"It's a craving that I indulge in. Can't possibly be good for me, but nothing I like is."
As a closeted gay man in the early 1960s, Giles has to speak in a sort of code when flirting with other men to avoid potential homophobic backlash or retaliation. Hence, when he says this line in the pie shop, he seems to be talking about the pies, but is actually alluding to his attraction for the man working the counter. Later, when Giles finally does make his move, he meets the exact homophobic reaction he feared the most.
"I dragged that filthy thing out of the river muck in South America, and along the way we didn’t get to like each other much. You may think that thing looks human, stands on two legs right? But we’re created in the Lord's image. You don’t think that’s what the Lord looks like?"
Playing on the theme of Otherness, Strickland here uses a normative Christian view of the world to justify his brutal treatment of the creature. We never learn exactly why Strickland plucked the creature the Amazon, but we do know they he considers it some dumb beast that he needs the narrowest of justifications for abusing. Yet, how he treats the monster (simply for being different) is not too different from how he treats other lifeforms he considers lower them himself, such as his wife, Dr. Hoffstetler, and Elisa.
"So what if he's alone. We're all alone."
Giles says this to Elisa as he's rebuffing her proposal to save the creature from its certain death at the laboratory. Here, Giles speaks to the deep solitude and sorrow that comes with being an outsider to mainstream American society, and we hear in his voice the ingrained fear and pain that has resulted from his life in that position.
“I think this is some of my best work.”
Something of a comedic catchphrase for Giles, this line gets repeated every time he is admiring something he has made. We first hear it when he's admiring a Jello advertisement he drew, and last hear it when he's looking at an identity card that he forged.
“I’m not a good lier. Except Brewster. It takes a lot of lies to keep a marriage going.”
As one of the central comic characters in the film, Zelda is constantly talking about her rocky, loveless marriage. This line comes when Zelda is implicated in the creature's escape, as she and Elisa are called into Strickland's office for questioning. But what first comes off as a funny line about a broken marriage can in fact be seen as another play on the theme of language and love. In the film, speech and affection are often in tension with one another, and the only real romantic love we see is the speechless one between Elisa and the creature.
“A man has the decency not to fuck up, now that’s one thing. That’s real decent of him. Now the other kind of decency doesn’t really matter. We sell it, but it’s an export. We sell it because we don’t use it.”
If you remember, when watching this film, that del Toro is not an American director but instead a Latin American one, then it becomes clear why he is deeply critical of the American military figures he depicts. In the 1960s, the American military was in the process of destabilizing Latin America's leftist governments to weed out communism in the Western hemisphere and install more pro-capitalist, US-friendly regimes. Hence, Hoyt's monolog here betrays an MO that del Toro seems to believe is woven into the fabric of American foreign policy: put on a friendly face while nakedly and ruthlessly asserting American influence abroad to pretending that diplomacy is being carried out in the name of noble values.
“Go back out, knock, and then I’ll let you in. That’s the protocol, follow the protocol.”
Given as a command to Dr. Hoffstetler when he tries to enter Strickland's office to plead for the creature's life, Strickland uses his rank in the hierarchy to humiliate and disempower Hoffstetler. Here, we see not just Strickland's cruelty, but the cruelty of a bureaucratic institution which creates dehumanizing power structures between collaborators.
“When he looks at me, the way he looks at me, he does not know what I lack or how I am incomplete. He sees me for what I am, as I am. He’s happy to see me every time, every day.”
This is the rare monologs given by Elisa in the film, as signed to Giles who translates this out loud for the audience to hear. Here she is describing why she appreciates the creature's attitude toward her. It comes as one of the more heart-wrenching moments in the film, with Elisa declaring at once her own suffering as she navigates the world without a voice, and her belief in the value of seeing the best in another, of seeing that person (or creature) for exactly who they are, and expecting nothing more.
“No names, no ranks. They just clean.”
These are perhaps Hoffstetler's final words. He has been shot in the gut and tortured by Strickland during his final moments so that he will divulge the identities of who stole the creature. He obviously gets joy out of rubbing in the fact that lowly cleaning ladies ruined Strickland's life and stole the creature out from under him.
“Doesn’t look like much of a god now.”
When Strickland is showing the creature off to General Hoyt, he tells Hoyt that the Amazonians considered it some sort of god. Hoyt, looking at the creature covered in blood and bound in chains, remarks on the creature with the above quote. The line evokes the cruelty and dismissiveness of the US military, as well as a contrasting sympathetic response in the viewer to this creature that we have seen act in such an emotionally sophisticated way towards Elisa.
