Brand Hauser Quotes in War, Inc. (2008)

Brand Hauser: Did you know that the word "person" comes from the Latin word "persona", which means mask? So maybe being human means we invite spectators to ponder what lies behind. Each of us will be composed of a variety of masks, and if we can see behind the mask, we would get a burst of clarity. And if that flame was bright enough, that's when we fall in love. What's your opinion on these divine matters?

Natalie Hegalhuzen: I'm not going to fuck you. You know that, right?

Natalie Hegalhuzen: You know that all my writings have called this occupation a violation of international law and its practitioners are criminals?

Brand Hauser: Do you really believe all this stuff you write?

Natalie Hegalhuzen: Anyone who can causes this much mayhem when they didn't have to? The amount of suffering that I've seen?

Brand Hauser: I know.

[helicoper flies overhead]

Brand Hauser: [speaking on the phone] Ok. Hold on a sec.

[speaking to Natalie again]

Brand Hauser: But the way I look at it is this: the day we can actually feel and hear all the suffering of mankind, that's the day when "The Christ" will come back! So we got that going for us.

[speaking on the phone again]

Brand Hauser: I'll be out in a minute.

[speaking to Natalie again]

Brand Hauser: Or 'The Buddha', or Allah, whoever floats your boat.

Brand Hauser: Be still my trembling hands, for how you would tremble if you knew where I would take you next.

Brand Hauser: [to Yonica as she's about to get married] You can't do this. You can't do this. I won't let you. I'm your father.

Brand Hauser: [Hauser fires gun at a few people]

Brand Hauser: It's me. I've loved you since the day you were born.

Walken: Every empire is summed up in Rome. The Romans, Hauser, Stewards of the human race, torchbearers of culture! You and I are centurions, honor bound to defend civilization against the barbarians!

Brand Hauser: Let's cut the shit, Walken! I like killing people as much as the next guy, but I signed up to kill the bad ones! Health clinics, trade unionists, journalists, agricultural co-ops, catholic liberation theologians, impoverished Colombian coffee farmers, these are the barbarians that are brave opponents of civilization? We turned Central America into a fuckin' graveyard! Whoever momentarily interrupts the acummulation of our wealth, we pulverize! I'm just not feeling good about that anymore, sir!

Brand Hauser: I feel...

GuideStar: Go on.

Brand Hauser: ...like a refugee from the Island of Dr. Moreau. Some morally inverted, twisted character from a Céline novel. The hot sauce helps.

Natalie Hegalhuzen: [upon hearing an explosion outside] When did they start attacking inside the Emerald City?

Brand Hauser: I wouldn't call that an attack.

[explosion goes off right outside office]

Brand Hauser: Technically, that was a bombing. At least it sounded like it was. Not an attack, which would imply something else.

Brand Hauser: Look, we've already kicked the shit out of this place. What are we supposed to do? Turn our backs on all the entrepreneur possibilities? Business is a uniquely human response to a moral or cosmic crisis. Whether it's a tsunami or a sustained aerial bombardment, there's the same urgent call for urban renewal.

Brand Hauser: We're excited to have you.

Ooq-Mi-Fay Taqnufmini: Don't get too excited.

Brand Hauser: I'm not that excited.

Natalie Hegalhuzen: Tell me about yourself?

Brand Hauser: I'm just doing this gig, trying to make the best of a bad situation, looking for redemption in all the wrong places. Stop me now if I'm rambling.

Natalie Hegalhuzen: Okay, stop.

Brand Hauser: This little Turaqi pop star. She really disturbs me and I can't figure out why.

Yonica Babyyeah: Do you want massage with happy ending?

Brand Hauser: Does your father know that you talk this way?

Brand Hauser: That was beautiful. Have you recorded it yet?

Yonica Babyyeah: Fat fucking chance.

Brand Hauser: Well, you should. I feel like I'm seeing you for the first time.

Yonica Babyyeah: You've seen my ass, and you're not liking it.

Brand Hauser: Why do you do that?

Yonica Babyyeah: Do what?

Brand Hauser: Talk as if you've got no soul.

Yonica Babyyeah: Nobody cares for my beautiful soul. They care for my ass.

Brand Hauser: Please, you sound like a tramp.

Yonica Babyyeah: Bitches rule. Yonica rules. Virgins are good for getting fucked. Right? That is what I'm good for. Right? That's what everybody knows. Hmm?

Brand Hauser: You know what I think? I think the girl who wrote that song is a poet. I thought that song was really great.

Yonica Babyyeah: I'm not from this world. I have special powers. I can see inside people's brains.

Ooq-Yu-Fay Taqnufmini: [referring to son] What if we publicly remove one of his testicles?

Ooq-Mi-Fay Taqnufmini: Dad, please!

Ooq-Yu-Fay Taqnufmini: Shut up.

Brand Hauser: It's not an entirely unappealing suggestion, but I'm not sure if that really gets us where we want to go.

Natalie Hegalhuzen: Don't look at me!

Brand Hauser: I like looking at you.

Brand Hauser: There is a reason why I do this work: I don't have to feel anything.

Yonica Babyyeah: That's so fucked up.

Brand Hauser: [to Walken] It's going to be hard... to torture someone who's mostly dead... but I'm gonna try... to enjoy it.

Brand Hauser: Marsha, get me Katie Couric, Al Jezeera and 100 gallons of sheep shit.

Yonica Babyyeah: Sometimes I think it's better not to feel. Just skip it.

Brand Hauser: How long can you live that way? The poison just holds. It's like a slow motion suicide.

Brand Hauser: You wake up one day and wonder if you have the courage to walk away, to say "No, I won't do that. I'm not that person. I'm not that thing."

Choreographer: Each girl is a transfemoral amputee that lost her leg during the liberation.

Marsha Dillon: And thanks to Tamerlane's cutting edge prosthetic devices, we can literally have you up and dancing before you know it.

Brand Hauser: just another breathtaking example of how American know-how alleviates the suffering it creates.

Marsha Dillon: ...And Coniel Bislan, an M72 rocket-propelled grenade that mistakenly hit her high school.

Brand Hauser: And Tamerlane used the exact same RPG firing pin rod assembly technology that it uses in the prosthetic knees of its dancing legs.

Natalie Hegalhuzen: Talk about vertical integration!

Natalie Hegalhuzen: So you want to seduce the journalist whose politics you despise?

Brand Hauser: How dare you. I have no politics.