Louise Banks: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
Ian Donnelly: Maybe I'd say what I felt more often. I-I don't know.
Louise Banks: Despite knowing the journey... and where it leads... I embrace it... and I welcome every moment of it.
Louise Banks: "Non-zero sum game."
Ian Donnelly: You know I've had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you.
Ian Donnelly: [reading from a book by Louise Banks] "Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict."
Louise Banks: But now I'm not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.
Colonel Weber: Mornin'.
Louise Banks: Colonel.
Colonel Weber: [answering a previous question about the Sanskrit word for war and it's meaning] Gravisti. He says it means an argument. What do you say it means?
Louise Banks: A desire for more cows.
Louise Banks: Now that's a proper introduction.
Costello: Abbott is death process.
Ian Donnelly: [narrating] Like their ship or their bodies, their written language has no forward or backward direction. Linguists call this "nonlinear orthography," which raises the question, "Is this how they think?"
Ian Donnelly: If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.
Louise Banks: Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It's the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and...
Ian Donnelly: Yeah, it affects how you see everything.
Louise Banks: [narrating] So, Hannah... This is where your story begins. The day they departed. Despite knowing the journey... and where it leads... I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.
Agent Halpern: We have to consider the idea that our visitors are prodding us to fight among ourselves until only one faction prevails.
Louise Banks: There's no evidence of that.
Agent Halpern: Sure there is. Just grab a history book. The British with India, the German with Rwanda...
Louise Banks: I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.
Louise Banks: [narrating] Memory is a strange thing.
Ian Donnelly: [upon entering the alien ship] Holy fuck.
Louise Banks: If all I ever gave you was a hammer...
Colonel Weber: Everything's a nail...
Louise Banks: Trust me, you can, uh, understand communication and still end up single.
Louise Banks: Let's say that I taught them Chess instead of English. Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If all I ever gave you was a hammer...
Colonel Weber: Everything's a nail.
Louise Banks: Come back to me.
