- John Tanner: What you've just witnessed is, in many ways, a life-sized video game. You saw a liar talk to a killer and you couldn't tell them apart. But hey, it's only television. As you may know, television programs are just the filler between attempts to steal your money. So if you want to save some, turn me off. It's a simple movement, done with the hand and what is left of your free will. The moment is now. My bet is you can't do it. But go ahead and try.
- [beat]
- John Tanner: Am I still on?
- Lawrence Fassett: Think of them as fleas on a dog hit by a car driven by a drunken teenager whose girlfriend just gave him the clap. It will help you sense of perspective.
- Maxwell Danforth: Suppose I was to tell you that our enemies are capable of impairing rational thought, of dismantling our willingness to defend ourself, of dissociating whole societies from their value systems.
- John Tanner: You mean they've got televisions.
- [the Motorcycle Cop pulls Osterman over]
- Bernard Osterman: What's the trouble?
- Motorcycle Cop: Can I see your license, please?
- Bernard Osterman: Yeah, I wasn't speeding though. I've given that up. You know I've cut, I've cut way back on speeding. I've cut, cut it way down.
- Motorcycle Cop: Yeah I thought that was you, you write for TV, don't ya?
- Bernard Osterman: Yeah that's me. Yeah I'm, I'm on my way to catch a plane though, right.
- Motorcycle Cop: Oh, don't worry, you'll make it. I like your stuff, Mister Osterman. Only sometimes I think you tend to be a little strident, ya know.
- Bernard Osterman: Strident? Are you giving me a ticket for strident writing are you? That means the death penalty for Beverly Hills parking violations is coming back too, huh?
- Motorcycle Cop: [smiles] Have a nice day.
- Bernard Osterman: Yeah.
- Lawrence Fassett: [the RV has just exploded, killing all four inside as Osterman and Tanner watch] And then there were two.
- Fasset's Wife: And you will be showing me how to live.
- Lawrence Fassett: How do you know so much?
- Fasset's Wife: I don't know so much. But I know you will be leaving me.
- Bernard Osterman: I'm still wondering how we got into this mess.
- John Tanner: It's called being programmed.
- Lawrence Fassett: I know Maxwell Danforth very well; he killed my wife. Not with his bare hands, of course. The Danforths of the world don't murder that way. They use words like terminate, exterminate.
- Ali Tanner: [after being kidnapped in a car chase of life, terminated only by the arrival of a helicopter to shoot the kidnapper from the sky] Well, what the f--k happened?