Captain Nolan Quotes in Orca (1977)

Rachel: [while listening to Orca's sounds through a hydrophone] What is he saying?

Captain Nolan: You're me, he says... I'm you, he says... you're my... drunk driver... he says...

Rachel: Did I tell you that that animal has a right to be left alone?

Captain Nolan: No, but I have a notion you're about to.

[Captain Nolan has just seen the orca kill a member of his crew after the orca knocked the house into the ocean. He then looks out to the water & sees the killer whale leaping out of the water, breaching]

Captain Nolan: You revengeful sonofabitch! You win!

[the orca keeps breaching, as if taunting Captain Nolan]

Captain Nolan: You want revenge? Well, you'll have it! I'll come out and fight you! You revengeful sonofabitch!

[Nolan's boat, the 'Bumpo', steams out of the little harbor the next morning with the fishermen watching as he goes to fight the orca]

Captain Nolan: Can you commit a sin against an animal?

Priest: Why, you can commit a sin against a blade of grass. Sins are really against oneself.

Captain Nolan: He loved his family... more than I loved mine.

Captain Nolan: [as the harpooned orca screams in pain] He sounds almost human...

Rachel: There's a word for you.

Captain Nolan: And I've been called it. Many times.

Captain Nolan: If you're so sure I can't catch a killer whale, why are you so upset?

Rachel: Listen, you won't catch one, but you might butcher a couple dozen in the attempt!

Captain Nolan: Oh, that's not my style at all.

Captain Nolan: I won't fight him at all.

Rachel: But you'll murder him - you'll sit here safe on the jetty, and shoot him through the eye? You're not a man, you're an animal! Its creatures like you science should be observing!

Captain Nolan: I brought this gun to shoot him. Yes, yes I did. But I knew when it came time to do it, I couldn't do it. So I got to thinking and I thought, Well if what-if what you say is right. That whales can communicate. Then I thought I'd look at him. Right in the eye. And I'd tell him the killing of his wife and his child was a terrible accident. That I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I'd tell him that I was sorry. I hope he'd forgive me.