Dennis Hopper credited as playing...
Photo Journalist
- Willard: Could we, uh... talk to Colonel Kurtz?
- Photojournalist: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas."
- Photo Journalist: This is the way the fucking world ends! Look at this fucking shit we're in, man! Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And with a whimper, I'm fucking splitting, Jack.
- Photo Journalist: This is dialectics. It's very simple dialectics. One through nine. No maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space. You can't go out into space, you know, without like, you know, with fractions. What are you gonna land on? One quarter? Three-eighths? What are you gonna do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics, okay?
- Photojournalist: [to Willard] Why? Why would a nice guy like you want to kill a genius? Feeling pretty good, huh? Why? Do you know that the man really likes you? He likes you. He really likes you. But he's got something in mind for you. Aren't you curious about that? I'm curious. I'm very curious. Are you curious? There's something happening out here, man. You know something, man? I know something you that you don't know. That's right, Jack . The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. Oh, yeah. He's dying, I think. He hates all this. He hates it! But the man's a - he reads poetry out loud, all right? And a voice - he likes you 'cause you're still alive. He's got plans for you. No, no. I'm not gonna help you. You're gonna help him, man. You're gonna help him. I mean, what are they gonna sat when he's gone? 'Cause he dies when it dies, when it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him? He was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans? He had wisdom? Bullshit, man! Am I gonna be the one that's gonna set them straight? Look at me! Wrong! - You!
- Photo Journalist: There's mines over there, there's mines over there, and watch out those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya.
- Photo Journalist: He can be terrible. He can be mean. And he can be right. He's a great man. I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words... I can tell ya something like the other day he wanted to kill me. Somethin' like that.
- Willard: Why'd he wanna kill you?
- Photo Journalist: Because I took his picture. He said "If you take my picture again, I'm gonna kill you." And he meant it! So you just lay back. Lay cool. He becomes friendly again, he really does. But you don't judge the Colonel. You don't judge the Colonel like an ordinary man.
- [apologizing for severed heads adorning Kurtz's headquarters]
- Photo Journalist: The heads. You're looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far, you know. He's the first one to admit it.
- Chef: He's gone crazy!
- Photo Journalist: Wrong! Wrong! If you could have heard the man just two days ago. If you could have heard him then. God. You were gonna call him crazy?
- Chef: Fuckin' A!
- Willard: I just want to talk to him.
- Photo Journalist: [thinking fast] Well, man, he's gone away. He's gone away. He's disappeared out into the jungle with his people.
- Willard: I'll wait for him.
- Photo Journalist: He feels comfortable with his people! He forgets himself with his people. He forgets himself!
- Photojournalist: I'm an American. An American civilian. Hi, Yanks. Hi. American. American civilian. It's all right. And you got the cigarettes, and what's what I've been dreaming of.
- Willard: Who are all these people?
- Photojournalist: They think you've come to take him away. I hope that isn't true.
- Willard: Take who away?
- Photojournalist: Him! Colonel Kurtz! These are all his children, man, as far as you can see. Hell, man, out here, we are all his children.
- Photojournalist: Dialectic logic is, there's only love and hate. You either love somebody or you hate 'em.