Kent Mansley: Launch the missile now.
Dean McCoppin: Oh, hey, I know you. Squirrel boy.
Hogarth Hughes: Uh, Hogarth.
Dean McCoppin: By night known as Hogarth.
Kent Mansley: The biggest thing in this town is probably the homecoming queen.
The Iron Giant: I am not a gun.
Hogarth Hughes: Welcome to downtown Coolsville! Population: us.
Hogarth Hughes: Hey, big metal guy! I got food here for ya! Metal! Crunchy, delicious metal! Come and get it.
Hogarth Hughes: Wow, my own giant robot! I am now the luckiest kid in America! This must be the biggest discovery since, I don't know, television or something.
Kent Mansley: Two nights ago, at approximateley 1900 hours, S.A.T com radar detected an unidentified flying object entering Earth's atmosphere, losing contact with it two-and-a-half miles off the coast of Rockwell. Some assumed it was a large meteor, or a downed satelite, but my office in Washington received a call from someone reporting an actual encounter with the object. This is no meteor, gentlemen. This is something much more serious.
Hogarth Hughes: You can fly? you CAN FLY.
Hogarth Hughes: The missle, when it comes down. Everyone will die.
Dean McCoppin: Look, it's none of my business, but who cares what these creeps think of you? They don't make you what you are, you do. You are who you choose to be.
General Rogard: You'll be Chief Inspector of Subway Toilets by the time I'm through with you.
General Rogard: You realise how much hardware I brought out here? You just blew millions of Uncle Sam's dollars out of your butt.
Hogarth Hughes: Hey, I thought you were in trouble. I had this weird guy following me around, it took me hours to shake him, I kill myself getting out here, and you have him doing... arts and crafts.
Dean McCoppin: You have a problem with arts and crafts, little man?
Hogarth Hughes: He's a giant robot. It's a little undignified.
Dean McCoppin: It is? Well then, smart guy, what would you have him do?
Train Engineer #1: Go ahead. Tell him what you saw, Frank.
Train Engineer #2: You're not gonna believe this, but it was a giant... metal... man.
Dean McCoppin: You'll never catch up with him on foot, kid.
Dean McCoppin: Sorry about the crowbar, kid. You'd be surprised how many people want to steal scrap. But, man, once I make it into art, I can't give it away. I mean, what am I? A junkman who makes art or an artist who sells junk? You tell me.
Marv Loach: What department is that again?
Kent Mansley: Frankly, I'm not at liberty to divulge the particulars of the agency I work for, and all that that implies.
Marv Loach: You mean, national security?
Kent Mansley: Let me put it this way. Every so often things happen that can't be rationalized in a conventional way. People wanna know their government has a response. I am that response.
Hogarth Hughes: So we can't call Ripley's Believe it or Not, because... they wouldn't believe it.
Answer: It was a laxative to make him go to the bathroom.