Female in crowd: Those are so fattening.
Tetsuo (1988 Streamline Pictures dub): I... am Tetsuo.
Kei (2001 Pioneer dub): Amoebas don't build houses and bridges, they only eat.
Tetsuo (1988 Streamline Pictures dub): Heh, heh... what's happening to me? I must be dreaming. Bitchin'. I feel like I can take out the world today.
Tetsuo: A fish out of water dies, huh.
Tetsuo: Twin ceramic rotor drives on each wheel! And these look like computer controlled anti-lock brakes! Wow, 200 horses at 12,000 rpm.
Tetsuo (1988 Streamline Pictures dub): Let's run away somewhere. You and me, Kaori.
Kaori: Where would we go?
Tetsuo (1988 Streamline Pictures dub): Anywhere. Just the further the better, huh?
Kaneda (2001 Pioneer dub): What're you gonna do?
Kai (2001 Pioneer dub): I'm gonna send Yamagata his wheels.
Tetsuo (2001 Pioneer dub): Will you return with us?
Colonel (2001 Pioneer dub): Like hell.
Kaneda: He's not your friend, he's ours! If somebody's gonna kill him, it should be us.
Kay: Amoebas don't make motorcycles and atomic bombs.
Kiyoko: It was too difficult for Tetsuo... of course, too difficult for us. And for Akira.
Takashi: We just didn't have the power.
Masaru: But someday we will be.
Takashi: Because it has already begun.
Kiyoko: The future is not a straight line. It is filled with many crossroads. There must be a future that we can choose for ourselves.
Colonel Shikishima: Look at what they abandoned in their panic, they were afraid! They were too scared, so they hid it away from the public. They forgot all shame and honor, cast off the civilization and science we had created, and shut the lid of the Pandora's Box they themselves had opened.
Answer: In effect, it should symbolize (just as the other psionics say) that humanity is not yet ready to control such power; we are mentally not 'mature' enough. And since we are mere 'children', we tend to play with that power without any real sense of responsibility, and before we know it, it goes out of control. In effect, it mirrors the lack of sense that we demonstrate in our real world, with our technical and political power.