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Cultist Christine Miller: Is it too late for Russia? [The colony had considered fleeing to Russia if life became too difficult in Guyana.]
Jones: It's too late. I can't control these people. They've gone with the guns. And it's too late.
Miller: Well, I say let's make an airlift to Russia. I don't think nothing is impossible, if you believe it.
Jones: How are we going to do that?
How are you going to airlift to Russia?
Miller: Well, I thought they said if we got in an emergency, they gave you a code to let them know.
Jones: No, they didn't. [Apparently to pacify the woman, Jones said he would try to check with the Russians, but doubted it would help.] To me death is not a fearful thing. It's living that's cursed. It's not worth living like this.
Miller: I think that there were too few who left for 1,200 people to give their lives for those people that left.
Jones: Do you know how many left?
Miller: Oh, 20-odd. That's small compared to what's here.
Jones: 20-odd. But what's gonna happen when they don't leave? When they get on the plane and the plane goes down? That plane'll come out of the air There's no way you fly a plane without a pilot. You think Russia's gonna want us with all this stigma? We had some value, but now we don't have any value.
Miller: Well, I don't see it like that.
I mean, I feel like that as long as there's life there's hope.
Jones: Well, everybody dies. I haven't seen anybody yet didn't die. And I like to choose my own kind of death for a change. I'm tired of being tormented to hell. Tired of it. [Applause.]
Miller: But I look at all the babies and I think they deserve to live.
Jones: But don't they deserve much more? They deserve peace.
Miller: I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals. And I have a right to choose mine, and everybody else has a right to choose theirs.
Jones: The best testimony we can make is to leave this goddam world. [After applause, more argument breaks out in the crowd. Jones' voice, remarkably controlled, begins to rise.] Everybody hold it! Hold it! Hold it! Lay down your burdens. Down by the riverside. Shall we lay them down here by the side of Guyana? When they start parachuting out of the air, they'll shoot some of our innocent babies. Can you let them take your child?
Voices: No! No! No!
Man: I'm ready to go. If you tell us we have to give our lives now, we're ready; all the rest of the sisters and brothers are with me.
Jones: I've tried to keep this thing from happening. But I now see it's the will of sovereign Being that we lay down our lives in protest against what's been done. If they come after our children, and we give them our children, then our children will suffer forever. [Cultists returning from the airstrip tell Jones that Congressman Ryan has been killed.]
Jones: Please get us some medication.