Ghost in the Shell Quotes

Major Motoko Kusanagi: There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality. Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny. Each of those things are just a small part of it. I

collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience. I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.

Puppet Master: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The

advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.

Puppet Master: I refer to myself as an intelligent life form because I am sentient and I am able to recognize my own existence, but in my present state I am still incomplete. I lack the most basic processes inherent in all living organisms: reproducing and dying.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: But you can copy yourself.
Puppet Master: A copy

is just an identical image. There is the possibility that a single virus could destroy an entire set of systems and copies do not give rise to variety and originality. Life perpetuates itself through diversity and this includes the ability to sacrifice itself when necessary. Cells repeat the process of degeneration and regeneration until one day they die, obliterating an entire set of memory and

information. Only genes remain. Why continually repeat this cycle? Simply to survive by avoiding the weaknesses of an unchanging system.

Dr. Ouelet: [repairing cybernetic hand] Open and close, please. You have damaged internal systems.
Major: Maybe next time you can design me better.
Dr. Ouelet: How are you?
Major: I'm fine, I can't feel anything.
Dr. Ouelet: No, you. In there.
[smiles]

Major: I've been having glitches. But they'll pass.
Dr. Ouelet: You've been talking your medication?
Major: Yeah. But these ones are still cycling. I had two this morning.
Dr. Ouelet: Sounds or image?
Major: Both.
Dr. Ouelet: [scans] I see it. Have you made any

unencrypted downloads?
Major: No, just delete them for me.
Dr. Ouelet: Consent.
Major: My name is Major Mira Killian and I give my consent to delete this data.
Dr. Ouelet: It's done. It's no big deal.
Major: What are they?
Dr. Ouelet: Sensory echoes from

your mind. Shadows. Can't be sure.
Major: How do you know what's a glitch and what's me?
Dr. Ouelet: The glitches have a different texture... to the rest of your code. I can see everything. All of your thoughts, your... decisions.
Major: I guess privacy is just for humans.
Dr. Ouelet: You are human.

People see you as human.
Major: Everyone around me seems to fit. They seem connected to something, something I'm... not. It's like I have no past.
Dr. Ouelet: Of course you have a past. And with time you'll feel more and more connected to it... and to them.
[surgery complete]
Dr. Ouelet: Open and close, please.

[hand works]
Dr. Ouelet: We cling to memories as if they define us, but... they really don't. What we do is what defines us.

Batô: Chief, you ever question the ethics of the neurosurgeons who monkey around inside your brain?
Section 9 Department Chief Aramaki: They undergo psychiatric evaluations, especially those in security. They're subjected to a stringent screening of their personal lives. Of course, the ones who check are only human.
Batô: I guess

once you start doubting, there's no end to it.