- Jim: If the Americans land, the Japanese will fight.
- Dr. Rawlins: You admire the Japanese?
- Jim: Well, they're brave, aren't they?
- Dr. Rawlins: That's important, is it, Jim?
- Jim: It's a good thing if you want to win a war.
- Dr. Rawlins: But we don't want them to win, do we. Remember, we're British.
- Jim: Yes. I've never been there.
- Jim: I was dreaming about God.
- Mary Graham: What did he say?
- Jim: Nothing. He was playing tennis. Perhaps that's where God is all the time and that's why you can't see Him when you're awake, do you think?
- Mary Graham: I don't know. I don't know about God.
- Jim: Perhaps He's our dream... and we're His.
- [Frank and Basie are about to leave Jim in the street]
- Jim: [desperately] Basie, first I could show you some rich pickings. Hundreds of houses left empty. I could show you some of the houses I lived in before Frank found me. They were luxuriant!
- Basie: Luxuriant? You had good sense being born there, Jim. I'm sure there was good living.
- Jim: There certainly was good living, Basie. There - there was opulence!
- Basie: Heh heh. Opulence. Frank, we'll go and take a look at some of these houses. Let's go, Frank. Opulence.
- [Nurses attempt to wake a sickly man]
- Jim: Can I have his shoes when he's dead?
- Dr. Rawlins: God you're a pragmatist, Jim.
- [Jim's hassling the truck driver on the way to Soochow]
- Jim: Do you know where we are? We're here, see? And now we have to turn left. Do you hear me? When I say turn left, you turn left! When I say turn right, turn right! You have to do what I say otherwise we'll never get to Soochow then you'll be shot!
- Jim: [about the Japanese troops camped nearby] It almost looks as if they're waiting for something to happen...
- John Graham, Jim's father: Yes.
- Jim: They didn't look angry or anything...
- Maxton: It's not their anger; it's their patience.
- Jim: Mrs. Victor, why did the Japanese close the school?
- Mrs. Victor: Because they wanted to punish the grownups.
- Mrs. Victor: I wonder how you'll take to school in England when the war's over.
- Jim: It might be a bit strange. All the same, Mrs. Victor, the best teacher is the University of Life.
- Mr. Victor: Oh, for heaven's...!
- Mrs. Victor: Could we finish our meal, please? We've heard your views on the University of Life.
- British Party Guest: Lockwood's invited a Chink.
- Basie: It's at the beginning and end of war that we have to watch out. In between, it's like a country club.
- [Tossing a pair of sunglasses to Jim as the Japanese army begin to beat him]
- Basie: I want these back when they're done.
- [Jim grabs wildly at Chinese soldiers after hearing about the atomic bomb]
- Jim: I saw it! I saw it! It was like a white light in the sky.
- Jim: Dr. Rawlin, do you remember how we had helped build the runway? If we die like the others, our bones would be IN the runway. In a way, it's OUR runway...
- Dr. Rawlins: No it's THEIR runway, Jim! Try not to think so much! Try not to THINK so much!
- [first lines]
- Narrator: [title card] In 1941 China and Japan had been in a state of undeclared war for four years. A Japanese army of occupation was in control of much of the countryside and many towns and cities. In Shanghai thousands of Westerners, protected by the diplomatic security of the International Settlement, continued to live as they had lived since the British came here in the 19th century and built in the image of their own country... built banking houses, hotels, offices, churches and homes that might have been uprooted from Liverpool or Surrey. Now their time was running out. Outside Shanghai the Japanese dug in and waited... for Pearl Harbor.
- Jim: We should eat the weevils, Mrs. Victor.
- Mrs. Victor: Oh, yes, I know, Jim. Dr. Rawlins told you.
- Jim: He said we need the protein.
- Mrs. Victor: Yes, well, Dr. Rawlins is right. We should *all* eat the weevils.
- Dr. Rawlins: It's a good thing you're friends with Basie. He's a survivor.
- Jim: That's because he only drinks boiled water.
- Jim: I can bring everyone back. I can bring everyone back. Everyone. I can bring everyone back. Everyone. I can bring everyone back. Everyone. I can bring everyone back. Everyone. I can bring everyone back. Everyone. I can bring everyone back. Everyone! I can bring everyone back! I can bring everyone back! Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! Everyone!
- Dr. Rawlins: What about your English prep? Just think of it as - the antidote.
- Jim: [rapidly] We-are-never-sure-of-sorrow, And-joy-was-never-sure, To-day-will-die-to-morrow, Time-stoops-to-no-man's-lure, With-love-grown-faint-and-fretful, With lips but...
- Dr. Rawlins: No, no, no, no, no. Try to learn it as a poem. It's not just a string of words, you know.
- Basie: [Pulls Jim off of the corpse of the Japanese pilot] Didn't I teach you anything?
- Jim: Yes! You taught me people will do anything for a potato.
- Lieutenant Price: Three years with him?
- Basie: Come on. I'll take you back to your dad. We'll fill the pool and eat three meals a day.
- [Jamie scrambles off of him]
- Jim: [CUTTING-ROOM-FLOOR LINE] My father would never let you swim in our pool.