Captain Nolan: He loved his family... more than I loved mine.
Umilak: The world has changed. Even our gods dance to a new song.
Rachel: He deliberately left you your boat because he wants to fight you alone on the sea.
Rachel: There's a word for you.
Captain Nolan: And I've been called it. Many times.
Rachel: I'd insisted on leaving South Harbor with them. I told myself that somehow I was responsible for Nolan's state of mind. That I had filled his head with romantic notions about a whale capable not only of profound grief, which I believed, but also of calculated and vindictive actions, which I found hard to be believe, despite all that had happened.
Captain Nolan: Can you commit a sin against an animal?
Priest: Why, you can commit a sin against a blade of grass. Sins are really against oneself.
Rachel: He followed you. He saw you on the deck of the boat.
Rachel: Their sonar is like X-ray vision. If we could see in each other if someone was happy or sad, indifferent or aroused, healthy or suffering from a tumor, it would be meaningless to say, How are you? What we call language they might call unnecessary, or retarded.
Captain Nolan: I brought this gun to shoot him. Yes, yes I did. But I knew when it came time to do it, I couldn't do it. So I got to thinking and I thought, Well if what-if what you say is right. That whales can communicate. Then I thought I'd look at him. Right in the eye. And I'd tell him the killing of his wife and his child was a terrible accident. That I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I'd tell him that I was sorry. I hope he'd forgive me.
Rachel: Did I tell you that that animal has a right to be left alone?
Captain Nolan: No, but I have a notion you're about to.
Rachel: With the growing cold came a growing quiet. From the crew, from Nolan, everything.It was numbing like the chill, and palpable.
Rachel: You're planning to capture and sell a fellow creature! He's like you - he has warm blood, he breathes air, he's a mammal, but with intelligence.
