- FBI chief: [addressing Agents Walker and Pirelli] Here's what we do know: their country has fallen to the Commies. Little yellow men are now actively attempting to infiltrate our borders. I think it's time we found out what's going on with our local Chinese... I'm sending you boys to Chinatown!
- Marilyn Song: [Narrating] Chinatown: a land beyond the borders of civilization. Behind the walls of Tong. Just like China, it was a world that was torn in two. A world with its own angels, and its own devils.
- Benny Ying: [meeting with FBI Agents Walker and Pirelli in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown] The business of the Chinese people is business. Who the hell do these Communists think they are to take away business from us? Oh, you tell a Chinese guy, "Here, we put rice in your mouth, now you go and work for the good of your brother." Huh huh. You think that kai-ai is going to even bother to get out of bed in the morning? You take away greed from the Chinese people... you take away everything that makes us great.
- Benny Ying: [pauses, looking intently at Agents Walker and Pirelli] You know, I am not the only one holding these deep philosophies. We want to help you get the Commies!
- FBI chief: Let me tell you something about the Bureau, Agent Walker. You do not spew refuse all over your area, and expect someone else to clean up after you. That's a rule I would've thought you learned in summer camp.
- Agent Kevin David Walker: I didn't attend summer camp, sir.
- FBI chief: [gives him a cold look] We had built a wall, Agent Walker, constructed entirely of the public's faith in our irrefutability. Once you shatter this confidence, standards of law and order disintegrate. Subversive elements exploit the chaos, until this entire nation descends into the jaws of godless anarchy.
- Agent Kevin David Walker: Look. It's complicated. Is it our fault we couldn't find any hard evidence on those Chinamen? The Untouchables - they couldn't find any hard evidence on Capone, but it doesn't mean he wasn't a gangster.
- Dr. "Buck" Meisner: [Agents Byrd and Walker are meeting with a senior campus official] We've always tried to keep the Bureau up to date on potentially troubling elements.
- Agent Byrd: The Bureau appreciates that, Dr. Meisner.
- Dr. "Buck" Meisner: Please, call me "Buck."
- Agent Byrd: We must say though, Buck, that not all of your university colleagues have been similarly forthcoming.
- Dr. "Buck" Meisner: Screw them! You know something? They just want to be popular with the students. Frankly, some of them are not above violating a few... "moral prohibitions" - with undergraduate co-eds.
- Agent Byrd: [pulling out a note pad and pen] That's disgusting. We'd like those names, if possible.
- Dr. "Buck" Meisner: [suddenly becoming a little uneasy] Well... it's all pretty much rumor at this point.
- Agent Byrd: That doesn't preclude it from being fact, Dr. Meisner.
- Agent Kevin David Walker: Are you questioning my professionalism?
- Agent Ron Pirelli: There's never been much to question. I'm handing the case over to Peter Evans and Bert Conway.
- Agent Kevin David Walker: [sarcastically] "Evans and Conway" - you mean the famous comedy team? Huh! They couldn't have got a conviction at the Salem Witch Trials!