- Pete Sandich: [Speaking to Dorinda after he's dead] I know now, that the love we hold back is the only pain that follows us here.
- Dorinda Durston: ...so he sees this building on fire and then just outside of town is this reservoir, so what he does is...
- Ted Baker: He takes a plane, he goes over the reservoir, fills it with water, dumps it, puts the fire out.
- Dorinda Durston: No! He missed. He hit the post office next door. Knocked it on its ass! It took him three tries. The town was awash; the groceries were burned. It was fire, flood and famine. If he could have managed plague, it would have been the four horsemen of the apocalypse in one PBY. I mean he was unique.
- Al Yackey: I miss him too! I miss him too. I miss him every day. I loved him like I've never loved a guy. And I don't love guys. You don't have an excuse, you quit. You quit, you gave up. He never quit on anything 'til it killed him, and that was his way, and there's much worse ways, and boy you sure found one.
- Dorinda Durston: I can't live with it!
- Al Yackey: Bullshit.
- Al Yackey: The hell with it. What this place reminds me of is the war in Europe.
- Pete Sandich: This is deep.
- Al Yackey: Which I was personally never at, but think about it. The beer's warm, the dance hall's a Quonset, there's B-26s outside, hotshot pilots inside, an airstrip in the woods... it's England, man! Everything but Glenn Miller! Except we go to burning places and bomb 'em till they stop burning. You see, Pete, there ain't no war here.
- Pete Sandich: What's taking her so long?
- Al Yackey: This is why they don't make movies called 'Night Raid to Boise, Idaho' or 'Firemen Strike at Dawn'. And this is why you ain't exactly a hero for taking these chances you take. You're more of what I would call a dickhead.
- Pete Sandich: Love! Ain't what it used to be.
- Al Yackey: Oh there's only ever been two kinds: There's lash fires, which are all flame, burn themselves out and leave nothing. Then there's the long burning. That is nature's burn. Even when you think it's out, the forest floor is warm to the touch. That's the kind you and Dorinda got.
- Pete Sandich: You're a poet, Al. You're a really bad poet, but you're a poet.
- Dorinda Durston: He's too beautiful. He's too much twisted steel and sex appeal. I can't be with a guy that looks like I won him in a raffle.
- Ted Baker: Well, I'll tell ya there, missy. You sure do look purty when you're angry. Wah-huh.
- Dorinda Durston: Oh, so you do impressions?
- Ted Baker: Well, just that one.
- Dorinda Durston: Uh-huh. Who was it?
- Ted Baker, Pete Sandich: [astounded] Who was it?
- Dorinda Durston: Was it James Stewart?
- Pete Sandich: What are you, kidding me? Who did you think it was, Henry Fonda?
- Ted Baker: Well, I'll tell ya there, little missy, you sure do look purty when you're angry! Wah-huh!
- Dorinda Durston: Henry Fonda.
- Ted Baker: John Wayne! Don't you know John Wayne?
- Dorinda Durston: John Wayne? That was John Wayne? Do it again! I'll probably recognize it if I know who it is!
- Ted Baker: [being serenaded by the other pilots after a botched exercise] This is first place, right?
- [Al comes roaring up in a jeep, covered in fire retardant; the crowd falls silent]
- Al Yackey: Cute. Now we know how ready you are. We're gonna be coming into fire season soon, and if we get a big one - a real big one - they're gonna be calling guys from all over the place. They're gonna be calling veterans, first-timers, guys from all over the country if they have to. And when they call me, they're gonna say, 'Al, whaddya got?' And I'm gonna tell them I ain't got nothin'. 'Cause you're nothin'! What you did today was nothin'! Hell, you can't even hit a smoking oil drum, and a drum ain't a tree! A tree can explode like a bomb! A tree can go up like a Roman candle! And an oil drum don't have any heat! In a real fire, there's heat! There's heat that can suck you under, flip you over! There's currents that can tie a knot in a windsock! And Baker - Baker, you're on the bus. I'm going to San Diego and when I get back tomorrow, I don't want to see you in here.
- Dorinda Durston: [after a tirade as to how she fears for his life every day] I love you, Pete... but I'm not enjoying it.
- [after Pete's plane explodes, he finds himself getting a haircut in the woods]
- Pete Sandich: Hap, I don't want you to think that I'm doubting your good faith, I just want to get one thing clear, okay?
- Hap: Okay.
- Pete Sandich: Am I dead?
- Hap: That's right.
- Pete Sandich: I'm dead?
- Hap: Right.
- Pete Sandich: Keep the sideburns. Boy, what a jerk I turned out to be. Dead! And now I'm sitting in the woods, getting my hair cut.
- Pete Sandich: I don't know what you think you're doing, but turn this plane around. Dorinda, you never would listen to me and you always did just fine, but this isn't the same. This is Ted's mission, and you're not good enough. You're not good enough, and you won't make it! Is that what you want? That's not my girl!
- Al Yackey: [shouting over the radio] Dorinda, God damn it! This is no time to be dickin' around with an airplane!
- [Dorinda throws her headset off as she flies into the maw of a vast wildfire]
- Pete Sandich: Okay... let's not be rational! Throttle! More throttle! Level out... level out, level out, LEVEL OUT! And you say I flew crazy! What are you trying to do? Dorinda, fly smart! Those guys down there need you!
- [Ted is hearing Pete's words in his head as his own thoughts]
- Bartender: What'll it be?
- Pete Sandich: Extra dry vodka martini. Don't forget the olive.
- Ted Baker: Root beer. Don't forget the olive.
- Pete Sandich: Bad line, Ted. Bad line, Ted! If you don't straighten out the line you're gonna dump all over Al... . Great line, Ted.
- [laughs]
- Pete Sandich: [starved for petrol, the #2 engine dies] Tanker 57 to tanker base. I've got a small inconvenience here.
- Larry: Talk to me Pete.
- Pete Sandich: I may have overestimated my fuel just a tad, but I can see the base from here and my right engine is fine, so I don't think there's going to be any...
- [right engine splutters]
- Pete Sandich: ... problem.
- Larry: Pete, what do you need? What do you need?
- Pete Sandich: [#1 engine finishes sputtering to a stop] Glider practice.
- Larry: [rings the crash alarm and announces over the PA] We've got a situation here. We've got a flier coming in dead stick.
- Pete Sandich: [sound of the feathered propellers turning feebly and air rushing past as the plane sinks towards the ground. Pete's transmission is broadcast over the tanker base PA] This is good. I was rusty on panic. OK, no problem, I've got the airport in sight, I've got a nice little headwind here...
- [whistles Garry Owen, the theme of the 7th Cavalry as he glides towards the base. The altimetre shows his sink rate while descends from 1,275 feet as trees rush past below him. The headwind shifts to a tailwind then dies and Pete's whistling fades when the plane staggers as it loses lift from the headwind]
- Al Yackey: [after taking a distress call from the smoke jumpers] Get on the radio to the Helibase. Have the choppers warmed up and standing by.
- Ted Baker: [heading for the radio set] Libby Operations Shack to Helibase, come in.
- Pete Sandich: Ted, those choppers are forty miles away. They fly at a hundred miles an hour.
- Ted Baker: Libby Operations Shack to Helibase. Come in.
- Pete Sandich: We're twelve miles away. We fly at 220 miles an hour.
- Air Traffic Controller: Libby Operations, this is Helibase. We read you. Over.
- Ted Baker: Air Attack 63-Echo, this is the operations shack. We will be handling this incident from here! Contact the jumper boss at Dhole Mountain and ascertain their exact location for me.
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