- [first lines]
- Tom Buckley: Margaret. Margaret. Margaret.
- Margaret Matheson: [waking] Yes?
- Tom Buckley: You should get some sleep.
- Simon Silver: We dream 27 times a night. An intricate neurological protection mechanism which makes us forget. What protects you? A line of salt? From the time of ancient Greece to the present day, philosophers and scholars have argued man is essentially rational. I don't happen to agree. If one observes and studies another person without having first studied oneself, how do we know whether out instruments are appropriately set? How do we know we are reliable? We have no proof. There's only one way of gaining access to the truth, and that's not to expect anything. If our intentions aren't pure, we might end up creating monsters.
- Margaret Matheson: Ever heard of Occam's Razor?
- Policeman: Occam's Razor?
- Margaret Matheson: When I hear the drumming of hooves, I don't think unicorns, I think horses.
- Tom Buckley: Listen to me. YOU are the only guy separating the world from stupidity at this point in time, okay?
- Margaret Matheson: You know, there are two kinds of people out there with a special gift - the ones who really think they have some kind of power, and the other guys who think we can't figure them out. They're both wrong.
- Margaret Matheson: [lecturing] If you press down hard on the top of the table and draw your hands toward your body, the outer two table legs are going to go up like a schoolgirl's dress.
- Simon Silver: We called Ptolemy insane, we spat in the face of Galileo, we burned Giordano Bruno... What did we need? What do we need in order to learn? What makes us be what we are? What finally makes us come to accept? What makes us believe?
- Simon Silver: The young and persistent Thomas Buckley, as many of you may know, decided some time ago to devote part of his life to making mine as difficult as possible.