- First Private: [watching Quatermass examine the capsule] What's the boffin up to?
- Cpl. Gibson: Gonna open it up with his little pocket knife.
- Sladden: What's in behind here? Anything dangerous?
- Prof. Quatermass: Probably not.
- Sladden: Ah, it's all right, I'm insured.
- [to Breen]
- Sladden: Are you insured sir? It's a good thing to be insured, at least it cheers you up.
- [discussing the fossils Roney discovered]
- Prof. Quatermass: Well if you're wrong it won't matter.
- Dr. Matthew Roney: No. I'll just retire. They'll stick me alongside the Piltdown forgeries as a horrid warning.
- The Minister: Do you know what you're implying? That we owe our human condition to the intervention of insects.
- Sladden: Yeah, I reckon this'll cut through pretty well anything that exists. I did steel armor plate with it six inches thick, just like that! Oh, it was legal. Bloke shut in a strong room, I got him out. Secret job, like this one.
- Col. Breen: Then I'm glad you don't talk about it.
- First Journalist: Odd idea, this, calling a press conference.
- Second Journalist: What's odd about it?
- Third Journalist: I run from one to another.
- First Journalist: I take it you're the popular press.
- Third Journalist: Evening Gazette. What do you represent?
- First Journalist: The Palaeontologist.
- Third Journalist: [confused] Pal-?
- First Journalist: Ah. Not heard of it. It's a foremost scientific journal. The man you're going to interview is a palaeontologist.
- Third Journalist: Oh, this Roney. He's Canadian, isn't he?
- First Journalist: Possibly.
- Dr. Roney: [speaking at a press conference about the fossil apemen] We need time to do our work properly and I'm afraid we're not going to get it. The owners of the site want to get on with their building - now that's natural enough - and they're pressing us to get out.
- Museum Official: Uh, that was confidential.
- Dr. Roney: Oh. All right, please keep it off the record gentlemen that they're trying to kick us out.
- Dr. Roney: [describing the ape men] He wasn't very tall. He had the face of an ape, but he had a big brain. And he stood like a man.