Maj. Warden Quotes in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Maj. Warden: You'll go on without me. That's an order. You're in command now, Shears.

Commander Shears: You make me sick with your heroics! There's a stench of death about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy a bridge or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this war! You and Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind, crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman, how to die by the rules - when the only important thing is how to live like a human being!... I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together.

Maj. Warden: [to Col. Green] Sir, it's most annoying. They say, in view of the time element, they don't think a few practice jumps would be worthwhile.

Major Shears: No?

Maj. Warden: No, they say if you make one jump, you've only got 50% chance of injury, two jumps, 80%, and three jumps, you're bound to catch a packet. The consensus of opinion is that the most sensible thing for Major Shears to do is to go ahead and jump, and hope for the best.

Major Shears: With or without a parachute?

Maj. Warden: I belong to a rather rum group called Force 316. Our headquarters is up in the botanical gardens.

Commander Shears: Protecting rare plants from the enemy?

Maj. Warden: [lowering binoculars] Kill him... Kill him!

Major Shears: [screaming] KILL HIM! KILL HIM!