Arrival (film)

"Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict."

"So, Hannah...This is where your story begins. The day they departed...Despite knowing the journey...and where it leads...I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it."

"I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It does not work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time. By its order...But now Im not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived."

"Michael Stuhlbarg - Agent David Halpern"

"Forest Whitaker - U.S. Army Colonel G. T. Weber"

"Agent Halpern: Were a world with no single leader. Its impossible to deal with just one of us."

"Theres so much we still dont know about heptapods. ("Hepta", seven, and "Pod", foot). The breakthrough came when we realized what a heptapod says, has nothing to do with what a heptapod writes. Unlike all human written language, their writing is symbolic. It conveys meaning, it does not represent sound. Perhaps they view our form of writing as a wasted opportunity, passing every second communications channel. We have our friends in Pakistan to thank for their study on how the heptapods write. Because unlike speech, a logogram is free of time. Like their ship or their bodies. Their written language has no form or no direction. Linguists call this nonlinear orthography. Which raises the question: "Is this how they think?" Imagine you wanted to write a sentence using two hands, starting from either side. Youd have to know each word you wanted to use, as well as how much space they will occupy. A heptapod can write a complex sentence in two seconds effortlessly. It took us a month to make the simplest vocabulary."