Harry Dalton: My 9th grade science teacher always said that if you put a frog in boiling hot water, it would jump out. But put it in cold water, and heat it up gradually, it would slowly boil to death.
Nancy: What's that Harry? Your recipe for frog soup?
Harry Dalton: It's my recipe for a disaster.
Harry Dalton: I've always been better at feeling out volcanoes than people and politics.
Harry Dalton: Get the hell out of there now, before it's too late.
Greg: It's coffee time! Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee! Cappuccino, java, YES.
Harry Dalton: Her name was Marianne. We worked together. She loved volcanoes.
Paul Dreyfus: We're picking up some activity around Dante's Peak.
Harry Dalton: This is a joke right? Dante's Peak?
Rachel: A man who looks at a rock must have a lot on his mind.
Terry, usgs Crew: The doctor said I can get out of the hospital as soon as they make sure that my head's OK.
Nancy: OK, see you in 10 years man.
Rachel: Do you have a family?
Harry Dalton: No.
Rachel: Why not?
Harry Dalton: Well, for one thing, I move around alot. Mexico, Alaska, South America, The Philippines, New Guinea, basically where there's a volcano with an attitude.
Harry Dalton: I move around a lot: Colombia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Mexico, New Zealand, New Guinea... wherever there's a volcano with an attitude.
Paul Dreyfus: Harry, listen... for what it's worth... you were right and I was wrong.
Answer: Because the character is written to be the stereotypical antagonist whose sole purpose is to create the obligatory plot conflict. This was such a silly, unrealistic, and all-around bad movie, that the two-dimensional villain guy fits right in. I live in Washington and remember when Mt. St. Helen's erupted. Dante's Peak, which was based on it, was nothing like the real-life event.
raywest ★