Notes from The Matrix

Neo, a younger man who knows more about living inside a computer than living outside one. Rhineheart: You have a problem, Mr. Anderson. You think that you're special. You believe that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken. Morpheus: I had hoped for this conversation to take place under less adverse conditions, but you can never count on hope, can you, Neo? Morpheus: We are trained in this world to accept only what is rational and logical. Have you ever wondered why? Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room. You can see it out your window, or on your television. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Neo: What truth? Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. That you, like everyone else, was borninto into bondage... ... kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Morpheus: Welcome to the real world, Neo. Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain. Morpheus: 'The desert of the real.' Morpheus: All they needed to control this new battery was something to occupy our mind. And so they built a prison out of our past, wired it to our brains and turned us into slaves. Morpheus: I didn't say that it would be easy, Neo. I just said that it would be the truth. Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. Morpheus: If you can free your mind, the body will follow. Morpheus: You are angry with me. Neo: I, uh... maybe. Morpheus: It's all right. It's natural. Neo: I feel better. Morpheus: Good, good. Anger is a gift, Neo, but it's a heavy one. Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You're faster than this. Don't think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me. Neo: I thought it wasn't real. (Neo stares at the blood.) If you are killed in the Matrix, you die here? Morpheus: The body cannot live without the mind. Morpheus: Everyone falls the first time. If you never know failure, how can you know success? Morpheus: I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall; men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air; yet, their strength, and their speed, are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as *you* can be. Cypher: Real is just another four-letter word. Cypher: You know, I know that this steak doesn't exist. I know when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, do you know what I've realized? (Pausing, he examines the meat skewered on his fork. He pops it in, eyes rolling up, savoring the tender beef melting in his mouth.) Cypher: Ignorance is bliss. Spoon boy: Your spoon does not bend because it is just that, a spoon. Mine bends because there is no spoon, just my mind. (Neo watches as it curls into a knot.) Spoon boy: Link yourself to the spoon. Become the spoon and bend yourself. (Neo nods, again holding up his spoon.) Neo: There is no spoon. Right. Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. Agent Smith: Never send a human to do a machine's job. Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was re-designed to this: the peak of your civilization. I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I've realized that you are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. He smiles. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague. And we are... the cure. Neo: I may not be what Morpheus thinks I am, but if I don't try to help him, then I'm not even what I think I am. Trinity: What are you? Neo: His friend. Trinity: No one has ever done anything like this. Neo: Yeah? That's why it's going to work. Morpheus: It doesn't matter if I don't believe you. What matters is that you don't believe her. Trinity: Morpheus is right, you know. It doesn't matter what he believes or even what the Oracle believes. What matters is what you believe. Neo: I know you're real proud of this world you've built, the way it works, all the nice little rules and such, but I've got some bad news. I've decided to make a few changes . Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you. Boy: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy: What? Boy: That man! That man flies! Mommy: Don't be silly, honey. Men don't fly.