Ice Station Zebra Quotes
"His eyes were the coolest, clearest grey I'd ever seen, eyes that he used as a dentist might his probe, a surgeon his lancet or a scientist his electronic microscope."
"Only accredited American nationals are allowed aboard this vessel — and the authority must come from Washington."
"I’m sorry, Dr Carpenter. I can accept neither this telegram as sufficient authorization nor yourself as a passenger."
"The Dolphin was like no submarine that I had ever seen. She was almost perfectly cylindrical in design."
"Who do you think this is — the resident window-cleaner at the Admiralty?"
"As neat a job of corralling as I’ve seen for a long time."
"You wrong us. We’re just three friendly sociable guys carrying out our orders."
"Meteorologists now regard the Arctic and the Antarctic as the two great weather factories of the world."
"He’s got a lot on his mind and far too much to see to."
"We got our own medico on board and he’s no slouch with a stethoscope."
"You must forgive Zabrinski's manners, Dr Carpenter. But he's denied the advantages that the rest of us take for granted."
"I know a little. There’s nothing mysterious or sinister about what I know."
"I can’t afford to have nightmares on this job."
"What you will find there are some of the most highly skilled men in the world."
"If I think it more important that the Dolphin should remain on an active war footing rather than to go haring off on a wild-goose chase to the Arctic, I can countermand the D.N.O.’s orders."
"In the olden submarine days, the atmosphere used to get pretty foul after only a few hours submerged but we have to stay down for months, if necessary."
"There’s a skin of ice on it in five minutes, an inch in an hour, and a foot inside two days."
"I don’t honestly think that there is one member of the crew of the Dolphin who doesn’t get a little bit scared when we move in under the ice."
"We might bump into another submarine. And that would be the end of both of us."
"The biggest danger is surface collision which nearly always happens at the bows."
"Seventy-five feet." The pumps stopped, and water began to flood into the tanks.
"Beautifully done," Swanson said warmly to the diving officer.
"Why doesn’t he blow the main ballast? You’d get a few hundred tons of positive buoyancy in next to no time."
"The pressure hull might take it, I don’t know, but sure as little apples the rudder would be squashed flat as a piece of tin."
"Neither could the Dolphin," Hansen said grimly.
"I didn’t want to spend what little was left of my life travelling in steadily decreasing circles under the ice-cap so I kept quiet."
"Let’s try to give that ice a nudge. Are we slewing?" "Bearing constant."
"A little fresh air, Ellis, don’t you think?" "Right away, sir."
"If there’s anyone left alive there," I said. "There’s that, of course," Swanson said.
"Stiff-necked pride," I said. "I don’t like throwing my hand in on a job before I’ve even started it."
"A gallant attempt, men, but foredoomed to failure."
"Keep your filthy fingers out of that soup and kindly clam up."
"It's not a hand-powered generator, that was destroyed, it's a battery set. The batteries are finished. Completely finished."
"The combined power left in those cells wouldn't light a pencil torch."
"Quietly, without any fighting, without any fuss, we just lie down and die here."
"I'm not my brother's keeper, Doc, but for all that I'll be damned if I let you kill yourself."
"The greatest good of the greatest number, the old yardstick, but there's never been a better one."
"One skilled volunteer for the soup-stirring."
"We just hole up here without making any attempt to help ourselves and the ice-machine remains useless, then we're all dead."
"God this is wonderful, the warmth, the light, the comfort and home sweet home."
"You can’t judge [killers] by normal standards."
"The whole camp seemed to be on fire. When you’re woken up like that at two in the morning, half-blinded, half-asleep and groggy with fumes your mind isn’t at its best."
"People like that never take a chance. They always act on the assumption that they may be found out."
"The truth is, I don’t know what to think any more. How about this cook fellow — Naseby?"
"There may only be one [killer]. If that is so, and I knew who he was, I’d arrest him at once."
"I saw he was heading straight for the door of the radio room... I thought he had gone off his rocker."
"It means that in his left hand he’ll have to get by with two fingers and a thumb for the rest of his life."
"He woke us both, shouting and hammering on the door. If it hadn’t been for him Dr Jolly and I would both have been goners."
"They were uncontrollably on fire because they were saturated by flying oil so the first explosions must have come a long time before then."
"I’d just enough sense left to grab the emergency medical kit that I always kept packed."
"I apologise. You had your reasons, of course."
"The physical and mental recuperative power of homo sapiens, beyond belief at times."
"I might be forced to take the responsibility myself."
"The jury at the Old Bailey will be the best judge of that."
"I had splendid visions of smashing a whole spy ring."
"Fresh air invariably revives people. But not Jolly. He's a special breed."
"Jolly, here, used either ether or chloroform to lay them out."
"It was a pretty small hut and the chloroform or ether fumes had reached and affected Hewson and yourself."
"Jolly knew as well as I did that it was all-important."
"You haven't found out anything that actually matters, but surely you should have found out enough to realize that you are operating out of your class."
"A professional, my dear captain, never gives information about his methods."
"We may have lost out, Carpenter, but we're professionals. We did our job."
"We got it. Ten million pounds couldn't buy that information."
"I'd give a year's salary to see the faces of the men who develop them."
"Like Doc Carpenter, here, I'd give a year's pay to see their faces when they get around to developing those negatives."