Jeffrey Goines: ...and if you forget one thing, I will have you shaved, sterilized, and destroyed.
Wallace: Hey... is that the cops? I'm an innocent victim in here! I was attacked by a coked up whore and a - a fuckin' crazy dentist.
Jeffrey Goines: All the doors are locked too. They're protecting the people on the outside from us from the people on the outside who are as crazy as us.
James Cole: Look at them. They're just asking for it. Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.
Jeffrey Goines: Wiping out the human race? That's a great idea. That's great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Cassandra in Greek legend, you recall, was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.
James Cole: She's not honey babe, she's a doctor. My psychiatrist. Understand?
Charlie the Hotel Clerk: Whatever gets it up for you, Jack.
Jeffrey Goines: Why don't we forget about my psychiatrist and concentrate on the task at hand?
James Cole: This is a place for crazy people. I'm not crazy.
Dr. Owen Fletcher: We don't use the term "crazy," Mr. Cole.
James Cole: Well, you've got some real nuts here.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Wh-wh-where are we going?
James Cole: Philadelphia.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: That's more than a hundred miles! We can't.
James Cole: That's why I can't walk there.
Jeffrey Goines: My father's going to be very upset when he hears about this! And when my father gets upset, the ground shakes.
Jeffrey Goines: You are a total nutcase, completely deranged, delusional, paranoid. Your thought process is all fucked up. Your information train is jammed, man.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: You had a bullet from World War I in your leg, James! How did it get there?
Jeffrey Goines: There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion.
James Cole: All I see are dead people.
James Cole: I am insane. And you are my insanity.
James Cole: Oh, wouldn't it be great if I was crazy? Then the world would be okay.
Dr. Leland Goines: My God, Jeffrey. You truly are insane.
Jeffrey Goines: No I'm not.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: What is the matter with your leg?
James Cole: Got shot.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: Shot! Who shot you?
James Cole: I don't know. It was some kind of war. Never mind. You wouldn't believe me anyway.
Louie: Where'd they send you?
James Cole: 1990.
Louie: '90! How was it? Good drugs? Lots of pussy? Hey, Bob, you do the job? You find out the big info? Army of the 12 Monkeys?
James Cole: I was supposed to be 1996.
Louie: Science ain't an exact science with these clowns but, they're getting better. You're lucky you didn't end up in ancient Egypt.
Dr. Owen Fletcher: Kathryn, you're a rational person. You're a trained psychiatrist. You know the difference between what's real and what's not.
Dr. Kathryn Railly: And what we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. Right, Owen? I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.
Answer: It is meant to draw similarities between the treatment of the mentally ill and convicted felons. Quite often, even today, the mentally ill are housed and treated in facilities that are little better (for quality of life or prospects of rehabilitation) than prisons.