37 The Man from Earth Quotes (2024)

The Man from Earth

Harry: Edith, I was raised on the Torah, my wife on the Qu'Ran, my eldest son is an Atheist, my youngest is a scientologist, my daughter is studying Hinduism, I imagine there is room there for a holy war in my living room, but we practice live and let live.

The Man from Earth

Dan: Time... you can't see it, you can hear it, you can't weigh it, you can't... measure it in a laboratory. It is a subjective sense of... becoming, what we... are, in stead of what we were a nanosecond ago, becoming what we will be in another nanosecond. The whole piece of time's a landscape existing, we form behind us and we move, we move through it... slice by slice.

Linda Murphy: Clocks measure time.
Dan: No, they measure themselves, the objective referee of a clock is another clock.
Edith: All very interesting, but what has it got to do with John?
Dan: He, he might be man who... lives... outside of time as we know it.

The Man from Earth

Edith: [Angry] Where were you in 1292 A.D.?
John Oldman: [Calm] Where were you a year ago today?

The Man from Earth

John Oldman: Believe in what He tried to teach without the rigmarole. Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, it's the mistakes they bring to the lessons.

The Man from Earth

Edith: [talking about God] He's everywhere. We just can't see him.
Harry: Pfft. If this was the best I could do, I'd be hiding, too.

The Man from Earth

Dan: There's absolutely no way in the whole world for John to prove his story. Just like there's no way for us to disprove it. No matter how outrageous we think it is, no matter how highly trained some of us think we are, there's absolutely no way to disprove it! My friend is either a caveman, a liar, or a nut. So while we're thinking about that, why don't we just go with it.

The Man from Earth

John Oldman: And that's what I taught, but a talking snake made a lady eat an apple, so we're screwed.

The Man from Earth

Harry: I can give you the ten commandments in ten words: "Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't."

The Man from Earth

Art: What you're saying, it offends common sense.
John Oldman: So does Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, that's the way nature works.

The Man from Earth

John Oldman: What if a man from the Upper Paleolithic had survived until the present day?

The Man from Earth

[John walks back in the room]
Harry: Well, you're finally fulfilling one prophecy about the millennium, John.
John Oldman: What's that?
Harry: Here you are again.

The Man from Earth

Dan: I'm going home and watch Star Trek for a dose of sanity.

The Man from Earth

Edith: My God, what is this? It looks like a genuine Van Gogh, but I've never seen it before...
Dan: Is that an original, John?
John Oldman: No, it's just a gift someone gave me.
Edith: Still, it's a superb copy. Contemporaneous I think, may I take a closer look?
John Oldman: Please,

yeah.
Edith: Yes, it's the same stretcher Van Gogh used.
Dan: Hey, there's writing on the back. It's in French.
Edith: To my friend Jacques Bon. Wonder who that was?
John Oldman: Someone he knew, I guess.

The Man from Earth

Edith: Are you sorry for some of those things you said?
John Oldman: I'm sorry I said them.

The Man from Earth

Dr. Will Gruber: If I shot you John, you're immortal? Would you survive this?
John Oldman: I never said I was immortal, just old. I might die. And then you could wonder the rest of your incarcerated life what you shot...

The Man from Earth

John Oldman: Piety is not what the lessons bring to people, it's the mistake they bring to the lessons.

The Man from Earth

Edith: [Upset by one of John's claims] Were you?
John Oldman: [Gentle] If I said no, could you ever be sure?

The Man from Earth

Harry: [insistent] *You* are creating the mystery here obviously y'have something you'd like to say. Say it.
John Oldman: [Hesitant] Maybe... I...
Harry: [sing-song] Ten, nine, eight, seven, si...
Sandy: [Chiding] Harry, stop.
John Oldman: There is something I'm tempted to tell you I

think, I've never done this before, I wonder how it will pan out. I wonder if I could ask you a silly question?
Art: [Scoffing] John, we're teachers, we answer silly questions all the time
Linda Murphy: [Teasing] Hey!
John Oldman: What if a man from the upper Paleolithic survived until the present day?