Childs: How will we make it? MacReady: Maybe we shouldn't.
[Last line] MacReady: Why don't we just wait here for a while... see what happens.
Garry: What can we do? What can we do?
MacReady: I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won.
Trivia:
At the beginning of the film the Norwegian with the rifle screams in Norwegian: "Stop, get the hell away! It's not a dog - it's just an imitation of a dog, it's a kind of thing. It imitates. Get the hell away from the dog you fucking idiots!"
The Norwegian camp scenes were actually the charred remains of the American site from the end of the film. Rather than go to the expense of building and burning down another camp, Carpenter re-used the destroyed American camp.
In the scene where Norris' (Charles Hallahan) head separates from his body, special-FX designer Rob Bottin used highly inflammable materials for the construction of interior of the head and neck models. During the shoot John Carpenter decided that, for continuity reasons, they needed some flames around the scene. Without thinking they lit a fire bar and the whole room, which by now was filled with inflammable gasses, caught fire. Nobody got hurt, but the entire special effects model, on which Bottin had worked several months, was destroyed.
In the close up shot of the United States National Science Institute Station 4 sign, a 'Smokey the Bear' sign can be seen.
For a scene where a character's arms are severed, a real-life double amputee stand-in was used wearing a mask in the likeness of the character. The audience focuses on the bloody stumps while the mask goes unnoticed.
DVD Easter Eggs: (Hidden So You Don't See Anything You Don't Want To See)
Edition: Universal Collectors Edition
Region: 1
Description: Hidden Music Score
Go to the Bonus Materials from the main menu and there select the Terror Takes Shape documentary. Go to Language Selection and you will find an menu called Music Score. It's the entire music score for the film.