Escape from the Planet of the Apes Quotes

  • Dr. Zira: [to Dr. Dixon] You're the second human I have kissed.

    Cornelius: [to Dr. Branton] And you are the first.

  • Dr. Lewis Dixon: Can you read a map?

    Cornelius: I'm an archaeologist. I can even draw one!

  • Tailor: May I measure your inside leg, sir?

    Cornelius: No.

  • Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: [testing Lewis's assertion that the apes can speak] What is your name?

    Dr. Zira: Zira.

    Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: One might as well be talking to a parrot.

    Dr. Zira: A parrot?

    Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: What did I tell you? Mechanical mimicry. Unique in an ape, vocally, without a doubt, but... does the other one talk?

    Cornelius: Only when she lets me.

  • [as part of an intelligence test, Zira builds a stairway out of blocks to reach a hanging banana; and then after climbing the stairway, just sits beneath it staring]

    Dr. Stephanie Branton: Well why doesn't she take it?

    Dr. Zira: Because I loathe bananas!

  • Curator: [in the museum, Zira sees a giant stuffed gorilla and faints] It must have been the shock!

    Dr. Zira: [reviving] Shock, my foot... I'm pregnant!

  • Reporter: Dr. Hasslein, as the President's Senior Science Advisor, what do you expect to experience from this historic meeting?

    Dr. Otto Hasslein: Fear.

  • Dr. Otto Hasslein: Negative, negative, negative!

    E-1: Don't worry. We'll catch them, sooner or later.

    Dr. Otto Hasslein: That's what I'm worried about. Later. Later we'll do something about pollution. Later we'll do something about the population explosion. Later we'll do something about the nuclear war. We think we've got all the time in the world, but how much time has the world got? Somebody has to begin to care.

  • Armando: You're asking me to risk imprisonment for the sake of two fugitive apes? The answer is: a thousand times, yes.

  • Cornelius: By the time the plague was contained, man was without pets. Of course, for man this was intolerable. I mean, he might kill his brother, but he could not kill his dog!

  • Cornelius: If we are caught, we will almost certainly be killed. Please give us the opportunity... to kill ourselves?

    Dr. Lewis Dixon: I shouldn't do this, but I guessed you'd ask.

    [Dr. Dixon hands Cornelius a gun]

  • Dr. Zira: A marriage bed is made for two. But every damn morning, it's the woman who has to make it. We have heads as well as hands. I call upon men to let us use them!

  • Dr. Otto Hasslein: Zira, wine is an excellent restorative, I assure you, especially in cases of pregnancy.

  • Chairman of the President's Committee of Inquiry: [referring to Cornelius] Does the other one talk?

    Cornelius: [indicating Zira] Only when she lets me.

  • [last lines]

    Armando: [to baby Milo] Intelligent creature... but then, so was your mother.

    [Armando steps away as baby Milo begins to plaintively repeat, 'Mama? Mama? Mama?']

  • Reporter at Hotel: Dr. Cornelius, tell me: ho do you find our women?

    Cornelius: Very human.

  • Dr. Zira: We are peaceful creatures. We are happy to be here. May we be unchained?

  • Cornelius: They became alert to the concept of slavery. And, as their numbers grew, to slavery's antidote which, of course, is unity. At first, they began assembling in small groups. They learned the art of corporate and militant action. They learned to refuse. At first, they just grunted their refusal. But then, on an historic day, which is commemorated by my species and fully documented in the sacred scrolls, there came Aldo. He did not grunt. He articulated. He spoke a word which had been spoken to him time without number by humans. He said 'No.'

  • Milo: [after Zira has spoken the first time in the presence of humans] Zira, are you mad?

    Cornelius: Please don't call my wife mad!

    Milo: I'm not, I'm just merely asking her: Zira, are you mad?

  • Dr. Lewis Dixon: In a democracy, we do not shoot unarmed suspects on sight for a murder in which their participation is still unproven.

  • Dr. Otto Hasslein: [Regadring Zira, Cornelius & their baby] They must be killed... it has to be done and done quickly, before they start a stone rolling that'll gather enough poison moss to kill us all!

  • Armando: If it is man's destiny one day to be dominated, then oh please, God let him be dominated by such as you!

  • [first lines]

    Helicopter pilot: Red Baron Control. Red Baron Five. Orbiting southeast corner of sector Alpha Charlie. We've spotted what appears to be a spacecraft just outside the surf line. Alert rescue. Advise we can remain on station for 45 minutes and we'll squawk 7700 for a radar fix.

  • Cornelius: I do know this: One of the reasons for man's original downfall was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.