Lord of War (2005) - Quotes

Father Orlov: [Referring to Jewish hat] I like it. I like the hat to remind us there is something above us. I like that. I'm going to temple.

Agent Jack Valentine: [to Yuri Orlov] You get rich by giving the poorest people on the planet the means to continue killing each other. Do you know why I do what I do? I mean, there are more prestigious assignments. Keeping track of nuclear arsenals, you'd think that more critical to world security, but it's not. No, nine out of ten war victims today are killed with assault rifles and small arms like yours. Those nuclear missiles, they sit in their silos. Your AK-47, that is the real weapon of mass destruction.

Yuri Orlov: [last lines] You know who's going to inherit the Earth? Arms dealers, because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war, especially with yourself.

Yuri Orlov: Most people are happy just to get out of jail. I expect to be paid to leave. I'm not a fool. I know that just because they needed me that day didn't mean they wouldn't make me a scapegoat the next. But I was back, doing what I do best.

Yuri Orlov: Where there's a will, there's a weapon.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:developing country|developing countries] Thank God there are still legal ways to exploit ]. The only problem with an honest buck is they're so hard to make. The margins are too low. Too many people are doing it.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:The Balkans|the Balkans] Truce? What do you mean, truce? The guns are already on their way. Peace talks? All right, forget it. I'll reroute the shipment to ]. When they say they're going to have a war, they keep their word!

Yuri Orlov: [[Evil] They say, "] prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Merchants of death|I was an equal opportunity merchant of death; [w:Salvation Arm|the Salvation Army; [Israel|Israeli; [W:Uzi|Uzis; [w:Islam|Muslims; [Communism|Communist; [Fascism|Fascists; [Afghanistan; [w:Demographics of Soviets|my fellow Soviets; [Osama bin Laden] ]. I supplied everyone but ]. I sold ]-model ] to ]. I sold ]-made bullets to ]. I even shipped cargo to ] when they were fighting ]. I never sold to ] — not on any moral grounds. Back then he was always bouncing checks.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Heathrow Airport|Heathrow Airport; [w:Quakers|Quakers] What a cargo crew at ] does in a day took a bunch of malnourished Sierra Leonean locals ten minutes. By the time Agent Valentine got there, you could find more guns on a plane full of ].

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Liberia|Liberia; [w:Sierra Leone|Sierra Leone; [w:Ivory Coast|the Ivory Coast] I was now the best merchant of death alive. I didn't own my own plane; I owned a fleet running guns into ], ], or ] at least once a week. Most trips I had phony paperwork. If the deadline was tight and I had to cut corners, I had no paperwork at all, but I wasn't overly concerned. There was hardly any radar over most of Africa and even fewer people to watch it.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Blood diamond|Conflict diamonds; [w:West Africa|West Africa] ] are a common currency in ], also referred to as "blood diamonds" since bloodshed is what they generally finance. By the late 90s, my wealth had caught up to my lies about my wealth, even surpassed my lies. I could even afford to become a patron of the arts.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:HIV/AIDS in Africa|In the most AIDS-infested region of the globe, where one in four is infected.; [w:condom|condom] ] Andre's idea of a joke was to put a young Iman and a young Naomi in my bed. And no ] within 100 miles.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Monrovia|Monrovia] ] itself was like being on a new planet. Planet Monrovia. From the temperature, it was obviously planet close to the sun I rarely saw another white man. And, I never left town alone. Outside town was hell of the edge of hell. I didn't want to even gaze into it.

Yuri Orlov: President Baptiste was my best customer, but I was in no hurry to meet him. He got the reputation for routinely hacking of the limbs those who opposed him. His seven years of civil war has been described as a relentless campaign of sadistic wanton violence. That kind of sums up Andy for me.

Yuri Orlov: It's not our fight.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Africa|Africa] After the wall came down, thirty two billion dollars worth of arms were stolen and resold from Ukraine alone — one of the greatest heists of the twentieth century. The primary market was ]: eleven major conflicts involving twenty three countries in less than a decade. a gunrunner's wet dream. At the time the West couldn't care less. They had a white war in what was left of Yugoslavia. I did the bulk of my business in Liberia — "land of the free" — originally established as a homeland for freed American slaves and has been enslaved by one dictator after another since then. The latest dictator is American-educated self-declared president Andre Baptiste Sr.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Cold War|the Cold War; [w:Guided missiles|Guided missiles; [w:Rocket (weapon)|Unguided missiles; [w:Mortar (weapon)|mortars; [w:landminer|mines; [w:Armored personnel carrier|armored personnel carriers; [w:Battletank|whole tank divisions] The end of ] was beginning of the highest time in arms dealing. The arms bazaar was open: ], ], ], ], ], ].

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Bulgaria|Bulgaria; [w:Hungary|Hungary; [w:Poland|Poland; [w:Belarus|Belarus; [Soviet Union|Soviet; [AK-47; [w:Child soldier|and they do; [w:Mozambique|Mozambique; [w:Flag of Mozambique|their flag; [w:Cold War|Cold War; [w:vodka|vodka; [w:caviar|caviar; [w:suicide|suicidal; [w:Automotive industry in Russia|no one was lining up to buy their cars] The problem with gun-runners going to war is that there's no shortage of ammunition. This was the chaos that the Old Guard had always feared. As far as they were concerned, I was giving arms dealers a bad name. But they could hardly report me to the Better Business Bureau. And Ukraine wasn't the only former state with an unpaid army and stockpiles of guns. There was ], ], ], ] all there for the taking. Of all the weapons in the vast ] arsenal nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947, more commonly known as the ], or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple nine pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It will shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy even a child can use it, ]. The Soviets put the gun on a coin, ] put it on ]. Since the end of the ], the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes ], ], and ] novelists. One thing is for sure: ].

Yuri Orlov: I don't know what was going through Vitaly's head that day. What I do know is that Vitaly broke the cardinal rule of gun-running: never pick up a gun and join the customers.

Yuri Orlov: [[W:Arms dealing|gun-running; [w:Offshore bank|offshore account] The first and most important rule of ] is: never get shot with your own merchandise. The second rule of gun-running is: always ensure you have a foolproof way to get paid, preferably in advance, ideally to an ]. That is why I choose my customers so carefully. Say what you like about warlords and dictators. They tend to have a highly developed sense of order. They always pay their bills on time.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:video camera|a video camera; [w:bazooka|a bazooka; [w:Prehistoric warfare#Paleolithic|The earliest human skeletons had spearheads in their rib cages] Fortunately, back then ] was a big as ]. Here, I've been running away from violence my whole life, and I should've run towards it. It's in our nature. ].

Yuri Orlov: [[w:9 mm caliber|9 mm; [w:hollow points|hollow points; [w:Magazine (firearms)|20, 25-round extendable mags; [w:Iron sights|rear-flip adjustable sights; [w:Silencer (firearms)|Silencer; [w:recoil|recoil; [w:Magazine (firearms)|a mag; client points Uzi at Yuri's chest] Gentlemen, the new Uzi machine pistol. Big firepower in a small package. This little baby uses ] ], ], ]. ] comes standard. Excellent ] reduction, muzzle jump reduced forty percent, sixty percent improved noise suppression. You could pump ] into me right now and never wake the guy in the next room. Of course, that would eliminate your opportunity for repeat business.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Virginity|have sex for the first time] The first time you sell a gun is a lot like the first time you ]. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing, but it is exciting and one way or another it's over way too quick.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:sabbath|The next sabbath; [w:Yahweh|God; [w:synagogue|synagogue; [w:Defense industry of Israel|Israeli-made; [w:Uzi|Uzi; [w:submachine gun|submachine gun] ], I went to temple with my father. However, it wasn't ] I was trying to get close to. My contact at ] landed my first ] ] ].

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Maslow's hierarchy of needs|fulfilling another basic human need] Growing up in Little Odessa, murder was in everyday part of life. Russian mobsters had also migrated from the Soviet Union and when they came to America, their baggage came with them. There is always some gangster getting whacked in my neighborhood, but I have never seen with my own eyes. I had the knack of showing up five minutes before something went down or five minutes after, not that day. It hit me. It couldn't have hit me harder if I was the one who was shot. You go into the restaurant business because people are always going to have to eat. That was the day I realized my destiny laying for ].

Yuri Orlov: [[w:Jewface|He was more Jewish than most Jews; [w:Roman-Catholic|Catholicism] My father took his assumed identity to heart. ]. Which drove my ] mother crazy.

Yuri Orlov: That's Vitaly, my younger brother. He was as lost as me. He just didn't know it yet.

Yuri Orlov: [[w:United States of America|America; [w:Ukrainians|Ukrainians; [w:Brighton Beach|Brighton Beach; [w:Black Sea|the Black Sea; [w:Little Odessa|Little Odessa; [w:Q train (New York City Subway service)|the Q train; [w:20th century|20th century; [w:History of the Jews in the Soviet Union|But in the '70s, to escape the Soviet Union, our family pretended to be Jewish; [w:kosher|kosher] You don't have to worry. I'm not gonna tell you a pack of lies to make me look good. I'm just gonna tell you what happened. My name is Yuri Orlov. When I was a boy, my family came to the ], but not all the way. Like most ], we congregated in ]. It reminded us of ]. I soon realized we'd just swapped one hell for another. Even in hell, an angel sometimes makes an appearance. I'd worshipped Ava Fontaine since I was 10 years old. Of course, she didn't know I existed. I was starting to think she had a point. For the first twenty-odd years of my life, ] was to me what it is to ]: the end of the line. Oh, I did lie about my name. It's not really Yuri Orlov. There have been few occasions in the ] when it's been an advantage be a Jew. ]. Little about my life has been ] ever since.

Yuri Orlov: [[Firearm|firearms] There are over 550 million ] in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: how do we arm the other eleven?