Oskar Werner credited as playing...
Guy Montag
- Guy Montag: [holding a book in his hand] Behind each of these books, there's a man. That's what interests me.
- Guy Montag: Well, it's a job just like any other. Good work with lots of variety. Monday, we burn Miller; Tuesday, Tolstoy; Wednesday, Walt Whitman; Friday, Faulkner; and Saturday and Sunday, Schopenhauer and Sartre. We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes. That's our official motto.
- Guy Montag: Fahrenheit four-five-one is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and starts to burn.
- Guy Montag: [reading from David Copperfield] David Copperfield. Chapter one. I am born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born, as I have been informed and believe on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously.
- Guy Montag: Do you remember what you asked me the other day: if I ever read the books I burn? Remember?
- Clarisse: Uh-huh.
- Guy Montag: Last night I read one.
- The Captain: By the way, what does Montag do on his day off duty?
- Guy Montag: Not much, sir, just mow the lawn.
- The Captain: And what if the law forbids that?
- Guy Montag: Just watch it grow, sir.
- Clarisse: But why do you burn books?
- Guy Montag: Books make people unhappy, they make them anti-social.
- Clarisse: Do you think I'm anti-social?
- Guy Montag: Why do you ask?
- Clarisse: Well... I'm a teacher, not quite actually, I'm still on probation. I was called to the administration office today, and I don't think I said the right things. I'm not at all happy about my answers.
- Clarisse: Is it true that a long time ago, firemen used to put out fires and not burn books?
- Guy Montag: Your uncle is right, you are light in the head, put out fires? Houses have always been fireproof.
- Clarisse: Ours isn't...
- Guy Montag: Well, it should be condemned, destroyed, and you'll have to move to one that is.
- Guy Montag: [trying to figure out why Clarisse was fired] You must've said something that...
- Clarisse: Oh I never got along well with the staff, they disapprove of me... I... don't always stick to the times tables... well we have fun in my class, and they don't like that.
- Linda Montag: Did you see that? Cousin Claudette's got a bouffant tonight.
- Guy Montag: Who?
- Linda Montag: Cousin Claudette.
- Guy Montag: Who is cousin Claudette?
- Linda Montag: The cousin announcer; the one you don't like.
- Guy Montag: I don't like any of them.
- Guy Montag: Look at that fellow over there.
- Clarisse: What's he doing?
- Guy Montag: That's the information box. He can't make up his mind.
- Clarisse: What does he want to find out?
- Guy Montag: He doesn't want to find out anything. He knows someone who has books, so he got hold of the person's picture and number and is going to drop it into that box.
- Clarisse: But he's an informer!
- Guy Montag: No, he's an informant.
- Linda Montag: They won't come back. I'll be all alone. I won't be popular anymore. They won't use me in the family anymore. And you made Doris cry!
- Guy Montag: She cried because it is true!
- Linda Montag: What are you going to do now? Haven't you done enough harm already?
- Guy Montag: Leave me alone, Linda, I've got reading to do, quite a lot.
- Linda Montag: What's the matter with you? Aren't you well?
- Guy Montag: It's nothing. I've got to read! I've got to catch up with the remembrance of the past!
- Guy Montag: [reading from dictionary] Rhinoceros: any of certain large, powerful, thick-skinned perissodactyl mammals of the family Rhinocerotidae.
- Guy Montag: [to Linda] You've spent your whole life in front of that family wall. These books are my family.
- Guy Montag: Tell me, this uncle of yours, did he ever tell you not to talk to strangers?
- Clarisse: No, he did say once if anyone asked how old I was to say I was 20 and light in the head. They always seem to go together.
- Guy Montag: Light in the head?
- Clarisse: Mm-hmm, loopy, crazy.
- Guy Montag: [reading] Once upon a time there was a woodcutter named...
- Book Lady: They can't have my books, they'll never take them away.
- Clarisse: Why?
- Guy Montag: What?
- Clarisse: How did it come about? How did it begin? How could someone like you be doing this work? I know everyone says that but you - you're not like them. When I say something to you, you look at me. Why did you choose this job? With you it doesn't make any sense.
- Guy Montag: [discovers her disposing of his books] What are you doing, Linda!
- Linda Montag: I found these things in the house. I don't want these things, Montag. They frighten me.
- Guy Montag: You spend your whole life in front of that family on the wall! These books are my family.