- Robert 'Tank' Winsley: I just don't understand how puppets can live.
- Jane Magrew: You know, Robert, I don't understand how anything can be alive. A man, a tree, a fish, but, you know, I guess when the miracle is commonplace enough, people just don't question it.
- Jane Magrew: [to Robert] Brains are the most overrated organ that there is. You know, college is full of kids with brains who will never amount to anything. They'll never be worth a damn. You know, Robert, there's a way of being smart that doesn't have anything to do with brains. Like you. You've got woodsman in your hands. Don't you understand? Your hands can do things that people with brains only dream of.
- [last lines]
- Jane Magrew: Oh, my God! Oh, my God, what have you done?
- Dr. Magrew: [pointing at puppet-Robert] You see? I did it, I did it.
- Jane Magrew: Robert, no!
- [Robert attacks]
- Dr. Magrew: [screams loudly]
- Jane Magrew: No!
- Dr. Magrew: Perfection. We're trying to create perfection. Take a look at Blade over there. He never tires, never hungers, knows no fear, tells no lies, feels no pain, has no secrets. And what is man, except at being at war with himself? But not Blade, mmm-mmm. He has no hidden motives, no secret self. He's purely and perfectly what he is. In fact, I think the world would be a better place if we were all like him.
- Jane Magrew: But he doesn't talk.
- Dr. Magrew: Which only supports my position.
- Dr. Magrew: You want to know the secret of how to make a dead thing live? You put your soul into it. You put everything you have into this carving, and you have my word, it will live.
- Dr. Magrew: You wanna know why you're unhappy, Robert?
- Robert 'Tank' Winsley: Sir?
- Dr. Magrew: You're at war with yourself. You do your best on the outside to be this meek, gentle boy, but you're different on the inside.
- Robert 'Tank' Winsley: Yes, sir, I guess I am.
- Dr. Magrew: There's another self inside. A truer, more natural self. A creature of violence with no fear, with no conscience. A killer. You spend your whole life battling the self that lives inside. And what happened today, though just for a moment, you lost that battle. The real you, the true you came out.
- [first lines]
- Dr. Magrew: [to the puppets] Don't look at me that way. You know this isn't what I intended. It'll be different next time. You'll see. I swear. It'll be different.