66 Greatest Terminator Quotes From the Iconic Franchise
The Terminator is one of the great science fiction movies that changed the careers of director James Cameron and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chock full of action, suspense, thrilling performances, and iconic Terminator quotes, the movie kicked off a long-running franchise, with the latest installment, an animated series, set for release soon.
Released in 1984, the original is about a T-800 cyborg assassin (Schwarzenegger) sent from the future to the present to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the future mother of Resistance leader John Conner. Helping her out is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier sent back in time to protect Sarah.
A surprise hit, the dystopian sci-fi racked in a massive $78.3 million off a budget of just $6.4 million and turned both Cameron and Schwarzenegger into major Hollywood players. The success of The Terminator meant a sequel was inevitable, and in 1991 audiences were blown away by the release of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Affectionately known as T2, the movie flipped the script and cast Schwarzenegger as a good Terminator, this time sent back in time to protect Sarah’s son John. The movie also introduced a new type of Terminator, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), made from liquid metal with the ability to shapeshift into anyone it kills.
The movie was an even bigger success than the first, making between $519–520.9 million and containing some of the most advanced special effects of that time. What’s even more surprising is they still hold up today, with T2 arguably the best movie in the franchise.
Four more films followed–Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation (the only one not to feature Schwarzenegger), Terminator Genisys, and Terminator: Dark Fate–as well as a short-lived TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, focusing on Sarah after the events of T2.
The Terminator franchise is known for its big action setpieces and mind-bending plot lines, but it’s also gifted us some of the greatest movie quotes of all time. From Arnie’s iconic “I’ll be back” to “We are humanity’s last hope,” we’ve collected the best one-liners, monologues, and dialogue exchanges from the five movies as proof The Terminator is a part of the modern pop culture zeitgeist.
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40 Greatest Terminator Quotes From the Iconic Franchise
The Terminator (1984)
1. “The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight…” – Title Card
2. “I’ll be back.” – The Terminator
3. “Come with me if you want to live.” – Kyle Reese
4. “You’re terminated, fucker!” – Sara Connor
5. “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!” – Kyle Reese
6. Cleaning man: “Hey, buddy. You got a dead cat in there, or what?” The Terminator: “Fuck you, asshole!”
7. “Cyborgs don’t feel pain. I do. Don’t do that again.” – Kyle Reese
8. Punk leader: “Nice night for a walk, eh?”
The Terminator: “Nice night for a walk.”
Punk: “Wash day tomorrow? Nothing clean, right?”
The Terminator: “Nothing clean. Right.”
Punk Leader: “Hey, I think this guy’s a couple cans short of a six-pack.”
The Terminator: “Your clothes… give them to me, now.”
Punk Leader: [pulls out a knife] “Fuck you, asshole!”
9. “This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive… to work… loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah… your unborn son.” – Kyle Reese
10. Pawn Shop Clerk: [Sees the Terminator load the shotgun] “You can’t do that.”
The Terminator: “Wrong!” [shoots the clerk]
11. “I’m here to help you. I’m Reese. Sergeant Tech-Com, DN38416. Assigned to protect you. You’ve been targeted for termination.” – Kyle Reese
12. “Machines need love too!” – Ginger Ventura
13. “That son-of-a-bitch took my pants.” – Homeless Man
14. Kyle Reese: “Pain can be controlled–you just disconnect it.”
Sarah Connor: “So you feel nothing?”
15. “The Terminator’s an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it’s a hyper alloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it’s living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood–grown for the cyborgs.” – Kyle Reese
16. “The hardest thing is deciding what I should tell you and what not to. But I guess I’ve got a while yet before you’re old enough to even understand the tapes. They’re more for me at this point just so I can get it straight. Should I tell you about your father? Boy, that’s a tough one. Will it affect your decision to send him here, knowing that he is you father? If you don’t send Kyle, you can never be. God, a person can go crazy thinking about all this… I suppose I will tell you… I owe him that. Maybe it’ll be enough if you know that, in the few hours we had together, we loved a lifetime’s worth.” – Sarah Connor
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
17. “Hasta la vista, baby” – The Terminator
18. “The whole thing goes: The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.” – John Connor
19. “The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope.” – Sarah Connor
20. John Connor: “Jesus! You were going to kill that guy!”
The Terminator: “Of course. I’m a Terminator.”
21. “If a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.” – Sarah Connor
22. “Your foster parents are dead.” – The Terminator
23. John Connor: “We’ve got company! Police!”
Sarah Connor: “How many?”
John Connor: “Uh… all of ’em, I think.”
24. “Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there, and it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.” – Sarah Connor
25. “I know now why you cry, but it’s something I can never do.” – The Terminator
26. “Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you’re so creative. You don’t know what it’s like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction.” – Sarah Connor
27. Dr. Silberman: “You broke my arm!”
Sarah Connor: “There are 215 bones in the human body. That’s one.”
28. “No, no, no. You got to listen to the way people talk. You don’t say ‘affirmative’ or some shit like that. You say, No problemo.’ And if someone comes up to you with an attitude, you say, ‘Eat me.’ And if you want to shine them on, it’s, ‘Hasta la vista, baby.'” – John Connor
29. “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.” – The Terminator
30. John Connor: “What happens to her?”
The Terminator: “Typically, the subject being copied is terminated.”
John Connor: “Shit! Why didn’t you tell me? We gotta go right now!”
The Terminator: “Negative. She’s not a mission priority.”
John Connor: “Fuck you! She’s a priority to me!”
31. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold this.” – Miles Dyson
32. The Terminator: “My mission is to protect you.”
John Connor: “Yeah? Who sent you?”
The Terminator: “You did. Thirty-five years from now, you reprogrammed me to be your protector here, in this time.”
John Connor: “This is deep…”
33. “My CPU is a neural-net processor; a learning computer. The more contact I have with humans, the more I learn.” – The Terminator
34. John Connor: “You just can’t go around killing people.”
The Terminator: “Why?”
John Connor: “What do you mean why? ‘Cause you can’t.”
The Terminator: “Why?”
John Connor: “Because you just can’t, okay? Trust me on this.”
35. “August 29, 1997, came and went. Nothing much happened. Michael Jackson turned 40. There was no Judgment Day. People went to work as they always do. Laughed, complained, watched TV, made love. I wanted to run to through the street yelling to grab them all and say, “Every day from this day on is a gift. Use it well”. Instead, I got drunk.” – Sara Connor
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
36. “The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that. My name is John Connor. They tried to murder me before I was born. When I was 13, they tried again. Machines from the future. Terminators. All my life my mother told me the storm was coming – Judgment Day, the beginning of a war between man and machines. Three billion lives were vanished in an instant. And I would lead what was left of the human race to ultimate victory. It hasn’t happened, no bombs fell, computers didn’t take control. We stopped Judgment Day. I should feel safe. But I don’t. So I live off the grid, no phone, no address. No one and nothing can find me. I’ve erased all connections to the past. But as hard as I try, I can’t erase my dreams. My nightmares.” – John Connor
37. “I’m back.” – The Terminator
38. John Conner: “No, you shouldn’t exist. We took out Cyberdyne over ten years ago. We stopped Judgment Day.”
The Terminator: “You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable.”
39. “Drop dead, you asshole!” – Kate Brewster
40. “You are terminated.” – The Terminator
41. “I like this car.” – T-X
42. The Terminator: “John Conner. It is time.”
John Connor: “You here to kill me?”
The Terminator: “No. You must live.”
43. “Based on your pupil dilation, skin temperature, and motor functions, I calculate an 83% probability that you will not pull the trigger.” – The Terminator
44. “Maybe the future has been written. I don’t know; all I know is what the Terminator taught me; never stop fighting. And I never will. The battle has just begun.” – John Connor
Terminator Salvation (2009)
45. “This is John Connor. If you’re listening to this, you are the resistance. Listen carefully, if we attack tonight, our humanity is lost. Command wants us to fight like machines. They want us to make cold, calculated decisions. But we are not machines! And if we behave like them, then WHAT IS THE *POINT* IN WINNING? Command is going to ask you to attack Skynet. I am asking you not to. If even one bomb drops on Skynet before sunrise, our future will be lost. So please stand down. Give me time to protect the future that all of us are fighting for. This is John Connor.” – John Conner
46. “What is it that makes us human? It’s not something you can program. You can’t put it into a chip. It’s the strength of the human heart. The difference between us and machines.” – Marcus Wright
47. “You and me, we’ve been at war since before either of us even existed. You tried killing my mother, Sarah Connor. You killed my father, Kyle Reese. You will not kill me.” – John Connor
48. Kate Connor: “What should I tell your men when they find out you’re gone?”
John Conner: “I’ll be back.”
49. John Connor: “What are you?
Marcus Wright: “I don’t know.”
50. “Win or lose, this war ends tonight.” – John Connor
51. “You want to know the difference between us and the machines? We bury our dead. But no one is coming to bury you!” – Kyle Reese
52. “There is a storm on the horizon. A time of hardship and pain. This battle has been won, but the war against the machines rages on. Skynet’s global network remains strong, but we will not quit until all of it is destroyed. This is John Connor. There is no fate, but what we make.” – John Connor
Terminator Genisys (2015)
53. “This is the world now. Logged on, plugged in, all the time.” – John Connor
54. “Come with me if you want to live! Now, soldier!” – Sarah Conner
55. Guardian: “Did you mate?”
Sarah Connor: “Oh! Can you just not say the word ‘mate’ to be again, like ever?
56. “And it was over. Skynet was gone. And now one road has become many. Though questions remain, we’ll search for the answers together. But one thing we know for sure. The future is not set.” – Kyle Reese
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
57. Sara Connor: “When this is all over, I am going to kill you.”
The Terminator: “I understand.”
58. “Expect a big ping, brother. My whole body’s a weapon.” – Rev-9
59. “There’s just more to it than picking the right color. It’s the texture, the weight of the material. One wrong choice, it can destroy the look of the entire room. There was this one customer that came to me, he wanted solid-colored drapes in a little girl’s room. I said ‘DON’T DO IT.’ You need butterflies, polka dots, balloons.” – The Terminator
60. Grace: “Why do you care what happens to her?”
Sarah Connor: “Because I was her. And it sucks.”
61. “Once, I saved three billion lives… but I couldn’t save my son. A machine took him from me. And I am terminated.” – Sarah Connor
62. Rev-9: “Why not just let me have her?
Sarah Connor: “Because we’re not machines, you metal motherfucker!”
63. Dani Ramos: “So, you’re Carl?”
The Terminator: “That’s what everyone calls me, yes.”
Sarah Connor: “I’m never going to fucking call you Carl.”
64. “You look terrible.” – The Terminator
65. Sarah Connor: “So you’re here to protect her. What are you? Never seen one like you before. Almost human.”
Grace: “I am human. Just enhanced. You know, increased speed and strength, thorium micro-reactor. Which means I can rip your throat out if you piss me off, so don’t.”
66. “Do you believe in fate, Sarah? Or do you believe we can all change the future every second by every choice that we make? You chose to change the future. You chose to destroy Skynet. You set me free. Now, I’m going to help you protect the girl, because I chose to.” – The Terminator
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