Roxanne: There are two of you, don't you see? One that kills... and one that loves.

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.

Photojournalist: What are they going to say about him? What? Are they going to say he was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans? He had wisdom? Bullshit, man!

Kurtz: Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinion of others... even the opinions of yourself?

Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this boat, so I don't! But one look at you, and I know it's gonna be hot!
Willard: We're going up river about 75 klicks above the Do Lung bridge.
Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: That's Cambodia, captain.
Willard:
That's classified. We're not supposed to be in Cambodia, but that's where I'm going.

Willard: Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don't you think its a little risky for some R&R?
Kilgore: If I say its safe to surf this beach, Captain, then its safe to surf this beach! I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking place!

Kurtz: I worry that my son might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything. Everything I did, everything you saw, because there's nothing that I detest more than the stench of lies. And if you understand me, Willard, you will do this for me.

Willard (voice-over): The machinist, the one they called Chef, was from New Orleans. He was wrapped too tight for Vietnam; probably wrapped too tight for New Orleans. Lance, on the forward .50s, was a famous surfer from the beaches south of LA. One look at him and you wouldn't believe he ever fired a weapon in his whole life. Clean... Mr. Clean... was from some South Bronx
shithole and the light and space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head. Then there was Phillips, the Chief. It might have been my mission, but it sure as shit was the Chief's boat!

[quoting Kurtz]
Willard: In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action - what is often called ruthless - what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.

Kilgore: How're you feeling, Jimmy?
Door Gunner: Like a mean motherfucker, sir!

Willard (voice-over): Everybody wanted me to do it, him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take the pain away. He just wanted to go out like a soldier, standing up, not like some poor, wasted, rag-assed renegade. Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that's who he really took his orders from anyway.

Willard: [incredulous] What are you talking about?
Chief Quartermaster (QMC) Phillips: We're taking her to some friendlies, Captain. She's wounded, she's not dead.
Willard: Get off there, Chef.
[Willard shoots the injured girl]
Chef: Fuck it!
Willard: [to Chief] I told you not to
stop. Now let's go!

Colonel Lucas: Your report specifies intelligence/counterintelligence with ComSec I-Corps.
Willard: I'm not presently disposed to discuss these operations, sir.
Colonel Lucas: Did you not work for the CIA in I-Corps?
Willard: No, sir.
Colonel Lucas: Did you not assassinate a government
tax collector in Quang Tri province, June 19th, 1968? Captain?
Willard: Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation... nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir.

Willard (voice-over): On the river, I thought that the minute I looked at him, I'd know what to do, but it didn't happen. I was in there with him for days, not under guard; I was free, but he knew I wasn't going anywhere. He knew more about what I was going to do than I did. If the generals back in Nha Trang could see what I saw, would they still want me to kill him? More than
ever, probably. And what would his people back home want if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone? He broke from them, and then he broke from himself. I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart.