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Home / Best Quotes / Cloud Atlas (2012) Best Movie Quotes

Cloud Atlas (2012) Best Movie Quotes

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Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, James D’Arcy

OUR RATING: ★★★½

Story:

Fantasy drama written and directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer adapted from the novel by David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas (2012) is an exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present, and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution. Spanning six different stories in six different time periods and genres that are intertwined, 1849 – historical narrative, 1936 – drama/romance, 1973 – mystery/action, 2012 – dark comedy, 2144 – sci-fi, and 2321 and 2346 – post-apocalyptic.

 

Our Favorite Quotes:

'Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we're bound to others, past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.' - Sonmi-451 (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Best Quotes


 

Zachry: [2346, sat beside a fire] Lonesome night. And babbits bawling, the wind biting the bone. Wind like this, full of voices. Ancestry howling at you, yibbering stories. Aall voices tied up into one. One voice differing. One voice whispering out there, spying from the dark, that fangy devil, Old Georgie hisself. Now you ear up close and I’ll yarn you about the first time we met eye to eye.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012, typing] While my extensive experience as an editor has led me to a disdain for flashbacks and flash forwards, and all such tricksy gimmicks, I believe that if you, dear reader, can extend your patience for just a moment, you will find there is a method to this tale of madness.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] My Dearest Sixsmith, I shot myself through the roof of my mouth this morning, with Vyvyan Ayrs’ Luger. A true suicide is a paced disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is a coward’s act.” Couldn’t be further from the truth. Suicide takes tremendous courage. Don’t let them say I killed myself for love. Had my infatuations, but we both know in our hearts who is the sole love of my short, bright life.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012, to himself] I was Dermot Hoggins publisher. Not his shrink, or his astrologer. And the ruddy, bloody truth is, I had no idea what the man was going to to do that night.

 

'Truth is singular. Its versions are mistruths.' - Sonmi-451 (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Archivist: [2144] Remember this is not an interrogation or a trial. Your version of the truth is all that matters.
Sonmi-451: Truth is singular. Its versions are mistruths.


 

Adam Ewing: [1849] Let’s see, it is an inquiry concerning God’s will and the nature of men.
Madame Horrox: And what does he have to say about the nature of women?
Adam Ewing: I’m afraid that’s a subject he prefers to pass by in silence.
Madame Horrox: He wouldn’t be the first.
Rev. Giles Horrox: Prey, Mr. Ewing, continue.
Adam Ewing: Well, the question he does pose is, if God created the world, how do we know what things we can change and what things must remain sacred and inviolable?


 

Adam Ewing: What happened?
Dr. Henry Goose: It is as I suspected. Gusano Coco Cervello. Better known as the Polynesian Worm. I once saw a man’s brain after the worm had finished with him. Maggoty cauliflower. Ugh. But have no fear, this particular devil and I are well acquainted.


 

Adam Ewing: I don’t know what I would have done had our paths not crossed.
Dr. Henry Goose: Well, for starters, you would have died.
Adam Ewing: I shall find a way to repay you.
Dr. Henry Goose: Oh, no. Unnecessary, I assure you. I am a doctor, Adam. A tiger cannot change its stripes.

 

'The minute you stop trying to find it, it'll find you.' - Robert Frobisher (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] Sixsmith, I do hope you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me. Hated leaving you like that. Wasn’t the goodbye I had in mind. By the time you read this, I will be on my way to Edinburgh, on my way to fame and fortune. I know you haven’t heard of him, but trust me, Vyvyan Ayrs is one of the musical greats, Sixsmith. The tragedy is that he hasn’t produced any new work in year due to illness. My scheme is to persuade him to hire me as his amanuensis and aid him in the creation of a masterpiece, before shooting him up through the musical firmament, eventually obliging Pater to admit that, yes, the son he disinherited, is none other than Robert Frobisher, the greatest British composer of his time. I know, Sixsmith, you groan and shake your head, but you smile too, which is why I love you. P.S. Thanks for the waistcoat. I needed something of yours to keep me company.


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: [to Frobisher, referring to the small statue on Ayrs’s piano] St. George and the Dragon. Reminds me that composing is a crusade. Sometimes you slay the dragon, sometimes the dragon saves you.


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: [as Forbisher plays the Ayrs’s notes on the piano] Stop! Please! You’re hurting me! You must have misheard me. I said I have a melody, not a malady!
Jocasta Ayrs: [enters the room] Vyvyan?
Vyvyan Ayrs: Jocasta! Deliver me.
Jocasta Ayrs: What’s going on in here?
Vyvyan Ayrs: An exercise in futility.
Jocasta Ayrs: Should I be introduced?
Vyvyan Ayrs: There’s really no point. The boy is useful as the clap. Fortunately, he’ll be much easier to get rid of.


 

Rufus Sixsmith: [1973, notices Luisa has the same birthmark that Frobisher had] That’s a very peculiar birthmark.
Luisa Rey: Yeah. My little comet. My mother swore it was cancer, she wanted me to get it removed. But, I don’t know, I kind of like it.
Rufus Sixsmith: I knew someone who had a birthmark that was similar to that.
Luisa Rey: Really? Who was it?
Rufus Sixsmith: Someone I cared about very much.

 

'But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?' - Adam Ewing (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Twas the night of the Lemon Prizes, and amidst all that forced jollity, I recall a moment of introspection. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be a publisher. This was the precise moment that Dermot found me.


 

Timothy Cavendish: Never forget, Herman Melville, writes a ripping yarn, about a big white whale which is summarily dismissed, and yet today, it is lugged around in the backpacks of every serious student of literature in the world.
Dermot Hoggins: I don’t give a f*** what happens when I’m dead. I want people to buy me book now!
Timothy Cavendish: Well, as your publisher, obviously, nothing would make me happier. But sadly, for whatever reason, Knuckle Sandwich, has yet to connect to its audience.


 

Dermot Hoggins: “Mr. Hoggins should apologize to the trees, felled for the making of his bloated autobio novel. Four hundred vainglorious pages expire in an ending that is flat and inane beyond belief.”
Timothy Cavendish: Steady now, Dermot. What is a critic but one who reads quickly, arrogantly, but never wisely?


 

Timothy Cavendish: My thought? If I am honest, I admit that the obvious emotions, like shock and horror, flew as Finch had, here and gone. While deep down, I experienced a nascent sense of a silver lining to this most tragic turn. Overnight, Dermot “Dusty” Hoggins became a cult hero to the common man. Grabbed the critic and sent him plummeting to his death. And Knuckle Sandwich shifted ninety thousand copies in less than two months. I was for the briefest of moments, Cinderella, and all memory of past misfortune receded in the rearview mirror of my dream come true.

 

'All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so.' - Robert Frobisher (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Yoona-939: [2144, repeating the line from the movie as she attends to escape] I will not be subjected to criminal abuse.


 

Zachry: [2314] Nay, this life of rotted luck ain’t no smileysome yarnie. And rares time I ever ‘fesst he secret of Sloosha’s Hallow. Adam, my bro’by law, and his son and me be trekking back from Honokaa Market. Was Adam’s custom to kowtow his ancestry with offerings and honorings. Suddenwise, that fangy devil’s eyes, I felt them.


 

Zachry: [2321] Why words slink’n slide off’a tongue when we need them most? If my tongue been more bold, could I’a stop all the diresomes about to happen?


 

Zachry: No one queried what “fusion engine” was because they didn’t want to look stupid in front of the gathering. True really was, Meronym answer the questions, but no answer ever quenched your curio. All that answering done was teached everyone to not trust her. Nay, not a flea.

 

'To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other.' - Sonmi-451 (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Old Georgie: [to Zachry, referring to Meronym] She a sly one. Scheming and worming herself in. Watch her, watch her close. She’s got secrets.


 

Old Georgie: “Bridge a’broken’, hide below. Hands’a’bleedin’, can’t let go. Enemy’s sleeping, don’t slit that throat.”


 

Hae-Joo Chang: [2144] There’s no reason to hide. I know you are, Sonmi-451. My name is Hae-Joo Chang.
Sonmi-451: What has happened to Seer Rhee?
Hae-Joo Chang: Soap overdose. It is unfortunate that it had to happen with everything going so well, because now it is probable that the Enforcers and the DNA sniffers will find out about you. And if they do, if they realize your connection to Yoona-939, you will be excised. But you have a choice. You can remain here and risk being discovered, or you can come with me.


 

Adam Ewing: [1849] Friday the 15th. We made sail with the morning tide. Mr. Boerhaave had my cabin changed. I have been quarantined to a storeroom away from the other passengers and crew. Henry argued in vain that the Polynesian Worm is not contagious. Hardly matters. All I want to do now is return home and unburden myself of this responsibility.

 

'The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time.' - Sonmi-451 (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] My Dear Sixsmith, I am in desperate need of your help. After my last letter, I’m sure you’re rushing to pack your bags, but you needn’t, really. Unless, of course, you wish to witness the rebirth of Robert Frobisher. Is it not miraculous how one’s fortune can turn so quickly, so completely? One moment, leaping from a hotel window, the next, gainfully employed by one of the world’s greatest living composers. My only problem is that I accidentally got hooked on a journal, written in 1849, by a dying lawyer during the voyage from the Pacific Isle to San Francisco. To my great annoyance, the pages cease mid-sentence. Half the book is missing. It’s completely killing me. Could you be a mensch, and when you’re next foraging at Otto’s Books, make an inquiry? A half-finished book, is after all, a half-finished love affair.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012, over phone] I need fifty thousand pounds! Not two thousand pounds! Fifty thousand!
Accountant: I can go through it again, Mr. Cavendish, but the total’s right. Two thousand three hundred and forty three pounds and sixteen pence.
Timothy Cavendish: How is this possible?! The ruddy money was pouring in!
Accountant: Debt mostly, Mr. Cavendish. Solvency has its drawbacks.


 

Timothy Cavendish: In the darkness, I suddenly saw the light. Blood has always trumped water. If the Hogginses brutes wanted to turn this into a family affair, they’d find the Cavendish clan more than ready for the task at hand.


 

Denholme Cavendish: Oh, Satan’s gonads, not again! Look, just bugger off and leave us in peace. I’m only going to ask you nicely once.
Timothy Cavendish: It’s good to see you, Denny.
Denholme Cavendish: I’m not lending you a ruddy farthing until you pay back the last lot. Why should I be forever giving you handouts?

 

'Forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourself to be, begin long before we are born, and continue after we perish.' - Isaac Sachs (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Timothy Cavendish: Denny, I’ve had a minor run-in with the wrong sort. If I don’t get my hands on sixty thousand pounds, I’m going to take an awful beating.
Denholme Cavendish: Well, get them to video it for us, would you? Now, f*** off!
Timothy Cavendish: I’m not joking, Denholme.
Denholme Cavendish: Why is this my problem?
Timothy Cavendish: Because we’re brothers! Don’t you have a conscience?
Denholme Cavendish: Couple of my special little pills, and a G and T should set me right.
Timothy Cavendish: Denny, help. Please.


 

Adam Ewing: [1849] I have begun to fear I may never hold my beloved Tilda in my arms again. The Parasite writhes at night, igniting spasms of pain, while visions and voices, obscene and monstrous, haunt me.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] My Dear Sixsmith, you alone could understand how I’m feeling right now. Today, Ayrs and I presented our first collaboration to Tadeusz Kesselring, Ayrs’s favorite conductor, who arrived from Berlin. It’s called Eternal Recurrence, wish you could hear it. It’s the most accomplished tone poem I know of written since the war. And I tell you, Sixsmith, that more than a few of its best ideas are mine.


 

Robert Frobisher: Dinner of pheasant and Bordeaux, rich as buttercream. How I loved to listen men of distinguished lives sing of past follies and glories. The only broken note in the entire evening was Ayrs’s wife, Jocasta, excusing herself early. I sensed a buried bone. Later I asked Ayrs about it, he said Kesselring had introduced Jocasta to him. I cried. “Had Kesselring been in love with her?” The subject was a prickly one.

 

'Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. At each point of intersection, each encounter, suggests a new potential direction.' - Isaac Sachs (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Vyvyan Ayrs: Jocasta is a Jew. So obviously a relationship was impossible.
Robert Frobisher: Why obviously?
Vyvyan Ayrs: Can you really be so ignorant of what is happening in Germany?
Robert Frobisher: At this point in my life, all I know, Sixsmith, is that this world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Wе сrоѕѕ аnd rесrоѕѕ оur оld trасkѕ lіkе fіgurе ѕkаtеrѕ. And јuѕt аѕ I wаѕ rеаdіng а nеw ѕubmіѕѕіоn, а роwеrful déjà-vu rаn thrоugh my bоnеѕ. I hаd bееn thеrе bеfоrе, anоthеr lіfеtіmе аgо. Urѕulа. Thе lоvе оf my lіfе. I соuld thіnk оf nо оthеr ѕеrіоuѕ аррlісаntѕ. Whаt hаd hарреnеd tо hеr? And mоrе іmроrtаntly, whаt hаd hарреnеd tо thе yоung mаn whо hаd rіddеn thе ѕаmе trаіn, соmроѕіng ѕоnnеtѕ, tо hіѕ “Soul Bound Love”?


 

Abbess: [2321] Mind the Words o’Sonmi. “Our lіvеѕ аrе nоt оur оwn. Frоm wоmb tо tоmb, wе аrе bоund tо оthеrѕ, pаѕt аnd рrеѕеnt. And by еасh сrіmе, аnd еvеry kіndnеѕѕ, we bіrth оur futurе.”


 

Adam Ewing: [1849, after sneaking some food for Autua] Nоw tо tеll thе truth, I wаѕ wоrrіеd yоu mіght try аnd еаt mе іf yоu dіdn’t gеt ѕоmеthіng іn that ѕtоmасh.
Autua: Well, yоu ѕаfе, Mr. Ewіng. I nо lіkе whіtе mеаt.

 

'You can maintain power over people as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power.' - Sonmi-451 (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Adam Ewing: Why dіd yоu lооk аt mе?
Autua: Pаіn ѕtrоng, aye? But frіеnd’ѕ еyе mоrе ѕtrоng.
Adam Ewing: Lооk, yоu аrе а runаwаy ѕlаvе, аnd I аm а lаwyеr. Hоw dіd yоu іmаgіnе wе соuld роѕѕіbly bе frіеndѕ?
Autua: [points to his own eyes, then to Adam’s, then back to his own] All yоu nееd.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] Ѕіхѕmіth, thе рlоt hаѕ tаkеn а ѕеnѕuаl turn. Lаѕt wееk, Јосаѕtа аnd I bесаmе lоvеrѕ. But dоn’t аlаrm yоurѕеlf. It іѕ оnly а саrnаl асt, реrfоrmеd іn ѕеrvісе. Nоt unlіkе my rоlе аѕ аmаnuеnѕіѕ. And I соnfеѕѕ, wоmеn’ѕ hеаrtѕ, lіkе thеіr dеѕіrе, rеmаіn а myѕtеry tо mе. Aftеrwаrd, ѕhе сrіеd аnd thаnkеd mе fоr brіngіng lіfе bасk іntо thеіr hоmе. Making it clear that Vyvyаn hаd bееn thеrе thе еntіrе nіght, bеtwееn uѕ lіkе thе ѕіlеnсе bеtwееn nоtеѕ thаt hоldѕ thе kеy tо wаrm muѕіс. P.Ѕ. Bеѕt nеwѕ оf аll, I’vе ѕtаrtеd my оwn wоrk.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Bеfоrе I rеаlіzеd іt, my fееt hаd borne mе bасk tо thе Tеmрlе оf Ѕасrіfісе, whеrе I оffеrеd uр my vіrgіnіty. Bасk tо thоѕе fоur dаyѕ оf pаrаdіѕе, whеn Urѕulа’ѕ mаtеr аnd pаtеr slipped оff tо Grеесе fоr а lоng wееkеnd. Or ѕо wе thоught. Twо ѕрrаіnеd аnklеѕ, оnе сrасkеd rіb. Offісіаl саuѕе оf ассіdеnt liѕtеd оn hоѕріtаl fоrm, “Puѕѕy.”


 

Timothy Cavendish: Whаt wеrе thе сhаnсеѕ thаt ѕhе ѕtіll lіvеd іn thіѕ hоuѕе? And yet, there she was. Ursula. Why had I never returned her calls or letters? Shame. Spinelessness. Hallmarks of the Cavendish clan. I realized I had a choice. I could slink off and continue as planned, or I could go boldly to the door and discover what hope, if any, lay within.

 

'Some problems are more resilient than others.' - Lloyd Hooks (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] While the past may call to us with the enchantment of a siren, better, I believed, to stay the course set by dear brother, Denny. And tomorrow, life could begin afresh, afresh, afresh.


 

Archivist: [2144, referring to Hae-Joo] Did you know he was Union?
Sonmi-451: No, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
Archivist: Why not?
Sonmi-451: Because it was the first time a Pureblood had showed me kindness.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Leave my things alone, you pilfering cow!
Nurse Noakes: Because you’re new, I shall not make you eat soap powder, this time. Be warned. I do not stand for offensive language in Aurora House. Not from anyone. And I never make idle threats, Mr. Cavendish. Never.
Timothy Cavendish: I’ll talk to you how I ruddy well like, you thief! Make me eat soap powder? I’d like to see you try.
Timothy Cavendish: [as Noakes slaps him hard across the face] Ooh! Bloody hell!
Nurse Noakes: A disappointing start.
Timothy Cavendish: Is this some sort of kinky S & M hotel?
Nurse Noakes: I am nurse Noakes. You do not wish to cross me.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] I checked in last night, believing that Aurora House was a hotel. My brother made the booking you see. His idea of a practical joke. But listen, you have a bigger problem closer to home. There’s some demented b**ch, calling herself Noakes, rampaging about the place, impersonating a chambermaid. But the point is this; she struck me, and she stole my keys. Right? I’ll need those keys back, straight away.
Nurse Judd: Aurora House is your home now, Mr. Cavendish.

 

‘This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts.’ - - Robert Frobisher (Cloud Atla Click To Tweet

 

Timothy Cavendish: I’m not a ruddy resident!
Nurse Judd: You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you at Aurora House!
Timothy Cavendish: You’re breaking the ruddy Anti-Incarceration Act, or some ruddy thing, and I will not be subjugated to criminal abuse!


 

Groundsman Withers: [2012] Off somewhere?
Timothy Cavendish: You bet I am! To the land of the living. Soylent Green is people! Soylent Green is made of people!


 

Groundsman Withers: [trying to stop Timothy from leaving] I have better things to do than this.
Timothy Cavendish: Then go ahead and do them, you bloody sodding soap-dodger!


 

Sonmi-451: [2144] “You can maintain power over people as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power.”

 

‘Wе сrоѕѕ аnd rесrоѕѕ оur оld trасkѕ lіkе fіgurе ѕkаtеrѕ.’ - Timothy Cavendish (Cloud Atlas) Click To Tweet

 

Sonmi-451: Knowledge is a mirror, and for the first time in my life, I was allowed to see who I was, and who I might become.


 

Denholme Cavendish: [2012, over phone] Timothy? Where are you?
Timothy Cavendish: I think you ruddy well know where I am!
Denholme Cavendish: But residents aren’t allowed access to phones. Has someone smuggled one in?
Timothy Cavendish: You know the rules?
Denholme Cavendish: I helped write them, Timmy. I have been a principal investor in Aurora House for twelve years. It’s incredibly lucrative. You can’t believe what people will pay to lockup their parents.

See more Cloud Atlas Quotes


 

Timothy Cavendish: Look, Den, you’ve had your fun. I think it’s high time you put an end to this little game of yours!
Denholme Cavendish: No, no, no, Timmy. My fun has just begun.
Timothy Cavendish: What are you talking about? I am your brother. Why are you doing this to me?
Denholme Cavendish: I think the better question in this instance would be, what have you done to deserve this?
Timothy Cavendish: I don’t know what you mean.
Denholme Cavendish: Oh, come, dear brother. Don’t insult me. You can’t think that I didn’t know about you and Georgette!


 

Denholme Cavendish: [to Timothy, over phone] There’s no need to apologize. Your exile is more than enough reparation. Although, I do have my fingers crossed for a scenario involving you, Nurse Noakes and a broom handle. Cheerio, Timmy. Bye-bye now.


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: [1936, referring to his music melody] Wait. It was so clear a minute ago. Help me, Robert! Help me! It’s slipping away! I’ve lost it.
Robert Frobisher: It’ll come to you, sir. The minute you stop trying to find it, it’ll find you.
Vyvyan Ayrs: You are naive, Robert.
Robert Frobisher: I am anything but.
Vyvyan Ayrs: There is a gulf between these chairs.
Robert Frobisher: What you want is no different from what I want. The gulf is an illusion.


 

Robert Frobisher: How do I describe that night, Sixsmith? What had happened between Vyvyan and I transcended language. It was music that poured from his eyes, that breathed from his lips. Music as beautiful as any I have ever heard.


 

Isaac Sachs: [1973] The funny thing is, I’m not even supposed to be here. I was meant to be in Seoul, but the air traffic controller strike screwed everything up, so now I’m on the pond-jumper tonight. Do you ever think that the universe was against you?
Luisa Rey: All the time.


 

Luisa Rey: You seem nervous, Isaac. Do I make you nervous?
Isaac Sachs: No. Actually, just the opposite.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Freedom. The fatuous jingle of our civilization. But only those deprived of it have the barest inkling of what it really is.


 

Isaac Sachs: [1973] I had a girlfriend once. She kept trying to get me to read Carlos Castaneda. You ever read any of that s**t?
Luisa Rey: Oh, yeah.
Isaac Sachs: But the relationship was doomed. Every time she brought up any of that that karma, past life stuff, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. And yet, I can’t explain it, but I knew when I opened that door…


 

Isaac Sachs: There’s no good choice here, is there? If I help you, I could lose my job, or worse. If I don’t, a lot of people… Yeah, it’ll be worse than worse.
Luisa Rey: You have to do whatever you can’t not do.


 

Meronym: Something preying on you, Zachry?
Zachry: You really ain’t feary about meeting Old Georgie on the summit?
Meronym: More scaresome ’bout the weather than any devil.
Zachry: You cog he’s real? Who tripped the Fall, if not Old Georgie?
Meronym: True-true? The Old Uns.
Zachry: That’s just a rope o’ smoke. Old Uns got the Smart. They mastered sick and seeds, mak’d miracles and fly across the sky.
Meronym: True. All true. But they got something else. A hunger in their hearts, hunger that’s stronger than all their Smart.
Zachry: Hunger? For what?
Meronym: A hunger for more.


 

Isaac Sachs: Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood, as we understand the Theory of Relativity, and Principles of Uncertainty, phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believed I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourself to be, begin long before we are born, and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. At each point of intersection, each encounter, suggests a new potential direction.


 

Isaac Sachs: Proposition. I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her, and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me.
[suddenly the plane he’s on explodes]


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: [1936] This is from my dream. That night I came to your room, this is the music I heard in my head. Somehow I gave it to you.
Robert Frobisher: I’ve been working on this piece for weeks now, and I suspect you heard it, and incorporated it into your dream. I call it The Cloud Atlas Sextet.


 

Robert Frobisher: The Atlas, I believe, is the only thing I have done in my life that has value. Yet I know I could not have written it, if I hadn’t met you. There are whole movements in the Atlas that I wrote imagining us, meeting again and again, in different lives, in different ages.
Vyvyan Ayrs: Yes. Something as important as this cannot be described as yours or mine, it is ours.


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: You’ll leave only when I say you can leave. You will continue working on Vyvyan Ayrs’s Cloud Atlas. When it is finished, then I will decide what do with you.
Robert Frobisher: You can’t keep me here! I’m leaving! Good luck with your composing. I’m sure a sterile old f*** like yourself is still capable of something completely inmemorable.
Vyvyan Ayrs: I suggest you think about this, Robert. Think about reputation. Reputation is everything in our society. Yours, my disinherited reprobate, has expired.


 

Vyvyan Ayrs: [to Frobisher] Be warned. Leave here without my consent, and all of musical society will know of the degenerate Robert Frobisher. After that, even if you compose one of the greatest symphonies ever written, no one will hear it, because no one will want anything to do with you.


 

Hae-Joo Chang: [2144, to Sonmi] I won’t let you go again.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936, from his letter to Sixsmith] Two things became clear. Hanging myself from Edinburgh’s flagpole was preferable to letting that parasite plunder my talents a day longer. I must complete my sextet. I can’t do it here, so tonight I plan to make my escape.


 

Robert Frobisher: from his letter to Sixsmith] “It will end in tears.” You warned me. I suppose I’m as hopeless as Adam Ewing, oblivious to all the unspeakable forms lying in wait, blind to the fact his friend is poisoning him.


 

Robert Frobisher: [as he sneaks into Ayrs’s room] The room stank of bitter medicine. Curiously heavy things, guns. Why did I take it, exactly? Can’t say. An intuition. A sense of significance. That from this point on, there was no going back.


 

Sonmi-451: [2144] Who are you?
Hae-Joo Chang: Commander Hae-Joo Chang. First Science Officer of the Union Rebellion.
Sonmi-451: Why are you doing this?
Hae-Joo Chang: Because I believe you have the power to change this world.


 

Meronym: [2321] Thank you, Zachry. You saving me twicely now.
Zachry: You fall, I’ll catch you.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936, referring to the music sheets for The Cloud Atlas] Give it to me! Give it to me, or I swear to God, I will kill you as you stand!
Vyvyan Ayrs: Please. You’re a coward.
Robert Frobisher: I’ll do it.
Vyvyan Ayrs: You won’t pull that trigger. Your kind never does.
[as Ayrs moves to grabs the gun, Frobisher shoots, hitting Ayrs in the gut]


 

Zachry: Nay, the dead never stay dead. Open your ears, and they never stop a’yibbering.


 

Javier Gomez: [1973] But you got to tell me what’s happening.
Luisa Rey: Let me take off these clothes, call the cops, and I promise I’ll tell you everything that happened in the morning.
Javier Gomez: Okay. But I hope you realize you just said exactly what every character in any decent mystery says right before they get killed.


 

Sonmi-451: Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we’re bound to others.


 

Zachry: [2321] What you want?!
Meronym: Prescients dying, Zachry. Just like Catkin. This world poison me and all my kin. We get no help, find no home offland away. I say so truesome. We not survive. We not survive.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] Ayrs has the dogs after me. The bullet passed through, killing little more than his appetite, yet he’s out for blood. Will have to pay the piper.


 

An-kor Apis: [2144] You, my dear, are proof our efforts were not in vain.
Sonmi-451: But I’m just a dinery server. I was not genomed to alter reality.
An-kor Apis: No revolutionary ever was.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] Sixsmith, I climb the steps of the Scott Monument every morning, and all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don’t worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well! I understand now, that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so. At moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.


 

Javier Gomez: [1973, referring to Frobisher’s letters to Sixsmith] If these letters aren’t important, why do you keep reading them?
Luisa Rey: I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to understand something.
Javier Gomez: What?
Luisa Rey: Why we keep making the same mistakes over and over.


 

Javier Gomez: First rule of mystery writing, a good clue always leads to another clue.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] When The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish is turned into a film, I’m thinking for the role of the hero, one part of Laurence Olivier, with a dash of Michael Caine.


 

Joe Napier: [1973, over phone] I got a call from that reporter. Rey. She was asking about Sixsmith.
Lloyd Hooks: I see.
Joe Napier: You said she wasn’t going to be a problem.
Lloyd Hooks: Well, some problems are more resilient than others, Joe.


 

Nurse Noakes: [2012, after she finds the escaped patients of Aurora House] You are going to be sorry in ways you cannot even imagine.


 

Dr. Henry Goose: [1849] There is only one rule that binds all people, one governing principle that defines every relationship on God’s green earth. “The weak are meat, and the strong do eat.”


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] The end rushes towards me. Unable to eat or sleep. Like Ewing, the mortal coil has become a noose. Would rather become music.


 

Hae-Joo Chang: [2144] Their genomics industry demands a huge quantity of biomatter for wombtanks. But more importantly, to sustain their engineered labor force. Recycled fabricants are a cheap source of protein.
Sonmi-451: Soap. They feed us to ourselves.


 

Sonmi-451: No matter if we’re born in a tank or a womb, we are all Pureblood.
Hae-Joo Chang: Yes.
Sonmi-451: We must all fight, and if necessary, die to teach people the truth.
Hae-Joo Chang: This is what we have been waiting for.


 

Sonmi-451: [over radio] To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time.


 

Megan Sixsmith: [1973] Make them pay.
Luisa Rey: You can count on it.
Megan Sixsmith: [as Luisa gives her the letters from Frobisher to Sixsmith] Thank you. My uncle was a scientist, but he believed that love was real. A kind of natural phenomenon. He believed that love could outlive death.


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] Finished in a frenzy that reminded me of our last night in Cambridge. Watched my final sunrise, enjoyed a last cigarette. Didn’t think the view could be any more perfect, until I saw that beat-up trilby. Honestly, Sixsmith, as ridiculous as that thing makes you look, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. Watched you for as long as I dared. I don’t believe it was a fluke that I saw you first.


 

Zachry: [2321] You think someone going to hear your prayer, come down from the sky?
Meronym: Perhaps. Perhaps one day.
Zachry: One day ain’t but a flea o’ hope.
Meronym: Yay, and fleas ain’t so easy to rid.
[she smiles, looks at Zachry and takes hold of his hand]


 

Robert Frobisher: [1936] I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world. And I’ll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed. Yours eternally. R.F.


 

Archivist: [2144] The report said Commander Chang was killed in the assault.
Sonmi-451: That is correct.
Archivist: Would you say that you loved him?
Sonmi-451: Yes, I do.
Archivist: Do you mean you are still in love with him?
Sonmi-451: I mean that I will always be.


 

Sonmi-451: Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we’re bound to others, past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.
Archivist: In your Revelation, you spoke of the consequences of an individual’s life rippling throughout eternity. Does this mean that you believe in an afterlife? In a heaven or a hell?
Sonmi-451: I believe this is only a door. When it closes, another opens. If I cared to imagine a heaven, I would imagine a door opening, and behind it, I would find him there, waiting for me.


 

Archivist: If I may ask one last question. You had to know this Union scheme was doomed to fail.
Sonmi-451: Yes.
Archivist: Then why did you agree to it?
Sonmi-451: This is what General Apis asked of me.
Archivist: What, to be executed?
Sonmi-451: If I had remained invisible, the truth would stay hidden. I couldn’t allow that.
Archivist: And what if no one believes this truth?
Sonmi-451: Someone already does.


 

Adam Ewing: [1849] I owe my life to a self-freed slave. And I cannot in good conscience participate in this kind of business any longer.


 

Timothy Cavendish: [2012] Outside, fat snow flakes are falling on slate roofs and granite walls. Like Solzhenitsyn laboring in Vermont, I shall beaver away in exile. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, I shan’t be alone.
[as he finishes typing, Ursula joins him]


 

Haskell Moore: [1849] Adam. Listen to me. For the sake of my grandson, if not your own. There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive. If you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you’ll exist as pariah, to be spat on and beaten. At worst, lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? No matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.
Adam Ewing: But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?


 

Miro: [2346, as old Zachry finishes his story] Do you still love Grammy?
Zachry: Your grammy is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Meronym: Come on here, Grampy. Let me warm them old bone.
[they hug and kiss and walk inside the house]

 


 

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