Our list of the best quotes from Apple TV+ dystopian sci-fi television show created and written by Graham Yost, based on the Silo book series by Hugh Howey.
Silo is is available to watch on Apple TV+.
Top Silo Quotes
Sherriff Holston: We do not know why we are here. We do not know who built the Silo. We do not know why everything outside the Silo is as it is. We do not know when it will be safe to go outside. We only know that day is not this day.
Sherriff Holston: If everyone likes me, I’m not doing my job.
Gloria Hildebrandt: Why do we live underground? What actually happened out there?
Gloria Hildebrandt: [to Allison] Do you really think you’re the kind of person they want having children?
Mayor Ruth Jahns: Six minutes and six seconds past six o’clock on this day one hundred and forty years ago. That is the moment we regained our freedom.
Allison: [to Holston] Talking is not listening.
Allison: [to Holston] None of this is real. Do you see? They want to keep you in here, so they’re lying to you. It’s green out there. There’s green trees. There’s blue skies. There’s things flying in the air. Is no one listening to me? They’re keeping us here.
Sherriff Holston: What’s the value of swearing an oath if you only stick to it when it’s easy?
Sherriff Holston: What we see is not what’s out there. It’s what they want us to think is out there.
Allison: I think people clean because they hope somehow that they can show people the truth that that is a lie.
Sherriff Holston: Allison Becker. On behalf of the people of the Silo, I hope that you will clean so that we will better see the world outside our sanctuary as it is and thereby be reminded that here is safe and there is not.
Teddy: [after Holston collapses outside and takes his helmet off] Where’s he going?
Juliette Nichols: To be with his wife.
Martha Walker: [to Juliette] You’ve been coming in here since you were thirteen. To fix s**t, so you don’t have to deal with s**t.
Sherriff Holston: Someone says murder, you look into them. Find out what reason they might have for saying that.
Juliette Nichols: [referring to George] The reason is because he was murdered. That’s why.
Sherriff Holston: The not knowing, it’s going to haunt you forever.
Juliette Nichols: [to Holston] I hope you’re not afraid of the dark. Or tight spaces. Or heights.
Juliette Nichols: I don’t care about the order in the Silo. I want you to do your job!
Sherriff Holston: Maintaining order in the Silo is my job.
Juliette Nichols: What about finding out the truth?!
Juliette Nichols: [to Holston] Maybe if you’d listened to your wife, she’d still be alive right now!
Sherriff Holston: Allison asked questions too. She was never afraid.
Juliette Nichols: Then please, just help me.
Deputy Marnes: [from the note] “In my final act as sheriff, I, Holston Becker, nominate Juliette Nichols of Mechanical as my successor.”
Knox: Even an hour in darkness will be utter chaos.
Mayor Ruth Jahns: It’s this community, it’s the way you love each other that truly holds the Silo together. Even when times are tough, like now.
Juliette Nichols: It wasn’t the darkness I was worried about. I just felt…
Martha Walker: Scared.
Martha Walker: You know, we scream. We fight. We get mad. But every now and then, we should tell ourselves, “We did what we could. We did our best.”
Mayor Ruth Jahns: [to Juliette, referring to being sheriff] I must tell you, no one wants you for this job. Except for one deceased former sheriff and me.
Juliette Nichols: Everyone thinks their job in the Silo is the most important. Mine actually is.
Deputy Marnes: We’ve always been one catastrophic failure away from the end of it all, and this just makes everyone conscious of it. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Makes you appreciate the day you have. Dr. Pete Nichols: Not everything can be fixed. George Wilkins: You know, people leave traces. History is just traces of a whole lot of people over a whole lot of time. Everything from the shirt on my back, to the shoes on our feet. Lukas Kyle: You shouldn’t give up on the day, even at the end of it, because, well, she said that a whole day could be saved with just a smile. Juliette Nichols: [referring to the stars] I wonder how long they’ve been there, like if they’ve always been there. Even before, when people used to live outside. Bernard Holland: Miss Nichols, throughout our entire existence, problems have arisen that must be taken care of. The needs of the many require the sacrifices of the few.
Mayor Ruth Jahns: I wanted to spend time with you.
Deputy Marnes: I know it’s why I came.
Juliette Nichols: [flashback] What about finding out the truth?
Sherriff Holston: When I find something, I will, I’ll send word. A signal. I promise.
[Juliette turns Holston’s sheriff badge to see the word “truth” etched on the back]
Sandy: I was told to stock the fridge in the apartment, but I have no idea what you people eat down deep.
Juliette Nichols: Children mostly. Sometimes each other.
Juliette Nichols: [to Sandy] I’m Holston’s replacement, which I’m guessing makes me your boss? Yeah, I’m from the Down Deep. I eat the same s**t you eat. Maybe with a little bit more salt.
Deputy Marnes: [to Juliette] Truth and trying mattered to Allison too, and it mattered to Holston. And you might want to think about that.
Juliette Nichols: You know, there are some things a shotgun isn’t the best solution for.
Bernard Holland: Well, Marnes was right. Someone really wanted him dead.
Bernard Holland: [referring to Jahns and Marnes] So it becomes the story, Rob. A couple of old servants of the Silo, enjoying a late bloom of love, looking to spend their golden years together, only to have their lives cut tragically short.
Hank: Look, you can’t send a guy up a hundred and forty-four levels with a tin of hush puppies and not expect him to eat a couple.
Juliette Nichols: There’s one left.
Hank: I’m a big guy.
Hank: [to Juliette] I know you can do anything you put your mind to. But I also know that none of us can do any of this alone. Now, look, I’ve never won Deputy of the Year or nothing, but if you need anything, I’m just a tin of hush puppies away.
Martha Walker: This isn’t supposed to be the deal. We’re supposed to go about our business, keeping the Silo humming, and they’re not supposed to do things like murder people. Bodies start falling, people start asking questions. Pretty soon, asking questions turns into demanding answers.
Patrick Kennedy: [to Juliette] In my experience, people with badges doing things for personal reasons tend to get other people hurt.
George Wilkins: [to Juliette] Don’t you ever think about the world beyond the Silo?
Juliette Nichols: [to George] I fixed your watch for selfish reasons, because I really like the way that I feel when I make you feel the way that you do.
Regina Jackson: [to Juliette] George didn’t do sanctioned relationships. And any fool would see he’s not the type of guy you spend forever with.
Regina Jackson: [to Juliette] When he told you he loved you, did you believe him?
Bernard Holland: I know not everyone believes this, but I’ve found that some mysteries are best left unsolved.
Paul Billings: You know, everybody here in the office says the reason why Holston and Marnes were a great team was because they looked out for each other.
Juliette Nichols: Yeah, and look what that got them.
George Wilkins: [to Juliette] What if everything you know to be true, everything you’ve been told by the people you love, was in fact just one big lie?
Martha Walker: [to Juliette] You got no concept of time. You think you do, but you don’t. It’s because you got a whole lot more ahead of you than behind. Time to you is just an idea. To me, it’s years spent trapped behind a closed door with memories. All your friends and loved ones somewhere out there, the other side of it. You can talk to me about time when you can’t bring yourself to step out the door. When seconds have become years.
Martha Walker: [to Juliette, referring to George] What kind of a person are you? The man you loved was murdered, and now you’re saying it’s a waste of time to find out why? See, I don’t know what happened, but when you left here, love had you trying to do the right thing. And now anger is making you give up? Fear did the same thing to me. And that is a waste of time. You’re welcome to come here and join me. Or you can stay where you are, let go of whatever it is you’re wrestling with, and finish the job. It’s your call.
Regina Jackson: They know how to get to you. They know what you fear.
Juliette Nichols: [to Billings] You want me to be honest with you? I have no idea what I’m doing. Okay? I came up here because of George, and the only thing I figured out is that the man that I love, he lied, and he used me, and I just still want to find out why he got killed. And now that somehow is connected to Jahns, to Marnes, to why Holston went out, and to why his wife before that went out.
Judge Meadows: You’re not a good liar, Sheriff.
Gloria Hildebrandt: They wanted to erase the past and anyone who tried to preserve it.
Gloria Hildebrandt: [to Juliette] You’re the last Flamekeeper now. You didn’t ask for it. It’s not fair. But it’s the way it is. It’s down to you. If you let it die, the truth dies too.
Mosley: The Silo always wins.
Gloria Hildebrandt: Do you really think you’ll win?
Robert Sims: We have to.
Juliette Nichols: [referring to Sims] He’s not going to stop until I’m either in that cell or over the f***ing rail.
Dr. Pete Nichols: Loss affects people differently. Sometimes it shrinks your world, draws you inward.
Juliette Nichols: [to Lukas] Right now I’m using you because I have no other choice. And you should want to help me. You’re the one sitting in the cafeteria every single night, wondering what’s out there. What if the answers to your questions are on this drive?
Juliette Nichols: [to Bernard] You. You’re the one.
Bernard Holland: The Founders knew someone would have to make the hard decisions to keep our Silo alive. A person that possessed the knowledge, the intelligence, the information about everything that happens here. Lucky me.
Bernard Holland: [to Juliette] This isn’t about heat tape. This is about survival. And that hard drive threatens the lives of everyone in this Silo. And you are the greatest threat to our home in a hundred and forty years. Well, you were.
Robert Sims: [as he arrests Juliette] I told you you’d regret arresting me.
Paul Billings: I am not limited by what others think I’m capable of, and I’m allowed to make mistakes.
Bernard Holland: [to Sims] We are facing extinction, and you chose to protect your family before the Silo. I suppose that is completely understandable. But now I wonder whether making you my shadow would be fair to you, your wife, your son, or the Silo.
George Wilkins: [as Juliette watches the video] Please know that I never meant to put you in any danger. But, Jules, there is stuff on this drive that people need to see. The truth.
Bernard Holland: [referring to Juliette] How does she keep getting away?
George Wilkins: [as Juliette watches the video] The truth. Since I’m being honest, you should also know that I transferred to Mechanical so that I could find someone to use as a guide down here. And it didn’t take long for me to realize that the know-it-all down here is you. My plan was to get all the knowledge you could provide, and then leave you behind. But then the most annoying thing happened. I fell in love, with you.
Camille Sims: [to Sims] We have one goal, one ambition, and we will not lose sight of that.
George Wilkins: [as Juliette watches the video] I’m so happy that I got to be the lucky b****rd in this f***ed-up place who got to be with you. So in case I wasn’t clear enough earlier, I love you, Juliette Nichols.
Juliette Nichols: Allison was right. The display is a lie.
Bernard Holland: [to the watchers] What you have just seen, you will unsee.
Bernard Holland: If you’d been able to do what you wanted to, you would’ve killed everyone in the Silo.
Juliette Nichols: People can handle the truth.
Martha Walker: [to herself as she walks out of her front door] Come on, you old fool. You’re all she’s got. You’re not going to die. Just feels like it.
Martha Walker: Doesn’t make any sense. Unless it does.
Juliette Nichols: [after Bernard takes her to the secret computer room] We never had a chance.
Bernard Holland: No.
Juliette Nichols: [from Martha’s note] “You wanted the truth. The truth is I love you. Have no fear. They’re good in Supply.”
Bernard Holland: I want you to know that I take no pleasure from this. Any of it.
Juliette Nichols: So quit.
Bernard Holland: Well, I think about it, at least once a day. But I don’t want to burden you with my troubles.
Juliette Nichols: So sending me outside, that’s your way of putting things right?
Bernard Holland: Hardly. Every human life has value.
Juliette Nichols: You know, if this place needs the death of George, and Jahns, and Marnes, the sheriff, and his wife, there’s something very wrong with this Silo. And you know what? I don’t want to be of great service anymore.
Bernard Holland: You were an engineer. You watched the gauges day and night. And if the pressure got too high or too low, you made adjustments, because if you didn’t, boom. Well, I am an engineer too. But instead of a generator, I keep the Silo running safely. When Allison Becker and George Wilkins opened that hard drive, unless adjustments were made, it was just a matter of time before everything went boom.
Bernard Holland: The Founders left us with many mysteries.
Juliette Nichols: I won’t clean.
Bernard Holland: Nobody intends to, but they always do. As the Founders, in their wisdom, knew they would.
Bernard Holland: “We do not know why we are here. We do not know who built the Silo. We do not know why everything outside the Silo is as it is. We do not know when it will be safe to go outside. We only know that that day is not this day. Juliette Nichols, on behalf of all the people of the Silo, I hope you will clean so that we will see the world outside our sanctuary as it is, and thereby be reminded that here is safe, and there is not.” Juliette Nichols, have you any last words?
Juliette Nichols: I’m not afraid.
Juliette Nichols: [after she’s sent out to clean, referring to the display in her helmet] The display is a lie.
Bernard Holland: [as they’re watching Juliette outside refusing to clean] She knows.
Robert Sims: Knows what?
Juliette Nichols: [realizes Martha arranged for the good quality heat tape for her suit] They’re good in Supply.
[she then walks out of the crater, sees the desolate view and the other Silo craters]