James Cole: "Oh, wouldn't it be great if I was crazy? Then the world would be okay."

Memorable lines from Twelve Monkeys courtesy of Wikiquote :

Dr. Peters: I think, Dr. Railly, you have given your "alarmists" a bad name. Surely there is very real and very convincing data that the planet cannot survive the excesses of the human race: proliferation of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding habits, the rape of the environment, the pollution of land, sea, and air. In this context, isn't it obvious that "Chicken Little" represents the sane vision and that Homo Sapiens' motto, "Let's go shopping!" is the cry of the true lunatic?


Jeffrey Goines: There's the television. It's all right there — all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive any more. We don't make things any more. It's all automated. What are we for, then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally ill. Fact, Jim, fact: if you don't buy things — toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, servo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers...


L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.
Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L.J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.
L.J. Washington: Don't mock me, my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?


James Cole: It's just like what's happening with us, like the past. The movie never changes. It can't change; but every time you see it, it seems different because you're different. You see different things.


James Cole: This is a place for crazy people. I'm not crazy.
Dr. Peters: We don't use the term "crazy," Mr. Cole.
James Cole: Well, you've got some real nuts here.