How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Terminator.
Quote #1
REESE: All right, listen. The Terminator's an infiltration unit. Part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis. Microprocessor controlled. Fully armored, very tough. But outside it's living human tissue. Flesh, skin, hair, blood…grown for the cyborgs.
The Terminator was designed for deception. After all, you can't just walk up to someone and say, "Hello, I'm a cyborg from the future sent to kill you to prevent your future son from being born." Nah, you have to be subtle about these things—well, as subtle as a six-foot Austrian bodybuilder can be, anyway.
Quote #2
SILBERMAN: So you're a solider. Fighting for whom?
REESE: With the 132nd under Perry. From '21 to '27.
SILBERMAN: That's the year 2027?
REESE: That's right. Then I was assigned…under John Connor.
Reese sounds a bit on the crazy side here, yet he's being anything but deceptive. He's telling the truth straight on, and for that, Silberman thinks he's a madman. It really is a mad, mad, mad, world—or at least it will be in the future.
Quote #3
REESE: It was a chance to meet the legend. Sarah Connor, who taught her son to fight, organize, prepare from when he was a kid. When you were in hiding before the war.
SARAH: You're talking about things I haven't done yet in the past tense. It's driving me crazy. Are you sure you have the right person?
REESE: I'm sure.
SARAH: Come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean, am I tough? Organized? I can't even balance my checkbook! Look, Reese, I didn't ask for this honor and I don't want it. Any of it.
Sarah suffers from some self-deception: she doesn't believe she has it in her to be the strong, resourceful woman Reese says she'll be. But while she argues about this, she performs her first field-dressing and doesn't totally freak out about it. That's totally a sign of things to come.