Alexander Hartdegen Quotes in The Time Machine (2002)

Ãœber-Morlock: Who are you to question 800,000 years... of evolution?

Alexander Hartdegen: This is, this is a perversion of every natural law.

Ãœber-Morlock: [grabs him by the throat] And what is time travel but your pathetic attempted to try to control the world around you? Your futile effort to have a question answered? You think I don't know you, Alexander? I can look inside your memories, your nightmares, your dreams. You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?

Alexander Hartdegen: My question is why can't one change the past?

Vox: Because one cannot travel into the past.

David Philby: Nothing can change what happened.

Alexander Hartdegen: No, you're wrong. Because I will change it.

Alexander Hartdegen: You're forgetting one thing. What if?

Alexander Hartdegen: I could come back a thousand times... and see her die a thousand ways.

Alexander Hartdegen: How did this happen?

Soldier #1: The moon. Come on, move it.

Alexander Hartdegen: That's impossible. What happened?

Soldier #1: What, you been living under a rock?

Alexander Hartdegen: Yes, I've been living under a rock! Now tell me...

Soldier #1: The demolitions for the lunar colony screwed up the orbit, okay? The moon's breaking up, all right? Now, come on.

Alexander Hartdegen: You were right, Philby. We did go too far.

David Philby: [looking at a futuristic picture] I wonder if we'll ever go too far.

Alexander Hartdegen: With what?

David Philby: [pointing at the picture] With this. With all of this.

Alexander Hartdegen: No such thing.

Jogger: Hey.

Alexander Hartdegen: Hello.

Jogger: Nice suit. Very retro.

Alexander Hartdegen: Thank you.

Jogger: Bet that makes a hell of a cappuccino. That thing.

Mara: Why have you come here? Why have you traveled through time?

Alexander Hartdegen: To have a question answered.

Mara: A question?

Alexander Hartdegen: Yes. Why can't I change the past?

Mara: Why would you want to?

[a look of realization]

Mara: You've lost someone. Someone you loved very much.

David Philby: A professor from Columbia University should not be corresponding with a crazy German book keeper.

Alexander Hartdegen: He's a patent clerk, not a book keeper, and I think Mister Einstein needs all the support I can give him.