Contact (1997)

Tom Skerritt: David Drumlin

Photos 

Quotes 

• David Drumlin : I know you must think this is all very unfair. Maybe that's an understatement. What you don't know is I agree. I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world.

  Ellie Arroway : Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it.

• Rachel Constantine : [about Adolf Hitler]  Twenty million people died defeating that son of a bitch, and he's our first ambassador to outer space?

  Ellie Arroway : Actually the Hitler broadcast from the...

  David Drumlin : [interrupting]  '36 olympics was the first television transmission of any power that went in to space. That they recorded it, and sent it back, is simply their way of saying "hello, we heard you."

  Michael Kitz : Or, "Sieg Heil, you're our kind of people."

• David Drumlin : One... there is intelligent life out there, but you'll never contact it in your lifetime, and two...

  [Ellie starts to speak, he speaks over her] 

  David Drumlin : TWO! There's nothing out there but noble gases and carbon compounds, and you're wasting your time! In the meantime, you won't be published, you won't be taken seriously and your career will be over before it's begun!

  Ellie Arroway : [angrily]  So WHAT? It's MY LIFE!

• Mission Director : [Machine systems integration test: Unusual vibrations are occurring]  David, we're not seeing anything abnormal down here.

  David Drumlin : No good! Hold the sequence. I'm gonna take a direct reading.

  Mission Director : What the hell's he talking about?

  Technician : Can anyone say "grandstanding"?

  2nd Technician : He sure knows *he's* on TV.

  Communications : [heavy Texas accent]  Back home, that's what we call a "overcooked ham".

• [repeated line] 

  David Drumlin : Now at the moment we release the pod, there will be a substantial amount of energy generated in the core. We will be able to monitor the stresses and effects using our robot passenger, who we lovingly call "Elmer".

• David Drumlin : Ellie, still waiting for E.T. to call?

  Ellie Arroway : [calling after him as he walks away]  Nice to see you too!

  [sotto voce] 

  Ellie Arroway : Asshole.