Kurtz: I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to innoculate the children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgement... without judgement. Because it's judgement that defeats us.

Willard: My mission is to make it up into Cambodia. There's a Green Beret Colonel up there who's gone insane. I'm supposed to kill him.
Chef: That's typical. Shit. Fuckin' Vietnam mission. I'm short and we gotta go up there so you can kill one of our own guys? That's fuckin' great! That's just fuckin' great. Shit. That's fuckin' crazy. I thought you were going in there to blow up a bridge, or some fucking railroad tracks or somethin'.

Kilgore: How're you feeling, Jimmy?
Door Gunner: Like a mean motherfucker, sir!

Roxanne: There are two of you. One that kills and one that loves.

[The boat has arrived at the Do Lung bridge, which is a combat zone.]
Chef: Lance, hey Lance. What do you think?
Lance: It's beautiful.
Chef: What's the matter with you? You're acting kinda weird.
Lance: Hey, you know that last tab of acid I was saving? I dropped it.
Chef: You dropped acid? .. Far out.

Willard: The crew were mostly kids. Rock & rollers with one foot in their grave.

Willard: They'd traded in their horses for helicopters, and went tear-assing around 'Nam looking for the shit...

Willard: Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.

Hubert: You are fighting for the biggest nothing in history.

Roxanne: Do you know why you can never step into the same river twice?
Willard: Yeah, 'cause it's always moving.

Roxanne: The war will still be here tomorrow.

[dicussing France's military mistakes in Indochine]
Member of dinner party: You can win. Learn from our mistakes.