Original artwork, not a still
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
— Apocalypse Now · 1979
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Kilgore speaks about destruction as if it were a pleasure of everyday life. The calm familiarity is what makes the line disturbing: it reveals how completely war has distorted his sense of what should be ordinary.
Sources (2)
- AFI100 Movie Quotes, number12; synopsis attributes the remark to Kilgore.Reference checked
- AFI Movie ClubApocalypse Now1979: Robert Duvall’s Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore and selected line.Reference checked
Context reviewed
