- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Albert? When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world...
- Albert Einstein: I remember it well. What of it?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: I believe we did.
- Caption: Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: They won't fear it until they understand it. And they won't understand it until they've used it. Theory will take you only so far.
- Leslie Groves: Are you saying that there's a chance that when we push that button... we destroy the world?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: The chances are near zero...
- Leslie Groves: Near zero?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: What do you want from theory alone?
- Leslie Groves: Zero would be nice!
- Albert Einstein: When they've punished you enough, they'll serve you salmon and potato salad, make speeches, give you a medal, and pat you in the back telling all is forgiven. Just remember, it won't be for you... it would be for them.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: I don't know if we can be trusted with such a weapon. But I know the Nazis can't.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Since when are you British?
- Klaus Fuchs: Since Hitler told me I wasn't German.
- Kitty Oppenheimer: You don't get to commit sin, and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.
- Isidor Rabi: You drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don't wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.
- Niels Bohr: Algebra's like sheet music, the important thing isn't can you read music, it's can you hear it. Can you hear the music, Robert?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Yes, I can.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Mr. President. I feel that I have blood on my hands.
- Harry Truman: [tauntingly pulls out his pocket square and waves it in front of Oppenheimer] You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did. Hiroshima isn't about you.
- Harry Truman: [after Oppenheimer leaves] Don't let that crybaby back in here.
- Kitty Oppenheimer: You think because you let them tar and feather you that the world will forgive you? They won't.
- Lewis Strauss: He turned the scientists against me, one by one, starting with Einstein. I told you about that. Einstein. Einstein by the pond.
- Senate Aide: You did, but you know, sir, since nobody... really knows what they said to each other that day, is it possible they didn't talk about you at all? Is it possible they spoke about something, uh... more important?
- Niels Bohr: The power you are about to reveal will forever outlive the Nazis, and the world is not prepared.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: You can't lift the stone without being ready for the snake that's revealed.
- Niels Bohr: We have to make the politicians understand, this isn't a new weapon, it is a new world.
- Leslie Groves: A Nobel Prize for making a bomb?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.
- Niels Bohr: [From Trailer] You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves. And the world is not prepared.
- Jean Tatlock: At least you didn't bring me flowers.
- [Oppenheimer then reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a bunch of flowers]
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Why would they care what I do?
- Ernest Lawrence: Because you're not just self-important, you're actually important.
- Leslie Groves: What do we call the test?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Batter my heart, three-person'd God.
- Leslie Groves: What?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Trinity.
- Edward Condon: Why would we move out to the middle of the desert for two to three years?
- Leslie Groves: Why? How about because this is the most important fucking thing to ever happen in the history of the world!
- Haakon Chevalier: Do stars die?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Well, if they do, they'd cool, then collapse. In fact, the bigger the star, the more violent its demise. Their gravity gets so concentrated, it swallows everything.
- Niels Bohr: We have to make the politicians understand this isn't a new weapon. It's a new world. I'll be out there doing what I can but you, you are an American Prometheus. The man who gave them the power to destroy themselves. And they'll respect that. And your works really begins soon.
- Kitty Oppenheimer: And I have believed this since I left the Party. Sixteen years ago- seventeen years ago, my mistake.
- [she pauses]
- Kitty Oppenheimer: Sorry, eighteen. Eighteen years ago.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Why limit yourself to one dogma?
- Jean Tatlock: You're a physicist. You pick and choose rules? Or do you use the discipline to channel your energies into progress?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: I like a little wiggle room. You always toe the party line?
- Jean Tatlock: I like my wiggle room, too.
- Lewis Strauss: Oppenheimer wanted to own the atomic bomb. He wanted to be the man who moved the Earth. He talks about putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle. Well I'm here to tell you that I *know* J. Robert Oppenheimer, and if he could do it all over, he'd do it all the same. You know he's never once said that he regrets Hiroshima? He'd do it all over. Why? Because it made him the most important man who ever lived.
- Harry Truman: I hear you're leaving Los Alamos. What should we do with it?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Give it back to the Indians.
- Albert Einstein: [Referring to Teller's calculations that there's a possibility that a chain reaction might not stop and subsequently destroy the Earth] Well, you'll get to the truth.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: And if the truth is catastrophic?
- Albert Einstein: Then you stop and you share your findings with the Nazis so neither side destroys the world.
- Kitty Oppenheimer: Can you explain quantum mechanics to me?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Well, this glass, this drink, this counter top, uhh.. our bodies, all of it. It's mostly empty space. Groupings of tiny energy waves bound together.
- Kitty Oppenheimer: By what?
- J. Robert Oppenheimer: Forces of attraction strong enough to convince us matter is solid, to stop my body passing through yours.
- [gently places his palm against hers]
- Jean Tatlock: Don't alienate the only people in the world that understand what you do. One day you may need them.
- Henry Stimson: The firestorm in Tokyo killed 100,000 people. Mostly civilians. I worry about America when we do these things and no one protests.