Memorable quotes for
The War of the Worlds (1953) More at IMDbPro »

Sylvia: They seem to murder everything that moves.

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Forrester: If they're mortal, they must have mortal weaknesses. They'll be stopped, somehow.

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Radio Reporter: All radio is dead, which means that these tape recordings I'm making are for the sake of future history - If any.

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Duprey: I have never seen blood crystals as anemic as these. They may be mental giants but, physically, by our standards, they must be very primitive.

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Salvatore: What do we say to them?
Wash Perry: "Welcome to California."

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Reporter: The way he's hedging, maybe the Army didn't hold 'em. I've seen news off the Pacific cables: Sydney Australia, Penan, Rangoon, India. From what's coming through, nobody's stopped 'em yet.

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Major General Mann: They'll probably move at dawn...

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Col. Ralph Heffner: Everybody out of here, everybody out! The Air Force will take care of these babies now. Doctor Forrester, get out of here! Everybody out of here! everybody ou -...
Col. Ralph Heffner: [gets vaporized by Martian death ray]

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Well-Dressed Looter: You can't buy a ride for love or money.

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Marine Commanding Officer: Hey, you, better get out of here.
Dr Clayton Forrester: I'm looking for someone, a girl.
Marine Sergeant: Come on, get in.
Dr Clayton Forrester: She's kind of lost.
Marine Commanding Officer: You look kind of lost.

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Spanish Priest: Don't go, son. Stay with us.
Dr Clayton Forrester: No, I'm looking for someone. She'll be in a church, standing by the door.

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Dr Clayton Forrester: We prayed for a miracle.

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Major General Mann: Pattern-wise, one lands, then two, making groups of threes joined magnetically. Is that possible?
Dr Clayton Forrester: If they do it, it is.

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Dr Clayton Forrester: We know now we can't beat their machines. We've got to beat them.

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Dr Clayton Forrester: You might get a clue from that anemic blood.
Duprey: Are you suggesting a biological approach?
Dr Clayton Forrester: We know now that we can't beat their machines. We've got to beat *them.*

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Major General Mann: That skeleton beam must be what they used to wipe out the French cities.
Forrester: It neutralizes meson somehow. They're the atomic glue holding matter together. Cut across their lines of magnetic force and any object will simply cease to exist! Take my word for it, General, this type of defense is useless against that kind of power! You'd better let Washington know, fast!

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Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins: Colonel, shooting's no good.
Col. Ralph Heffner: It's always been a good persuader.

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[first lines]
Radio Reporter: [voiceover] In the First World War, and for the first time in the history of man, nations combined to fight against nations using the crude weapons of those days. The Second World War involved every continent on the globe, and men turned to science for new devices of warfare, which reached an unparalleled peak in their capacity for destruction. And now, fought with the terrible weapons of super-science, menacing all mankind and every creature on the Earth comes the War of the Worlds.

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[last lines]
Commentary: [voiceover] The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs, which no longer affect us, began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop and fall. After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth.

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Sylvia: [at site of first meteor landing] Did you see it come down?
Forrester: Yes, I was fishing up in the hills.
Sylvia: Well, you must have caught plenty with all that tackle!

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Sheriff Bogany: What is that gizmo?
Forrester: I'd say that gizmo is a machine from another planet.

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Forrester: Are they sure it's a meteor? It certainly didn't come down like one.
3rd forest ranger: That's right... it came down in kind of spurts, didn't it?

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Col. Ralph Heffner: Let 'em have it!

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Major General Mann: Guns, tanks, bombs - they're like toys against them!

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Major General Mann: I'd say our effective losses were nearly sixty percent men, ninety percent materiel. Well, the jets went in, but not one of them came out. I watched high-level bombers drop everything they carried... They were knocked out of the sky and their bombs did nothing. Nothing was effective against them.

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Forrester: [as mob attacks his truck] My instruments!

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Forrester: SYLVIA!

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Commentary: No one would have believed in the middle of the 20th Century that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsypathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely joined their plans against us. Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate.

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Forrester: Any news from abroad?
Major General Mann: Washington is in constant touch with the leaders of other nations. Apparently they're coming down all over. South America; Santiago has two cylinders. They're outside London. They're in Naples. We've got them between here and Fresno, outside Sacramento, two on Long Island.
Forrester: They're just coming down at random?
Major General Mann: No. According to information from foreign sources, they're working to some kind of a plan. Now what it may be isn't clear yet. Simply because once they begin to move, no more news comes out of that area.

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First Radio Reporter: Hey! They cut me off. They got my truck.

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Commentary: The Martians had calculated their descent with amazing perfection and subtlety. As more of their cylinders came from the mysterious depths of space, their war machines, awesome in their power and complexity, created a wave of fear throughout the world.

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Dr. James: If you're interested in Martian blood, you can get all you want right after the plane drops the bomb.

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Commentary: Mars is more than 140 million miles from the sun, and for centuries has been in the last status of exhaustion. At night, temperatures drop far below zero even at its equator. Inhabitants of this dying planet looked across space with instruments and intelligences that which we have scarcely dreamed, searching for another world to which they could migrate. They could not go to Pluto, outermost of all planets. So cold, that even it's atmosphere lies frozen on it's surface. They couldn't go to Neptune, or Uranus. Twin worlds in eternal night and perpetual cold. Both surrounded by an unbreathable atmosphere of methane gas, and ammonia vapor. The Martians considered Saturn, and attractive world with it's many moons and beautiful rings of cosmic dust. But, it's temperature is close to 270 degrees below zero. And ice lies 15,000 miles deep on it's surface. Their nearest world was giant Jupiter, where there are titanic cliffs of lava and ice with hydrogen flaming at the tops, where the atmospheric pressure is terrible. Thousands of pounds to the square inch. Nor could they go to Mercury, nearest planet to the sun. It has no air, and the temperature at it's equator is that of molten lead.

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