How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from North by Northwest.
Quote #4
THORNHILL: If you fellas can't lick the Vandamms without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back alive, maybe you better start learning to lose a few cold wars.
This is the closest anyone in North by Northwest comes to criticizing the Cold War strategies that provide the film with its context. Here Thornhill objects to the extremes that the Professor is using to gain information. But a statement from earlier in the film has already anticipated, and pretty much defused, Thornhill's objection.
Quote #5
REPORTER (in the agency meeting at headquarters): C'est la guerre.
Translation: Such is war. (Think "c'est la vie": that's life.) Some of the Professor's fellow agents—and, later on, Thornhill—object to the ruthlessness of the tactics that he relies on to foil Vandamm and protect the national interest. But for the Professor and his crew it's all in a day's work when you're in the midst of a Cold War.