“SAITO: Care for a lift, Mr. Cobb?COBB: (jumping in) What brings you to Mombasa, Mr. Saito?SAITO: I have to protect my investment.Eames stands on pavement. The car pulls up. Cobb beckons from the rear window. Eames looks at Saito. Back to Cobb.EAMES: This your idea of losing a tail?COBB: (shrugs) Different tail.”
“COBB: What do you want from us? SAITO: Inception. Arthur raises his eyebrows. Cobb is poker-faced. SAITO: Is it possible? ARTHUR: Of course not. SAITO: If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one there instead? ARTHUR: Okay, here's planting an idea: I say to you, "Don't think about elephants." (Saito nods) What are you thinking about? SAITO: Elephants. ARTHUR: Right. But it's not your idea because you know I gave it to you. SAITO: You could plant it subconsciously- ARTHUR: The subject's mind can always trace the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake. COBB: No, it isn't. SAITO: Can you do it? COBB: I won't do it. SAITO: In exchange, I'll give you the information you were paid to steal. COBB: Are you giving me a choice? Because I can find my own way to square things with Cobol. SAITO: Then you do have a choice. COBB: And I choose to leave.”
“EAMES: There's a man here. Yusuf. He formulates his own versions of the compound.COBB: Let's go see him.EAMES: Once you've lost your tail.(Cobb reacts)Back by the bar, blue tie. Came in about two minutes after we did.COBB: Cobol Engineering?EAMES: They pretty much own Mombasa.Cobb glances over the balcony. COBB: Run interference. We'll meet downstairs in half an hour.EAMES: Back here?COBB: Last place they'd expect.Eames downs his drink. Rises. Walks over to the Businessman.EAMES: Freddy!The Businessman looks up, awkward.EAMES: Freddy Simmonds, it is you!Cobb nonchalantly SLIPS over the balcony DROPPING HARD into the midst of the crowd on the street below.EAMES: (looks harder) Oh. No, it isn't.The Businessman looks past Eames but Cobb has vanished.”
“ARTHUR: It'd have to be a 747.COBB: Why?ARTHUR: On a 747 the pilots are up above, first class is in the nose so nobody walks through the cabin. We'd have to buy out the whole cabin, and the first class flight attendant-SAITO: We bought the airline.Everyone turns to Saito.SAITO: It seemed... neater.”
“Mr Cobb was my escort. Such a nice escort, Mr Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten - when Larry Cobb was sober.”
“Cobb was in a Klan group back in the 60's, and told me stories about how they used to throw live 'coons, possums, porcupines, or ganders into Black houses at night in attempts to run them out of Johnston and Harnett County. Cobb said that late one night, he and three or four other local rednecks snuck up on the house of one Black family, peered through the window and saw a huge Black woman sitting in front of a TV watching Gunsmoke, with a gang of children all around her.The window was open and Cobb threw a live possum in her lap. Cobb said she squalled about the loudest and longest he'd ever heard, and jumped about four feet up in the air. Cobb then ran and jumped into a nearby ditch to observe what would happen next, and it wasn't long before they saw the Black woman bust out of the back door and run across a cotton field with a trail of children behind. Cobb said she was as wide as three rows of cotton, but fast and agile. She outran all the young'uns. ”