Quotes

Colonel Saito: Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!

Major Shears: You make me sick with your heroics! There's a stench of death about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy a bridge or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this war! You and Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind, crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman... how to die by the rules - when the only important thing is how to live like a human being.

Colonel Saito: Be happy in your work.

Commander Shears: I can think of a lot of things to call Saito, but "reasonable"... that's a new one.

Colonel Nicholson: What have I done?

Colonel Green: You were an accountant in Montreal?

Lieutenant Joyce: Yes, sir. Uh, not really an accountant, sir. That is, I didn't have my charter.

Colonel Green: Exactly what did you do?

Lieutenant Joyce: Well, sir, I just checked columns and columns of figures which three or four people had checked before me, and then there were other people who checked them after I had checked them.

Colonel Green: Sounds a frightful bore.

Lieutenant Joyce: Sir, it was a frightful bore.

Colonel Nicholson: I've been thinking. Tomorrow it will be twenty-eight years to the day that I've been in the service. Twenty-eight years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than ten months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Hardly made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy; but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time. But tonight... tonight!

Colonel Saito: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

Commander Shears: You mean, you intend to uphold the letter of the law, no matter what it costs?

Colonel Nicholson: Without law, Commander, there is no civilization.

Commander Shears: That's just my point; here, there is no civilization.

Colonel Nicholson: Then we have the opportunity to introduce it.

Major Reeves: By the way, sir, I meant to tell you, there are trees in this forest very similar to elm. And the elm piles of London Bridge lasted six hundred years.

Colonel Nicholson: Six hundred years, Reeves?

Major Reeves: Yes, sir.

Colonel Nicholson: Six hundred years... That would be quite something.

Colonel Nicholson: I'm adamant. I will not have an officer from my battalion working as a coolie.

Colonel Nicholson: We can teach these barbarians a lesson in Western methods and efficiency that will put them to shame. We'll show them what the British soldier is capable of doing.

Colonel Nicholson: I tell you, gentlemen, we have a problem on our hands.

Colonel Green: As I've told you before, in a job like yours, even when it's finished, there's always one more thing to do.

Maj. Warden: I belong to a rather rum group called Force 316. Our headquarters is up in the botanical gardens.

Commander Shears: Protecting rare plants from the enemy?

Commander Shears: [referring to Col. Saito, who had a machine gun brought up to threaten Col. Nicholson and his officers] He's going to do it, believe me, he's really going to do it!

Colonel Nicholson: Now, there's another important decision that can't be postponed. As most of the British soldiers will be working on the bridge, only a small number will be available for railway work. So, I must ask you, Colonel Saito, to lend us some of your own men to reinforce the railway gang, so that the final stretch of track can be completed as quickly as possible.

Colonel Saito: I have already given the order.

Colonel Nicholson: We must fix the daily work quota for your men. At first I thought of setting it at a yard and a half, so as not to overtire them, but don't you think it would be best if we make it the same as the British soldiers? That would also create a healthy competitive spirit.

Colonel Saito: I have already given the order.

Nurse at Ceylon hospital: [both characters are on the beach, discussing the evening's plans] I know, you're terribly sorry, but you'll have to break our date tonight.

Major Shears: You couldn't be more wrong!

Colonel Nicholson: [Recognizing Shears] You?

Major Shears: [Lunging at Nicholson] You!