Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) Quotes in Watchmen
Osterman: You sound bitter. You’re a strange man, Blake. You have a strange attitude to life and war.
Blake: Strange? Listen… Once you figure out what a joke everything is, being a comedian is the only thing makes sense.
Osterman: The charred villages, the boys with necklaces of human ears… these are part of the joke?
Blake: Hey… I never said it was a good joke. I’m just playin’ along with the gag…
They explain that the name [Dr. Manhattan] has been chosen for the ominous associations it will raise in America’s enemies. They’re shaping me into something gaudy and lethal… It’s all getting out of my hands.
As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realizes that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there… A clock without a craftsman.
It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.
Juspeczyk: Humanity is about to become extinct. Doesn’t that bother you? All those dead people…
Osterman: All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No… No, that doesn’t bother me. All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it lead to?
Osterman: Look at it—a volcano as large as Missouri, its summit fifteen miles high, piercing even the atmospheric blanket. Breathtaking.
Juspeczyk: Breathtaking? Jon, what about the war? You’ve got to prevent it! Everyone will die…
Osterman: And the universe will not even notice.
Thermodynamic miracles…Events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such things. And yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that precise daughter…
Juspeczyk: Dan, all those people, they’re dead. They can’t disagree or eat Indian food, or love each other… Oh, it’s sweet. Being alive is so damn sweet.
Dreiberg: Laurie? Wh-what do you want me to do?
Juspeczyk: I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead […] I want to see you and taste you and smell you, just because I can.
Veidt: I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Jon: “In the end”? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) Quotes in Watchmen
Osterman: You sound bitter. You’re a strange man, Blake. You have a strange attitude to life and war.
Blake: Strange? Listen… Once you figure out what a joke everything is, being a comedian is the only thing makes sense.
Osterman: The charred villages, the boys with necklaces of human ears… these are part of the joke?
Blake: Hey… I never said it was a good joke. I’m just playin’ along with the gag…
They explain that the name [Dr. Manhattan] has been chosen for the ominous associations it will raise in America’s enemies. They’re shaping me into something gaudy and lethal… It’s all getting out of my hands.
As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realizes that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there… A clock without a craftsman.
It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.
Juspeczyk: Humanity is about to become extinct. Doesn’t that bother you? All those dead people…
Osterman: All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No… No, that doesn’t bother me. All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it lead to?
Osterman: Look at it—a volcano as large as Missouri, its summit fifteen miles high, piercing even the atmospheric blanket. Breathtaking.
Juspeczyk: Breathtaking? Jon, what about the war? You’ve got to prevent it! Everyone will die…
Osterman: And the universe will not even notice.
Thermodynamic miracles…Events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such things. And yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that precise daughter…
Juspeczyk: Dan, all those people, they’re dead. They can’t disagree or eat Indian food, or love each other… Oh, it’s sweet. Being alive is so damn sweet.
Dreiberg: Laurie? Wh-what do you want me to do?
Juspeczyk: I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead […] I want to see you and taste you and smell you, just because I can.
Veidt: I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Jon: “In the end”? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
