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Laurie Juspeczyk (the second Silk Spectre)
Jon Osterman is a blue-skinned superhuman and the only person in the story who possesses actual superpowers. After Jon, a Harvard scientist, accidentally locks himself in a radiation test chamber, he dies and is reborn as Dr. Manhattan, a being who has complete mastery over the laws of physics and matter, can look backward and forward through time, and can teleport himself and other people at will, making him effectively a god-like figure. As soon as Jon becomes a superhero, the American government claims him as their ultimate weapon, naming him Dr. Manhattan to evoke memories of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. At the start of the story, Jon dates Laurie, though he struggles to relate to her or any human now that he is no longer human himself. Laurie leaves him, and in the same evening, a reporter accuses him of causing dozens of close friends and associates to get terminal cancer, which makes him so upset that he leaves Earth and lives on Mars. Although Jon wants to be rid of his attachments to humanity, Laurie helps him realize that human life is still meaningful because of how rare it is, and he returns to Earth to try to prevent the end of the world. When Jon and Laurie return to New York City, they witness the carnage Adrian Veidt’s plan has wrought and go to Antarctica to find him. Veidt briefly tries to kill Jon, and Jon in turn tries to kill Veidt, but they both stop fighting when they hear on the news that Veidt’s plan worked: the Americans and the Soviets have declared peace, so Jon accepts Veidt’s actions. Although Veidt wants Jon to stay with him and help him build Earth into a new utopia, Jon decides he wants to create life on a new planet and disappears.
Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) Quotes in Watchmen
The Watchmen quotes below are all either spoken by Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) or refer to Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2: Absent Friends
Quotes
Osterman: You sound bitter. You’re a strange man, Blake. You have a strange attitude to life and war.
Blake: Strange? Listen… Once you figure out what a joke everything is, being a comedian is the only thing makes sense.
Osterman: The charred villages, the boys with necklaces of human ears… these are part of the joke?
Blake: Hey… I never said it was a good joke. I’m just playin’ along with the gag…
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Chapter 4: Watchmaker
Quotes
They explain that the name [Dr. Manhattan] has been chosen for the ominous associations it will raise in America’s enemies. They’re shaping me into something gaudy and lethal… It’s all getting out of my hands.
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As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realizes that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
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Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there… A clock without a craftsman.
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It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.
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Chapter 6: The Abyss Gazes Also
Quotes
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.
Chapter 9: The Darkness of Mere Being
Quotes
Juspeczyk: Humanity is about to become extinct. Doesn’t that bother you? All those dead people…
Osterman: All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No… No, that doesn’t bother me. All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it lead to?
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Osterman: Look at it—a volcano as large as Missouri, its summit fifteen miles high, piercing even the atmospheric blanket. Breathtaking.
Juspeczyk: Breathtaking? Jon, what about the war? You’ve got to prevent it! Everyone will die…
Osterman: And the universe will not even notice.
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Thermodynamic miracles…Events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such things. And yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that precise daughter…
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Chapter 12: A Stronger Loving World
Quotes
Juspeczyk: Dan, all those people, they’re dead. They can’t disagree or eat Indian food, or love each other… Oh, it’s sweet. Being alive is so damn sweet.
Dreiberg: Laurie? Wh-what do you want me to do?
Juspeczyk: I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead […] I want to see you and taste you and smell you, just because I can.
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Veidt: I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Jon: “In the end”? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
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Get the entire Watchmen LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) Quotes in Watchmen
The Watchmen quotes below are all either spoken by Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) or refer to Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2: Absent Friends
Quotes
Osterman: You sound bitter. You’re a strange man, Blake. You have a strange attitude to life and war.
Blake: Strange? Listen… Once you figure out what a joke everything is, being a comedian is the only thing makes sense.
Osterman: The charred villages, the boys with necklaces of human ears… these are part of the joke?
Blake: Hey… I never said it was a good joke. I’m just playin’ along with the gag…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4: Watchmaker
Quotes
They explain that the name [Dr. Manhattan] has been chosen for the ominous associations it will raise in America’s enemies. They’re shaping me into something gaudy and lethal… It’s all getting out of my hands.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realizes that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there… A clock without a craftsman.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It is the oldest ironies that are still the most satisfying: man, when preparing for bloody war, will orate loudly and most eloquently in the name of peace.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6: The Abyss Gazes Also
Quotes
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.
Chapter 9: The Darkness of Mere Being
Quotes
Juspeczyk: Humanity is about to become extinct. Doesn’t that bother you? All those dead people…
Osterman: All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No… No, that doesn’t bother me. All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it lead to?
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Explanation and Analysis:
Osterman: Look at it—a volcano as large as Missouri, its summit fifteen miles high, piercing even the atmospheric blanket. Breathtaking.
Juspeczyk: Breathtaking? Jon, what about the war? You’ve got to prevent it! Everyone will die…
Osterman: And the universe will not even notice.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Thermodynamic miracles…Events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such things. And yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that precise daughter…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12: A Stronger Loving World
Quotes
Juspeczyk: Dan, all those people, they’re dead. They can’t disagree or eat Indian food, or love each other… Oh, it’s sweet. Being alive is so damn sweet.
Dreiberg: Laurie? Wh-what do you want me to do?
Juspeczyk: I want you to love me. I want you to love me because we’re not dead […] I want to see you and taste you and smell you, just because I can.
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Veidt: I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Jon: “In the end”? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
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