The Imitation Game Movie Quotes
Christopher Morcom
Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.
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Alan Turing
Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes... hollow.
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Final quotes
His machine was never perfected, though it generated a whole field of research into what became known as "Turing Machines". Today we call them "computers".
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Alan Turing
Are you paying attention? Good. If you are not listening carefully, you will miss things. Important things. I will not pause, I will not repeat myself, and you will not interrupt me. You think that because you're sitting where you are, and I am sitting where I am, that you are in control of what is about to happen. You're mistaken. I am in control, because I know things that you do not know.
[pause]
Alan Turing
What I will need from you now is a commitment. You will listen closely, and you will not judge me until I am finished. If you cannot commit to this, then please leave the room. But if you choose to stay, remember you chose to be here. What happens from this moment forward is not my responsibility. It's yours. Pay attention.
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Joan Clarke
I know it's not ordinary. But who ever loved ordinary?
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John Cairncross
The boys, we're going to get some lunch.
[No response]
John Cairncross
Alan?
Alan Turing
Yes?
John Cairncross
I said we're going to get some lunch.
[No response]
John Cairncross
Alan?
Alan Turing
Yes?
John Cairncross
Can you hear me?
Alan Turing
Yes.
John Cairncross
I said we're off to get some lu-...
[disrupts himself]
John Cairncross
This is starting to get a little bit repetitive.
Alan Turing
What is?
John Cairncross
I had asked if you wanted to come to lunch with us.
Alan Turing
No you didn't, you said you were going to get some lunch.
John Cairncross
Have I offended you in some way?
Alan Turing
Why would you think that?
John Cairncross
Would you like to come to lunch with us?
Alan Turing
What time's lunch time?
Alan Turing
What is?
Hugh Alexander
Lunch.
Alan Turing
Oh. I don't like sandwiches.
John Cairncross
Never mind.
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Alan Turing
I like solving problems, Commander. And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the world.
Commander Denniston
Enigma isn't difficult, it's impossible. The Americans, the Russians, the French, the Germans, everyone thinks Enigma is unbreakable.
Alan Turing
Good. Let me try and we'll know for sure, won't we?
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Alan Turing
You got what you wanted. A husband, a job... a normal life.
Joan Clarke
No one normal could have done that. Do you know, this morning... I was on a train that went through a city that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you. I bought a ticket from a man who would likely be dead if it wasn't for you. I read up on my work... a whole field of scientific inquiry that only exists because of you. Now, if you wish you could have been normal... I can promise you I do not. The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren't.
Alan Turing
You really think that?
Joan Clarke
I think, that sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one... can imagine.
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Joan Clarke
Alan, what's happened?
Alan Turing
[pause]
We can't be engaged anymore. Your parents need to take you back. Find you a husband elsewhere.
Joan Clarke
What's wrong with you?
Alan Turing
I have something to tell you. I'm... I'm a homosexual.
Joan Clarke
Alright.
Alan Turing
No, no, men, Joan. Not women.
Joan Clarke
So what?
Alan Turing
I just told you...
Joan Clarke
So what? I had my suspicions. I always did. But we're not like other people. We love each other in our own way, and we can have the life together that we want. You won't be the perfect husband? I can promise you I harboured no intention of being the perfect wife. I'll not be fixing your lamb all day, while you come home from the office, will I? I'll work. You'll work. And we'll have each other's company. We'll have each other's minds. Sounds like a better marriage than most. Because I care for you. And you care for me. And we understand one another more than anyone else ever has.
Alan Turing
I don't.
Joan Clarke
What?
Alan Turing
Care for you. I never did. I just needed you to break Enigma. I've done that now, so you can go.
Joan Clarke
[slaps him]
I am not going anywhere. I have spent entirely too much of my life worried about what you think of me, or what my parents think of me, or what the boys in Hut 8 or the girls in Hut 3 think, and you know I am done. This work is the most important thing I will ever do. And no one will stop me. Least of all you.
[pause]
Joan Clarke
You know what? They were right. Peter. Hugh. John. You really are a monster.
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Alan Turing
Of course machines can't think as people do. A machine is different from a person. Hence, they think differently. The interesting question is, just because something, uh... thinks differently from you, does that mean it's not thinking? Well, we allow for humans to have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries, I hate ice-skating, you cry at sad films, I am allergic to pollen. What is the point of... different tastes, different... preferences, if not, to say that our brains work differently, that we think differently? And if we can say that about one another, then why can't we say the same thing for brains... built of copper and wire, steel?
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Alan Turing
No, it takes me eight. This isn't about crossword puzzles, it's about how one approaches solving an impossible problem - to tackle the whole thing at once, or to divide it into small...
[Joan raises her hand]
Alan Turing
You've finished?
Joan Clarke
Yes.
[Beings her paper up]
Joan Clarke
You said to do it in under six.
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Alan Turing
Was I God? No. Because God didn't win the war. We did.
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Alan Turing
Advice about keeping secrets: it's a lot easier if you don't know them in the first place.
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Alan Turing
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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Hugh Alexander
If you run the wires across the plugboard matrix diagonally, you'll eliminate rotor positions 500 times faster.
Alan Turing
This is actually not an entirely terrible idea.
Joan Clarke
That's Alan for "thank you."
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Alan Turing
[after telling the story]
Now you decide: Am I a machine? Am I a human? Am I a war hero? Or am I a criminal?
Detective Robert Nock
I can't judge you.
Alan Turing
Well, then. You were of no help to me at all.
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Alan Turing
Uh, that's my sandwich.
Hugh Alexander
You don't like sandwiches.
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Stewart Menzies
Mr Turing, do you know how many people have died because of Enigma?
Alan Turing
No, I don't.
Stewart Menzies
Three.
Alan Turing
Three?
Stewart Menzies
While we've been having this conversation.
[Looks at his watch]
Stewart Menzies
Oh, look, there's another. I rather hope he didn't have a family.
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Alan Turing
He likes you.
Joan Clarke
Yes.
Alan Turing
You - you got him to like you.
Joan Clarke
Yes.
Alan Turing
Why?
Joan Clarke
Because I'm a woman in a man's job, and I don't have the luxury of being an ass.
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Detective Robert Nock
Right, that's... that's what it's about?
Alan Turing
Would you like to play?
Detective Robert Nock
Play?
Alan Turing
It's a game. A test of sorts. For determining whether something is a... a machine or a human being.
Detective Robert Nock
How do I play?
Alan Turing
Well, there's a judge and a subject, and... the judge asks questions and, depending on the subject's answers, determines who he is talking with... what he is talking with, and, um... All you have to do is ask me a question.
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Alan Turing
Think of it. A digital computer. Electrical brain.
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Alan Turing
It wasn't just programmable, it was reprogrammable.
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Commander Denniston
This is Stewart Menzies. MI6.
Charles Richards
There are only five divisions of military intelligence. There is no MI6.
Stewart Menzies
Exactly. That's the spirit.
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Alan Turing
You will never understand the importance of what I am creating here!
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Hugh Alexander
Love will make a man do strange things, I suppose.
Alan Turing
In this case, love just lost Germany the whole bloody war!
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Stewart Menzies
Oh, Alan... we're gonna have such a wonderful war together.
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Title Card
After a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy, Alan Turing committed suicide on June 7th 1954.
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He was 41 years old.
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Between 1885 and 1967, approximately 49,000 homosexual men were convicted of gross indecency under British law.
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In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous royal pardon, honouring his unprecedented achievements.
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Historians estimate that breaking Enigma shortened the war by more than two years, saving over 14 million lives.
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It remained a government-held secret for more than 50 years.
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Turing's work inspired generations of research into what scientists called "Turing Machines".
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Today, we call them computers.
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Stewart Menzies
Why are you telling me this?
Alan Turing
We need your help, to keep this a secret from Admiralty, Army, RAF. Uh... as no one can know, that we've broken enigma, not even Dennison.
Stewart Menzies
Who's in the process of having you fired?
Joan Clarke
You can take care of that.
Alan Turing
While we develop a system to help you determine how much intelligence to act on. Which, uh, attacks to stop, which to let through. Statistical analysis, the minimum number of actions it will take, for us to win the war - but the maximum number we can take, before the Germans get suspicious
Stewart Menzies
And you're going to trust of this all to statistics? To maths?
Alan Turing
Correct.
Joan Clarke
And then MI6 can come up with the lies we will tell everyone else.
Alan Turing
You'll need a believable alternative source for all the pieces of information that you use.
Joan Clarke
A false story, so that we can explain how we got our information, that has nothing to do with Enigma, and then you can leak those stories to the Germans.
Alan Turing
And then to our own military.
Stewart Menzies
Maintain a conspiracy of lies at the very highest levels of government? Sounds right up my alley.
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John Cairncross
What's wrong?
Alan Turing
What if... what if I don't fancy being with Joan in that way?
John Cairncross
Because you're a homosexual? I suspected.
Alan Turing
Sh- should I tell her that I've had affairs with men?
John Cairncross
You know, in my admittedly limited experience, women tend to be a bit touchy about accidentally marrying homosexuals. Perhaps not spreading this information about might be in your best interest.
Alan Turing
I care for her, I truly do, but... I-I just don't know if I can pretend...
John Cairncross
You can't tell anyone, Alan. It's illegal. And Denniston is looking for any excuse he can to put you away.
Alan Turing
I know.
John Cairncross
This has to stay a secret.
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Alan Turing
Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.
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Detective Robert Nock
Mr Turing, can I tell you a secret?
Alan Turing
I'm quite good with those.
Detective Robert Nock
I'm here to help you.
Alan Turing
Oh, clearly!
Detective Robert Nock
Can machines think?
Alan Turing
Oh, so you've read some of my published works?
Detective Robert Nock
What makes you say that?
Alan Turing
Oh, because I'm sitting in a police station, accused of entreating a young man to touch my penis, and you've just asked me if machines can think.
Detective Robert Nock
Well, can they? Could machines ever think as human beings do?
Alan Turing
Most people say not.
Detective Robert Nock
You're not most people.
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Young Alan Turing
What's that you're reading?
Christopher Morcom
It's about cryptography.
Young Alan Turing
Like secret messages?
Christopher Morcom
Not secret. That's the brilliant part. Messages that anyone can see but no one knows what they mean, unless you have the key.
Young Alan Turing
How's that different from talking?
Christopher Morcom
Talking?
Young Alan Turing
When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean, they say something else. And you're expected to just know what they mean. Only I never do. So... How's that different?
Christopher Morcom
Alan, I have a funny feeling you're going to be very good at this.
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Peter Hilton
You're not God, Alan. You don't get to decide who lives and who dies.
Alan Turing
Yes, yes we do.
Peter Hilton
Why? Why?
Alan Turing
Because we're the only ones who can.
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Hugh Alexander
Damn you, you and your machine.
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Hugh Alexander
[reading a decrypted message]
'... is directed to 53 degrees 24 minutes north and aufpunkt one degree west. Heil Hitler.'
Alan Turing
Turns out that's the only German you need to know to break Enigma.
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Commander Denniston
Well, you realize that six hundred miles away from London there's this nasty little chap called Hitler who wants to engulf Europe in tyranny.
Alan Turing
Politics isn't really my area of expertise.
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Hugh Alexander
Because there's nothing like a friend's engagement to make a woman want to do something that she'll later regret with the fiancé's better looking chum.
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Hugh Alexander
You know, to pull off this irascible genius routine, one has to actually *be* a genius.
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Commander Denniston
Have you ever won a war, Turing? I have. You know how it's done? Discipline, order, chain of command. You're not at university any more, you're a very small cog in a very large system. And you will do as your commanding officer instructs.
Alan Turing
Who - who is your commanding officer?
Commander Denniston
Winston Churchill. Number 10 Downing Street, London SW1. You have a problem with my decision, you can take it up with him.
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Headmaster
[grilling young Alan about note-passing]
You and your friend solve maths problems during maths class because the maths class is too dull?
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Alan Turing
[voiceover]
There were 159 million, million, million possible Enigma settings. All we had to do was try each one. But if we had ten men checking one setting a minute for 24 hours every day and seven days every week, how many days do you think it would take to check each of the settings? Well it's not days, it's years. It's 20 *million* years. To stop a coming attack, we would have to check 20 million years' worth of settings in 20 minutes.
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Alan Turing
I'm not a spy. I'm... I'm just a mathematician.
Stewart Menzies
I know a lot of spies, Alan. You've got more secrets than the best of them.
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Joan Clarke
[to a convalescing Alan]
Why don't we do a crossword puzzle? It'll only take us five minutes. Or in your case, six.
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Alan Turing
Some people thought we were at war with the Germans. Incorrect. We were at war with the clock.
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Stewart Menzies
Burn everything.
Hugh Alexander
Burn? Why?
Stewart Menzies
You were told when you started this was a Top Secret program. Did you think we were joking?
Hugh Alexander
But the war is over.
Stewart Menzies
*This* war is. But there'Il be others.
Alan Turing
And we know how to break a code that everybody else believes is unbreakable.
Stewart Menzies
Precisely. Tear it down, light it up. Sweep away the ashes. None of you have ever met before. None of you have ever even heard the word "Enigma." Have a safe trip home.
Stewart Menzies
[as they rise to go]
Behave. With a bit of luck, you'll never have to see me or one another again for the rest of your lives...
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Joan Clarke
Are you trying to build your universal machine?
[Alan looks puzzled]
Joan Clarke
I read your paper at university.
Alan Turing
Is it already being taught?
Joan Clarke
Oh no! I was precocious.
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Alan Turing
You can't leave, I won't let you.
Joan Clarke
I'll miss you. That's what a normal person would say in this situation.
Alan Turing
I-I don't care what is normal!
Joan Clarke
What am I supposed to do, Alan? I will not give up my parents.
Alan Turing
You have an opportunity here to make some actual use of your life!
Joan Clarke
[offended]
And end up like you? No thanks. I'm sorry you're lonely. But Enigma will not save you. Can you decipher that, you fragile narcissist? Or would you like me to fetch your beloved Christopher to help?
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John Cairncross
If you tell them my secret, I'll tell them yours.
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Peter Hilton
All my friends, they're making a difference while we just wile away our days, producing nothing! Because of you.
Alan Turing
My machine... will work.
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Alan Turing
You know why people like violence, Hugh? It's because it feels good. Sometimes we can't do what feels good; we have to do what is logical.
John Cairncross
What's logical?
Alan Turing
Hardest time to lie to someone is when they're expecting to be lied to.
John Cairncross
What?
Alan Turing
If someone's waiting for a lie, you can't just, uh, give them one.
Joan Clarke
Damn it, Alan's right.
Peter Hilton
What?
Alan Turing
What would the Germans think if we destroy their U-Boats?
Peter Hilton
Nothing, they'll be dead.
Alan Turing
So our convoy suddenly veers off course; a squadron of our air bombers miraculously descends on the coordinates of the U-Boats; what will the Germans *think*?
Joan Clarke
They'll stop all radio communications by midday, and they would change the design of Enigma by the weekend.
Alan Turing
Yes. Two years work, everything that we've done here, will all be for nothing.
John Cairncross
There are 500 civilians in that convoy. Women. Children. We're about to let them die.
Alan Turing
Our job is not to save one passenger convoy; it is to win the war.
Hugh Alexander
Our job was to crack Enigma.
Alan Turing
Well, we've done that. Now for the hard part - keeping it a secret.
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