How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Quote #7
MUFFLEY: Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. (laughs) Now then, Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now, what happened is that one of our base commanders did a silly thing. He, uh, went a little funny in the head. You know, funny. He ordered our planes to attack your country. …Let me finish, Dimitri.
The fact that Merkin and Dimitri seem to be on such a friendly basis is pretty funny when you consider how incredibly tense things were between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. We wonder if Kennedy and Khrushchev ever had any chummy chats like this. One reviewer commented that Muffley was talking in the same tone of voice as "a man whose wife has just backed the car ranch wagon into a neighbor's prize hydrangea." (Source)
Quote #8
MUFFLEY: I'm sorry too, Dimitri. I'm very sorry. All right! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, all right? All right.
We just had to include this chunk—one of our faves. Muffley and Kissov can't even seem to agree on who's sorrier about the whole thing. Kubrick uses this kind of absurd dialogue to represent the larger absurdities of the arms race. They're arguing about remorse when meanwhile, the bombs are about to drop.
Quote #9
TURGIDSON: Ambassador, I mean, you take your average Russkie, we all know how much guts he's got. Hell, lookit look at all them the Nazis killed off and they still wouldn't quit.
This might be the only compliment that Turgidson gives to the "Russkies" for the entire movie. The one thing that America and the U.S.S.R. can agree on is that the Nazis were definitely bad guys. Of course, it didn't take long for the WWII alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to dissolve after Hitler was defeated.