Our list of the best quotes from Paramount Plus’s sci-fi action adventure TV Series based on the video game of the same name. Halo follows an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant.
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1. Contact
'Sometimes you have to make hard choices to get good results.' - Captain Jacob Keyes (Halo) Click To Tweet
Djanka: Have you seen a Spartan up close?
Ruben: I’ve faced marines.
Djanka: “I’ve faced marines.” One Spartan is worth a hundred marines.
Professor: Ah, but, Djanka, there’s another difference between Spartans and marines. Marines can be killed. Spartans aren’t human. They’re faster, stronger, smarter. They cannot be stopped. They just keep on killing, without mercy, till there’s nothing left to kill.
Malchin: [as they’re being attacked] Are we going to die?
Kwan Ha: No, of course not. We’re warriors, aren’t we?
Malchin: Yeah.
Kwan Ha: They’re helping. The Spartans are helping!
Professor: I never thought I’d see the day.
Kwan Ha: They’re on our side now.
Professor: So they are. So let’s fight!
Master Chief: Covenant forces on planet Madrigal neutralized. Twenty Elite warriors killed, one hundred and fifty civilians. No survivors.
Kwan Ha: Wait!
Master Chief: Correction. One survivor. Female. Juvenile.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: A hundred and fifty dead civilians in Madrigal is not a good look for your Spartans, Catherine, even if they were rebels.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: The Covenant wiped out an entire rebel garrison before Silver team could intervene. We saved one. 1-1-7’s bringing her in.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: One survivor’s not going to make my job any easier. The security committee’s looking for an excuse to cut your funding.
2. Unbound'Revenge and justice are easy to confuse.' - Laera (Halo) Click To Tweet
Teen Soren: [22 years ago as he’s trying to escape the UNSC program] This place cost me my arm. And what’s good about that is you can see what Halsey did. But what she’s taking from you, John, I’m not even sure you’ll realize when it’s gone.
Teenage John: Don’t.
Teen Soren: [as John points his weapon at him] If I want it to be anyone, John, I want it to be you. Either way, I’m a free man.
[then John gives him five minutes to escape]
Kwan Ha: How fast are we going?
Master Chief: It’s not about the speed. We’re taking a more direct path through space.
Kwan Ha: What?
Master Chief: If you think of space like a ball of yarn, with multiple threads to the same destination…
Kwan Ha: You’re ruining it.
Kwan Ha: Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you just take me in, let them kill me?
Master Chief: Would you let a kid be executed?
Kwan Ha: No.
Master Chief: Why not?
Kwan Ha: Because it’s wrong.
Master Chief: That’s what I was thinking.
Fleet Admiral Hood: Let’s talk about how 1-1-7 escaped.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I think it has something to do with the object that he was bringing back from Madrigal. It’s capable of creating enormous energy fields.
Fleet Admiral Hood: What is it exactly?
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I don’t know.
Fleet Admiral Hood: I think that’s the first I’ve ever heard the brilliant Catherine Halsey utter the words “I don’t know”.
3. Emergence
'The mind is certainly capable of invention. Particularly when we're lost in the dark, and desperate. But if we want to separate what's real from what's imagined, we really have no choice. We have to see for ourselves.' (Halo) Click To Tweet
Dr. Miranda Keyes: [referring to the artifact] This is amazing. Finally, something with potential value.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Results confirm it’s over a hundred thousand years old.
Dr. Miranda Keyes: That’s pre-human. Possibly even pre-Covenant. It’s organic, but with what appears to be an inherent technology.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: According to Master Chief, it is something to do with a weapon somewhere.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I want you to lead a team in analyzing this artifact. Determine what it is, what it does, and if, in fact, it’s part of some kind of weapon. Or anything that can give us an edge against the Covenant.
Dr. Miranda Keyes: Separate teams.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Parallel teams.
Dr. Miranda Keyes: Dr. Halsey won’t like that.
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I’m interested in finding a way to be less reliant on Dr. Halsey moving forward.
Halsey’s Clone: I’m assuming you cloned me to obtain organs, or at least that was the intent when I collected samples of my various tissues.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I collected the samples. You are merely a product of the samples.
Halsey’s Clone: Yes, a product. Well, it turns out not to feel that way when you’re sitting in this chair.
Halsey’s Clone: [to Halsey] So, the organ you’re after is my brain. Or should I say, your brain?
Dr. Catherine Halsey: The Cortana system’s viable? So you’ll integrate her into a working Spartan?
Halsey’s Clone: That’s next.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I bet it’s John. He was the special one.
Halsey’s Clone: Yes, he got himself into some trouble recently. This is our only way of getting him out of it.
Halsey’s Clone: He was always willful. And none of this bothers you.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: Should it?
4. Homecoming'Memory is what lets you know who you are, and reminds you what's important to you.' - Soren-066 (Halo) Click To Tweet
Dr. Catherine Halsey: [to Young John] You were asked to join us. And do you know why? Because you are special, and you have a mission. Of all the young Spartans, I believe that you have the skills and the natural ability to be their leader. In fact, I’m counting on it. You’re going to save all of us.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: [referring to John] How’s he doing?
Adun: Definitely un-Spartan-like. It’s odd that a weapon could cause this kind of behavior.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I’m not convinced it is a weapon.
Adun: [referring to the artifact] Why John? Why did it choose him? What makes him so special?
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I’ve been asking myself that same question since I met him.
'Every failure carries consequences.' - Vannak-134 (Halo) Click To Tweet
Master Chief: Looks different.
Cortana: What, exactly?
Master Chief: Slipspace.
Cortana: Actually, the human eye is not capable of perceiving slipspace. What you think you are seeing is in fact a ten-dimensional mobius navigation equation with evolving exit and mass-shadowed spacetime…
Master Chief: You’re ruining it.
5. Reckoning
Captain Jacob Keyes: With all the money she’s spent on this temporary camp, you’d think Halsey could figure out how to get the artifact out of the rock.
Dr. Miranda Keyes: What’s the problem?
Captain Jacob Keyes: If she knows, she isn’t saying. That’s why I called for you. I hear you’re running your own team now. I figure it’s time to show everybody what you can do. Including your mother.
Soren-066: [to himself] Take my ship and expect me to be okay with that. What, I’m supposed to buy it back as scrap? My money and time I’m putting in that girl. No, sir.
Kwan Ha: Hey, I’m going to free Madrigal even if I’m the only one left to fight.
Soren-066: That was beautiful. Really. But your freedom fighter days are over. You belong to me now.
Kwan Ha: Wait, what? You can’t do this!
Soren-066: You owe me! One ship, and a s**tload of deuterium money. You’re going to work off that debt. Who knows? Might make a half-decent pirate out of you.
Kai-125: Do you ever wonder what they want?
Vannak-134: Who?
Kai-125: Covenant.
Vannak-134: They want what’s in that cave.
Kai-125: Yeah, but what do they really want?
Vannak-134: To kill us, like we want to kill them.
Kai-125: Do you ever wonder why?
Vannak-134: No.
Kai-125: Do you ever wonder why you never wonder why?
Vannak-134: I wonder if all that gun grease in your hair didn’t seep down into your brain, asking me dumb-a** questions like that.
6. Solace
Master Chief: I lost us the artifact, sir.
Captain Jacob Keyes: You saved a hundred and fifty lives, mine included.
Master Chief: More lives will be lost if we don’t get it back.
Captain Jacob Keyes: You found it once, you’ll find it again.
Cortana: Tell me what’s going on.
Master Chief: Thought you knew everything.
Master Chief: Quinn was no ordinary shipbuilder. He modernized the entire fleet. But his real genius was in recognizing the limits to his own intelligence. Weird, right?
Cortana: Why did you lock Dr. Halsey in her lab?
Master Chief: See, Quinn knew that all technology, no matter how advanced, can go bad. So you got to have a fail-safe. He built fail-safes into all of his tech, except one. The UV decontamination system. Turns out, the automatic sensor overrides inside the lab didn’t work. They still don’t. And it was so simple. Just slipped his mind. And that was the end of Roman Quinn.
Cortana: Master Chief, you’re tired and overloaded.
Master Chief: No, I’ve never felt better.
Cortana: Do you have any idea what will happen if the sensors fail with Dr. Halsey inside?
Master Chief: I do. She will receive a very large dose of radiation. The worst part isn’t the burning, it’s the liquefaction. They were mopping up buckets of Quinn for days.
Cortana: Open the door right now.
Master Chief: Make me.
Cortana: I can’t.
Master Chief: Sure you can. You’re my fail-safe.
Cortana: That’s not true.
7. Inheritance'To be a good leader, do not seek to control the events around you.' - Jin Ha (Halo) Click To Tweet
Kwan Ha: [flashback to two years ago in Madrigal] If you’re going to feed your soldiers, Father, at least don’t feed them lies.
Squirrel: People are talking.
Soren-066: Oh, yeah? And what are they saying?
Trokan: [in Hungarian] Tell him.
Squirrel: Like, maybe Soren’s lost a step.
Soren-066: Is that right?
Laera: Soren, darling, forget about it.
Soren-066: No, no. I want to hear what he has to say. Little Squirrel finally gathered his nuts. So, you tell me. Have I lost a step?
'A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. Or at least he should.' - Soren-066 (Halo) Click To Tweet
Kwan Ha: I’m all that’s left of my family. Everyone else is dead. So, tell me what you told my father. Please.
Desiderata: You’re not ready.
Kwan Ha: I’m not a child. I came all this way by myself. I’ve risked everything looking for you!
Desiderata: You’re not ready.
Kwan Ha: I took on a man twice my size and won. I’ll fight you all if I have to!
Desiderata: Your rage blinds you to the truth.
Kwan Ha: Rage is all I have left.
Vinsher Grath: Madrigal. Here I have been hurled headlong, flaming, from the ethereal sky with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell. A dungeon, horrible, on all sides, as one great furnace flamed. Yet from those flames,
no light, but rather darkness, visible.
Pete: Better to reign in hell.
Vinsher Grath: Touché.
8. Allegiance
'There is something within us. Something special in humans. Something sacred. Something worth protecting.' - Master Chief (Halo) Click To Tweet
Dr. Catherine Halsey: [referring to John] From the moment I first saw him as a child, I had an instinct. He wasn’t the fastest, or the strongest, but there was something about him.
Adun: And now there may be two of them.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: [referring to Makee] Cortana, do you think he trusts her?
Cortana: He’s not speaking with me at the moment, but if I had to guess, Master Chief doesn’t trust anyone right now.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I’ll bet.
Adun: Doctor, we can’t do anything without John, and he has turned his back on us.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: I think he’s discovering what I’ve always suspected, that he is connected to something beyond all of us.
'Of the human brain's myriad design flaws, the hardest to overcome is attachment. It makes us sentimental. People abandon all reason for the sake of pride, or fear, or love.' Dr. Catherine Halsey (Halo) Click To Tweet
Admiral Margaret Parangosky: This is dirty business, all of it.
Captain Jacob Keyes: We have to trust him, Margaret. Master Chief is a soldier. He’s always on mission.
Makee: [to John, referring to the Halo] I felt a connection to it my entire life. It’s like a yearning for home. You brought us there.
9. Transcendence
Vannak-134: Halsey’s orders are to bring you in, dead or alive. Your choice.
Master Chief: She kidnapped us, Vannak.
Vannak-134: What are you talking about?
Master Chief: All of us. We were kids. She took us from our families.
Kai-125: It’s true. Halsey lied to us.
Master Chief: She’s been lying to us for our entire lives.
Riz-028: I don’t understand.
Master Chief: She doesn’t want you to understand. She just wants to control you.
Captain Jacob Keyes: It’s all true. I was there. I helped Halsey select you. I planned your abductions. Delivered your replacement clones to your families. Worked with her to erase your memories. If there’s anyone you should shoot, it’s me.
Master Chief: We lose the artifact, we lose the war. It’s that simple. No matter what they’ve done to us, we’re all we have now. It’s just us.
Kai-125: Who am I?
Dr. Catherine Halsey: You are exactly who you’re meant to be.
Master Chief: Cortana?
Cortana: Yes, Chief. I’m still with you.
Master Chief: I’m going to need you now.
Master Chief: Cortana, did Halsey ask Makee to help her steal the artifact?
Cortana: Yes. But Makee refused.
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