismissed, and yet today it is lugged around in the backpacks of every serious student of literature in the world.

Dermot Hoggins: I don't give a fuck what happens when I'm dead, I want people to buy me book now!

Timothy Cavendish: Well, as your publisher, obviously nothing would make me happier. But sadly, for whatever reason, 'Knuckle Sandwich' has yet to connect to its audience.

Dermot Hoggins: You want a reason? I'll give you a reason

[points]

Dermot Hoggins: Right there!

Timothy Cavendish: Aaaa, you mean Mr Finch?

Dermot Hoggins: Felix fuckin' Finch! That cunt that shat all over me book in his poncy fuckin' magazine!

Timothy Cavendish: It wasn't that bad.

Dermot Hoggins: No?

[quotes]

Dermot Hoggins: 'Mr Hoggins should apologize to the trees failed for the making of his bloated autobio novel. Four hundred vain-glorious pages expire in an ending that is flat and inane beyond belief'.

Timothy Cavendish: Steady now, Dermot. What is a critic but one who reads quickly, arrogantly, but never wisely.
Nurse Noakes: You are going to be sorry in ways you cannot even imagine.

Mr. Meeks: [shrieks to draw attention of the crowd in the pub] Are there no true Scotsmen in the house? Those there English gerrunts are trampling all over my God-given rights!

Nurse Noakes: These people are mine.

[fans growl menacingly]

Mr. Meeks: They've used me and my pals most direly and we are in need of a wee bit of assistance!

Highlander: Right, pal, we'll not let you down

[starts a fight]
Zachry: Who tripped the Fall, if not Old Georgie?

Meronym: True-true? The Old Uns.

Zachry: That's just a rope o'smoke. Old Uns got the Smart. They mastered sick and seeds, they make miracles and fly across the sky.

Meronym: True. All true. But they got somethin' else. A hunger in their hearts, a hunger that's stronger than all their Smart.

Zachry: Hunger? For what?

Meronym: A hunger for more.
Robert Frobisher: It's done.
Robert Frobisher: This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.
Timothy Cavendish: Outside, fat snow flakes are falling on slate roofs and granite walls. Like Solzhenitsyn, labouring in Vermont, I shall beaver away in exile. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, I shan't be alone.
Timothy Cavendish: Two sprained ankles, one cracked rib. Official cause of accident listed on the hospital form: "Pussy".
Dr. Henry Goose: There is only one rule that binds all people. One governing principle that defines every relationship on God's green earth: The weak are meat, and the strong do eat.
Isaac Sachs: Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the Theory of Relativity and Principles of Uncertainty: phenomenon that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday I believed that I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. At each point of intersection, each encounter suggests a new potential direction.
Archivist: In your Revelation, you spoke of the consequences of an individual's life rippling through eternity. Does this mean that you believe in an afterlife? In a heaven or a hell?

Sonmi-451: I believe death is only a door. When it closes, another opens. If I cared to imagine a heaven, I would imagine a door opening and behind it, I would find him there.
Luisa Rey: You have to do whatever you can't not do.
Old Georgie: The weak are meat, and the strong do eat.
Dr. Henry Goose: Do you ever get the feeling that the Universe is against ya?
[first lines]

Zachry: [shivering beside the fire] Oh, lonesome night. And babbits bawling, the wind biting the bone. Wind like this... full of voices. Ancestry howling at you, yibbering stories, all voices tied up into one. One voice differing. One voice, whispering out there, spying from the dark. The fangy devil, Old Georgie hisself. Mm. Now your ear up close, and I'll yarn you about the first time we met, eye to eye.
An-kor Apis: You, my dear, are proof our efforts were not in vain.

Sonmi-451: But I'm just a dinery server. I was not genomed to alter reality.

An-kor Apis: No revolutionary ever was.
Sonmi-451: To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time.
Sonmi-451: This is what General Apis asked of me.

Archivist: What, to be executed?

Sonmi-451: If I had remained invisible, the truth would stay hidden. I couldn't allow that.

Archivist: And what if no one believes this truth?

Sonmi-451: Someone already does.
[last lines]

Miro: Do you still love Grammy?

Zachry: Your grammy is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Meronym: Come on here, Grampy. Lemme warm them old bones.
Archivist: The report said Commander Chang was killed in the assault.

Sonmi-451: That is correct.

Archivist: Would you say that you loved him?

Sonmi-451: Yes, I do.

Archivist: Do you mean, you are still, in love with him?

Sonmi-451: I mean, that I will always be...
Robert Frobisher: [From Trailer] There are whole movements I wrote, imagining us meeting again and again, in different lives, different ages...
Isaac Sachs: Proposition: I have fallen in love with Louisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her, and yet, I feel like something important has happened.
Denholme Cavendish: [answering phone in the middle of the night] Ugh, who the bloody hell is this? Have you any idea what time it is?

Timothy Cavendish: Denny, it's me, Tim

Denholme Cavendish: Timothy? Where are you?

Timothy Cavendish: I think you ruddy well know where I am!

Denholme Cavendish: But residents aren't allowed access to phones. Has someone smuggled one in?

Timothy Cavendish: What? You know the rules?

Denholme Cavendish: I helped *write* them, Timmy. I have been a principal investor in Aurora House for twelve years. It's incredibly lucrative. You can't believe how much people will pay to lock up their parents.
Hae-Joo Chang: [to Sonmi-451] The problem you create is a Political one.
Isaac Sachs: I had... a girlfriend once. She kept trying to get me to read... Carlos Castenada. You ever read any of *that* shit?

Luisa Rey: Oh yeah.

Isaac Sachs: But the relationship was doomed. Every time she brought up any of the karma, past life stuff, I-I couldn't stop myself from laughing. And yet... I can't explain it. But I knew when I opened that door...

[trails off, becomes serious]

Isaac Sachs: They destroyed most of the copies of the report.

Luisa Rey: Most?

Isaac Sachs: There's no good choice here, is there? If I help you, I could lose my job, or worse. If I don't, a lot of people... yeah it'll be worse than worse.

Luisa Rey: You have to do... whatever you can't *not* do.
Dermot Hoggins: [after throwing Felix Finch off of a tenth floor balcony to his death] Now *that's* an ending that is flat and inane beyond belief!
Robert Frobisher: Finished in a frenzy that reminded me of our last night in Cambridge. Watched my final sunrise. Enjoyed a last cigarette. Didn't think the view could be any more perfect until I saw that beat-up trilby. Honestly, Sixsmith, as ridiculous as that thing makes you look, I don't believe I've ever seen anything more beautiful. Watched you for as long as I dared. I don't believe it was a fluke that I saw you first. I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world, and I'll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars, where we first kissed. Yours eternally, R.F.
Luisa Rey: I... called about an old recording, written by a man named Robert Frobisher.

Store Clerk: Oops, busted. I know I shouldn't be playing it, I was... checking it to make sure it wasn't scratched. But... honestly, I just can't stop listening to it.

Luisa Rey: This is the "Cloud Atlas Sextet"?

Store Clerk: It's, uh... the "Symphony".

Luisa Rey: It's beautiful. But I think I've heard this before.

Store Clerk: Can't imagine how. I doubt there's more than a... handful of copies in all of North America.

Luisa Rey: But I know it. I know I know it.
Dr. Henry Goose: Don't come between the beast and his meat.
Dermot Hoggins: You're going to like this.

[Throws the critic off the roof]
Luisa Rey: My little meteor.

Cloud Atlas Quotes

Extended Reading

Cloud Atlas short comments

Jimmie 2021-10-20 19:01:29

The perfect interpretation of unknown Jue Li.
Fay 2022-03-20 09:01:19

The first movie ever to feature credits as the biggest highlight