Quotes from The Matrix:

Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question, Neo. It's the question that drives us. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

Morpheus: Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Agent Smith: We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
He does.

Neo tries a drink made by Dozer and winces.
Cypher: Good shit, huh? It's good for two things: degreasing engines and killing brain cells.

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.

Morpheus: What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

Morpheus: You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth.

Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.

Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You've never used them before.

Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor.
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry--
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?

Oracle: You're cuter than I thought. I can see why she likes you.
Thomas "Neo" Anderson: Who?
Oracle: Not too bright, though.

Agent Smith: Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.

Cypher: I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?

Morpheus: The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location.
Neo: What does that mean?
Cypher: It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.

Morpheus: Stop trying to hit me and hit me!

Agent Smith: Never send a human to do a machine's job.

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

Trinity: My name's Trinity.
Neo: *The* Trinity? Who cracked the IRS d-base?
Trinity: That was a long time ago.
Neo: Jesus...
Trinity: What?
Neo: I just thought... you were a guy.
Trinity: Most guys do.

Morpheus: The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Tank: So what do you need? Besides a miracle.
Neo: Guns. Lots of guns.

Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: I know. That's why it's going to work.

Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Rhineheart: You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson.

Agent Smith: It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

Neo: I know kung fu.

Morpheus: How did I beat you?
Neo: You... you're too fast.
Morpheus: Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? Do you think that's air you're breathing now?

Lieutenant: I think we can handle one little girl. I sent two units, they're bringing her down now.
Agent Smith: No lieutenant, your men are already dead.

Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?

Trinity: Please Neo, you have to trust me.
Neo: Why?
Trinity: Because you have been down there Neo, you know that road, you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be.

Morpheus: I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.

Morpheus: What is "real"? How do you define "real"?

Morpheus: Welcome to the desert of the real.

Neo: You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming?
Choi: All the time. It's called mescaline, it's the only way to fly.

Tank: Here you go, buddy; "Breakfast of Champions."
Mouse: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs.
Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of snot.
Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?
Switch: No, but technically, neither did you.
Mouse: That's exactly my point. Exactly! Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything!

Neo: Mr. Wizard! Get me the hell out of here!

Agent Smith: I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.

Mouse: To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.

Takes a bite of steak

Morpheus: You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.

Cypher: I'm tired, Trinity. Tired of this war, tired of fighting... I'm tired of the ship, being cold, eating the same goddamn goop everyday...

Neo: Am I dead?
Morpheus: Far from it.

Neo: What are you doing?
Trinity: I'm going with you.
Neo: No you're not.
Trinity: No? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe if you are really serious about rescuing him, you are going to need my help. And since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it... I believe you can go to hell. Because you're not going anywhere else. Tank, load us up.

Opening lines. Phone rings.
Cypher: Yeah?
Trinity: Is everything in place?
Cypher: You weren't supposed to relieve me.
Trinity: I know, but I felt like taking a shift.
Cypher: You like him, don't you? You like watching him.
Trinity: Don't be ridiculous.
Cypher: We're gonna kill him. You understand that?
Trinity: Morpheus believes he is the one.
Cypher: Do you?
Trinity: It doesn't matter what I believe.
Cypher: You don't, do you?
Trinity: Did you hear that?
Cypher: Hear what?
Trinity: Are you sure this line is clean?
Cypher: Yeah, of course I'm sure.
Trinity: I better go.

Agent Brown: She got out.
Agent Smith: Doesn't matter.
Agent Brown: The informant is real.
Agent Smith: Yes.
Agent Jones: We have the name of their next target.
Agent Brown: The name is Neo.
Agent Smith: We'll need a search running.
Agent Jones: It has already begun.

Choi: Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.
Neo: If you get caught using that...
Choi: I know. This never happened. You don't exist.
Neo: Right.

Neo receives a cell phone in an overnight-mail envelope. As soon as he's holding it, it rings.
Neo: Hello?
Morpheus: Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?
Neo: Morpheus?
Morpheus: Yes. I've been looking for you, Neo. I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you, but unfortunately, you and I have run out of time. They're coming for you, Neo, and I don't know what they're going to do.
Neo: Who's coming for me?
Morpheus: Stand up and see for yourself.
Neo: What, right now?
Morpheus: Yes, now.

• Moss, Carrie-Anne (Trinity) played Liz Teel in the TV series "Matrix" (1993).
• In the first minutes of the film during the scene in which Trinity is chased by one of the agents and she leaps from one house to the next, an advertisement saying "GUNS" can be seen on the second building. The gun pictured in the ad is exactly of the same make and model (Israeli Military Industries' Desert Eagle) as the guns used by all agents during the film.
• In the movie Higher Learning (1995), Fishburne, Laurence's first sentence was: "Welcome to the real world."
• Cypher is a play on the name Lucifer - the devil.
• As Neo runs through the old lady's apartment near the end of the film, we see an image on the TV of a menacing man in a black suit coat. The image is that of one of the Number 2's from the TV show "Prisoner, The" (1967).
• When Neo is calling to get extracted from the Matrix, he says, "Mr. Wizard get me out of here," a reference to the 1960's cartoon Tooter Turtle. Each episode, Tooter would yearn to be something he wasn't and have his friend Mr. Wizard (a lizard) wave his magic wand and make him an astronaut or a scientist or whatever. Inevitably, Tooter would quickly get himself into trouble and call out "Help Mr.Wizard," and the lizard would intone "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for this one to come home." Tooter would be transported back to his old self and be chided by Mr. Wizard to "be happy with what you are."
• The glyphs on the computer screens, with the exception of the call traces, consists of reversed letters, numbers, and Japanese katakana characters.
• All of the references to street corners (e.g. Wells and Lake) are real intersections in Chicago, USA, the Wachowski brothers' hometown. The subway train has signs for "Loop," another Chicago reference. The film however is quite obviously not set in Chicago or any other real city (though it was filmed in Sydney).
• Neo produces a computer disk from a book titled "Simulacra and Simulation," an actual work of critical theory that deals with issues of what is "real" and what is "simulation or simulacra." When Neo opens the book, he opens to the chapter, "On Nihilism."
• Inside the Nebuchadnezzar there is a brief shot of a plaque with the ship's name, above which it says "Mark 3 no. 11." The Biblical verse Mark 3:11 is, "And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out saying, `You are the Son of God.'"
• Check out the room numbers for Trinity and Neo. When the cops bust in on Trinity in the opening scene the number is 303 ("trinity," 3) and since Neo is The One the number of his apartment is 101.
• Almost every line spoken by Neo's "customer" in the beginning of the film ("You're my savior," "You don't exist," etc.) is foreshadowing.
• When Neo is meeting with the Oracle, the music playing in the background in her apartment is Duke Ellington's "I'm Beginning to See the Light," a reference to Neo's continued awakening.
• When the traitor meets with agent "Smith," we learn that his name is Reagan. He says he wants to be someone important, maybe an actor, and that he wants to "remember nothing"! Sound familiar?
• In the Oracle's waiting room, the television is showing white rabbits (which, at the beginning of the film, Neo was instructed to follow) from Night of the Lepus (1972).
• Names of people and objects have historical significance, all related to dreams and illusions. For example, "Morpheus" (film character) was named for the Greek god of sleep and dreams; and "Nebuchadnezzar" (hovercraft in film) was a biblical king who was visited by troubling dreams.
• Neo is an anagram for One.
• Biblical interpretations continue: The name Thomas means "twin", but the apostle Thomas also had the epithet "the Doubter." Thus "Thomas Anderson" could be interpreted as "the doubting Son of Man." Or possibly "twin of the Son of Man," whichever seems more interesting. What earned the apostle this particular epithet was that he allegedly wouldn't believe the resurrection of Christ until he had put his hand into the wound in Christ's side. In the end of the movie, Neo dives hands-first into the side of Smith, who then (violently) sort of turns into Neo. So he put his hand into the side of himself, the Son of Man.
• Coincidentally (or not), Matrix, Trinity, Morpheus, 303 and 101 are all models of music synthesizer (from various manufacturers).
• The license plate number of the Agents' car is 70858. Coincidentally (or not?), Bacon, Kevin's birthday is 7/08/58.
• Other parallels with the life of Christ: Neo taken to a large building and tempted to jump off it; Neo ascending above the street (c.f. Christ's last appearance in the Acts of the Apostles).
• Nebuchadnezzar was a biblical Babylonian king who was instructed by God in dreams to destroy the inhabitants of Jerusalem because they worshipped false prophets.
• When Neo is fleeing from the agents through a marketplace, one of the agents fires at him and misses, exploding a pile of watermelons nearby. This may be an homage to an identical scene in Ghost in the Shell.
• Before filming, the principal actors spent four months with martial arts experts, learning very complicated fight moves.
• The song that Neo wakes up to at the start of the film is "Dissolved Girl" by Massive Attack.
• The number of the phone Trinity was using at the beginning of the movie is 555-0690.
• In Tuskegee Airmen, The (1995) (TV), Fishburne, Laurence also had a crewmember named "Tank."
• Some personal information can be seen on Thomas Anderson's "criminal record" that Agent Smith glances at when he interrogates Neo: - The last update to the file was July 22, 1998 - Neo's date of birth is "March 11, 1962" - Neo's place of birth is "Lower Downtown, Capitol City" - Neo's mother's maiden name is "Michelle McCahey" - Neo's father's name is "John Anderson" - Neo attended "Central West Junior High" and "Sean Paterson High"
• The motorcycle Trinity rides is a jet black Triumph Speed Triple.
• When Neo fights Morpheus in the construct, the three pieces of music that play on the score are termed the "Bow Whisk Orchestra" by composer Don Davis. It consists of a semi-improvisational piece with Asian instruments by Davis, the song "Leave You Far Behind" by Lunatic Asylum, and another piece by Davis called "Switch or Break Show." Both "Bow Whisk Orchestra" & "Switch Or Break Show" are anagrams of "Wachowski Brothers." Also, when Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity return to the building after visiting the Oracle, the piece of music that plays is called "Threat Mix." Later, when in the same building Morpheus fights Agent Smith, the musical piece is called "Exit Mr. Hat." Both "Threat Mix" & "Exit Mr. Hat" are anagrams of "The Matrix."
• The name of the company Neo works for is Metacortex.
• Inside the Matrix, everything has a greenish hue both indoors and out, and the color blue is hard to find.
• Sets from the film Dark City (1998), including rooftops, buildings and others exteriors sets, were used in this film. The rooftops that Trinity runs across at the beginning of the film are the same ones that John Murdoch runs across in Dark City.
• After Neo is "reborn" into the real world and he falls into the sewer, his head goes under the water three times. The traditional baptism requires the head to be cleansed three times for the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
• While interrogating Morpheus, Agent Smith describes the original paradise the machines designed for humanity, and humanity's rebellion against it -- an obvious parallel to the Eden myth.
• The scene in which Neo meets the gifted children in the Oracle's apartment is an homage to the similar scene at the end of Akira (1988). The Wachowski brothers acknowledged the influence of anime films in a brief USA Today interview a few days after the film's release.