The Umbrella Academy Quotes by Character: 34 Real Lines With Transcriptions, Phonetics and Show Insights
Yurii Rebryk · Updated October 27, 2026 · 12 min read
Fan-favourite Umbrella Academy quotes include Klaus’s “Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to”, his “It was the ’60s, babe” and Five’s “Well, it would if you were smarter.” Below are 34 lines checked against the English subtitles of all 36 episodes, grouped by character, with the episode, the scene, slang notes and IPA.
In this article
- How these Umbrella Academy quotes were checked
- Klaus Hargreeves quotes
- Five Hargreeves quotes
- Luther and Diego quotes
- Allison and Viktor (Vanya) quotes
- Ben, Reginald and Pogo quotes
- Short Umbrella Academy quotes by theme: family, love, saving the world, time travel
- Umbrella Academy quotes that are misquoted or not in the show
- The Umbrella Academy facts: creators, seasons and cast
- How to shadow Umbrella Academy lines to practise English
Jump to Klaus, Five, Luther and Diego, Allison and Viktor, Ben, Reginald and Pogo, misquoted lines, show facts or shadowing practice.
How these Umbrella Academy quotes were checked
Every line was matched word for word in the English subtitle transcripts of all 36 episodes. Speakers come from IMDb’s episode quote pages (example: S2E4, meaning Season 2, Episode 4), subtitle speaker labels, named articles or the scene itself. IPA is US pronunciation from the Cambridge Dictionary.
This page covers the Netflix series, not the comics, whose dialogue is different. Rows marked “spoiler” give away a major twist.
Klaus Hargreeves quotes
Klaus is Number Four, played by Robert Sheehan: he can talk to the dead and answers every crisis with a joke. Two of his lines appear in 4 of the 5 Klaus sources we checked (Screen Rant, Game Rant, CBR, a Reddit fan thread and Google’s AI answer): the waterfalls line and the ’60s cult line (see the misquote table).
| Quote | Episode | Scene | Learner notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| “I can’t just call Dad in the afterlife and be like, ‘Dad, could you just stop playing tennis with Hitler for a moment and take a quick call?’” | S1E1 | Luther asks him to contact their father, who has just died. | be like = say, in casual storytelling. afterlife /ˈæf.tɚ.laɪf/. |
| Five: “I told you to put on something professional.” Klaus: “What? This is my nicest outfit.” | S1E2 | Five hires him to pose as his father; Klaus turns up in a dress. | outfit = a set of clothes worn together. Stress the joke on NICEST. |
| “Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.” | S2E2 | In a 1960s jail cell, his follower Keechie asks for wisdom. Klaus quotes TLC’s song “Waterfalls”, not written yet. Keechie: “That’s so deep.” | stick to = keep to the familiar. waterfall /ˈwɑː.t̬ɚ.fɑːl/. |
| “Family barbecues are about to get real weird.” | S2E3 | He frees Allison’s husband Ray from jail and tells him they are brothers-in-law. | Real weird = really weird; real as an adverb is casual American speech. barbecue /ˈbɑːr.bə.kjuː/. |
| “The point is, frogs are b*tches, and we do not negotiate with terrorists.” | S2E4 | The end of his “Scorpion and the Frog” fable, told to cheer up Allison, who regrets using her power. | A stock political phrase with nothing to do with the fable: that is the joke. |
| “Technically? If you have to use the word ‘technically,’ you’re already in trouble.” | S2E5 | Allison starts “Well, technically…” about her old feelings for Luther; Klaus cuts in. | technically /ˈtek.nɪ.kəl.i/ = by the exact rules. |
| “You look like Antonio Banderas with the long hair. I just thought you should know.” | S2E9 | Diego is about to run into danger; Klaus stops him for “one thing”. Diego: “Thanks, man.” | I just thought you should know politely passes on news; here, useless news. |
| “All these years, and I thought it was my fault that he didn’t take his ticket to heaven.” | S2E10 | Spoiler: Vanya passes on Ben’s last message to him. | ticket to heaven = the chance to move on after death. |
| “I feel like scoop after scoop after scoop’s been taken out of me.” | S3E3 | To Reginald, who has just complained about “pills in the porridge”. Klaus compares himself to an empty ice-cream barrel. | Lists say “being taken”; the subtitles say been taken (present perfect: again and again). |
| Luther: “He’s an alien.” Klaus: “We’re trying not to use that kinda terminology here. And I know, it’s whoa PC, but you could just say he’s British.” | S3E10 | Spoiler: in the afterlife, Luther tells Klaus the truth about Reginald. | PC = politically correct: careful not to offend. The joke works because Reginald is British. |
| “Why would you put pineapple on a pizza? … I mean, it’s a garnish for cocktails, at best.” | S3E10 | Stuck in a strange empty place with Luther, who is thinking about the shape of reality. | garnish /ˈɡɑːr.nɪʃ/ = a small piece of food used to decorate. at best = in the most positive view. |
Five Hargreeves quotes
Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) jumps through space and time. In S1E1 he comes back from the future in his 13-year-old body: “No, my consciousness is 58. Apparently, my body is now 13 again.” His humour is dry.
| Quote | Episode | Scene | Learner notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diego: “That makes no sense.” Five: “Well, it would if you were smarter.” | S1E1 | Five has just explained how he got back from the future. | Second conditional (would + if + past) for an unreal situation. Calm grammar, rude meaning. |
| “The future. And it’s sh*t, by the way.” | S1E1 | Diego asks where he went. | by the way adds a side comment, usually a small one. Here it is the end of the world. |
| “Time travel is a crapshoot.” | S1E2 | Vanya asks why he didn’t just time travel back. | crapshoot /ˈkræp.ʃuːt/, US informal: a result nobody can predict or control. In S1E1 he calls it “a toss of the dice”. |
| “I’d ask what you’re up to, Klaus, but then it occurred to me… I don’t care.” | S1E3 | Klaus is digging through the house for a missing box Pogo keeps asking about. | be up to = be doing (often something suspicious). it occurred to me = I suddenly thought. |
| Elliott: “Who’s Diego?” Five: “Imagine Batman, then aim lower.” | S2E2 | Elliott, who is helping Five in 1963 Dallas, hears Diego’s name. | aim lower = expect less. A short, reusable put-down. |
| “Wonder if it’s too late to be un-adopted.” | S2E4 | Vanya refuses to help him: “I don’t even know who I am… New timeline, new me.” | un- reverses a verb (do, undo); “un-adopted” is a joke here: in dictionaries, unadopted means never adopted. adopt /əˈdɑːpt/. The subject “I” is dropped. |
Luther and Diego quotes
Luther (Tom Hopper) is Number One, the loyal son who spent four years on the Moon on his father’s orders. Diego (David Castañeda) is Number Two, a vigilante who can curve the path of thrown knives (Wikipedia).
| Quote | Episode | Scene | Learner notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luther: “We’re different than everyone else. We’re special. And good or bad, that means we don’t get to live normal lives. Here or anywhere.” | S2E7 | He asks Allison to leave the life she has built in 1963. | Different than is common in American English (Cambridge Grammar); different from works everywhere. |
| Luther: “…we have to risk everything to save everything. I mean, that’s our best trait as a family, right?” | S2E7 | Same scene. Allison asks, “What? Recklessness?” He answers: “Hope.” | recklessness /ˈrek.ləs.nəs/ = not caring about danger. trait = a quality of character. |
| Diego: “Everyone I like is already dead.” | S1E6 | Spending “quality bro time” with Klaus before the end of the world. Klaus: “Ah, yes. The lady cop.” Diego: “Yeah. Mom, too.” | No that needed in everyone (that) I like. |
| Diego: “A little hard to trust anyone who wears corduroy.” | S1E8 | He tells Luther that Vanya’s boyfriend is a convicted murderer. | Speech drops “It’s” at the start. corduroy /ˈkɔːr.də.rɔɪ/ = cotton cloth with raised lines. |
| Diego: “I’m used to dealing with liars, Lila, but I like it better when I know what they’re lying about.” | S2E5 | Lila has just shown she can fight, and Diego sees she has been lying to him. | be used to + -ing = be familiar with. Different from used to do, a past habit. |
Allison and Viktor (Vanya) quotes
Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) is Number Three: she bends reality by starting a sentence with “I heard a rumor”. Viktor (Elliot Page) is Number Seven, called Vanya until he comes out as a trans man in Season 3 (Wikipedia); the earlier lines are Vanya’s.
| Quote | Episode | Scene | Learner notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allison: “I heard a rumor you think you’re just ordinary.” | S1E8 | Spoiler: in a flashback, on Reginald’s order (“It’s time, Number Three”), the child Allison uses her power on Vanya. Now she tells her, “You are special, with or without powers.” | UK spelling: rumour. just ordinary = nothing special. |
| Allison: “Keep faith. Believe that good things will happen. Because the fight for a better world is never over.” | S2E10 | From her goodbye letter to her husband Ray, a civil rights activist. | keep faith = don’t stop believing. |
| Vanya: “If you’re raised to believe nothing about you is special, if the benchmark is extraordinary, what do you do if you’re not?” | S1E3 | She reads from her memoir about growing up as the “ordinary” child. | benchmark /ˈbentʃ.mɑːrk/ = the standard you are measured against. extraordinary /ɪkˈstrɔːr.dən.er.i/. |
| Vanya: “We could have years, we could have days, but we only have one life. And we gotta go with our hearts.” | S2E5 | To Sissy, the woman she falls for in 1963. | gotta = have got to, in fast speech; write have to. go with your heart = follow your feelings. |
| Viktor: “Showed me I’d never be free hiding from who I really am. And after losing her, I realized I just can’t live in that box anymore. I won’t.” | S3E2 | He talks about Sissy while explaining his transition. | The subject “She” is dropped. live in a box = live inside a narrow role. |
Ben, Reginald and Pogo quotes
Ben (Justin H. Min), Number Six, died young and appears as a ghost to Klaus. Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) is the billionaire who adopted seven of the children. Pogo, his chimpanzee assistant, is voiced by Adam Godley.
| Quote | Episode | Scene | Learner notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ben: “Vanya, I died 17 years ago. All the rest of this, these years with Klaus, it’s all been gravy.” | S2E9 | Spoiler: Ben says goodbye, adding, “At least this time I get to say goodbye.” | gravy /ˈɡreɪ.vi/: besides the sauce, something extra you did not expect to get. |
| Ben: “You aren’t a monster. You’re my sister.” | S2E9 | He reaches Vanya while her power runs out of control. | Two short sentences, one stress each: MONster, SISter. |
| Reginald: “Extraordinary! How much do you want for it?” | S1E1 | 1989: he buys a newborn from one of the mothers. | He calls the baby it, which says everything about him as a father. |
| Reginald: “A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel.” Later: “Hence the reason you’re not ready.” | S1E2 | Flashback: young Five begs to try time travel. | spatial /ˈspeɪ.ʃəl/, trivial /ˈtrɪv.i.əl/. hence = for this reason (formal). |
| Reginald: “Man’s greatest flaw: the illusion of control.” | S2E6 | Five warns that the world ends in five days; Reginald answers, “Worlds end. Paleozoic, Jurassic, and so on.” | illusion /ɪˈluː.ʒən/. |
| Pogo: “It’s been 16 years, four months, and 14 days. Your father insisted I keep track.” | S1E1 | Vanya asks how long Five has been gone. | keep track = keep a record. Say “sixteen years, four months and fourteen days”. |
| Pogo: “Your father stopped recording years ago. But I still come here from time to time. When I’m missing you kids.” | S1E2 | To Allison, in the room of old home recordings. | from time to time = sometimes. |
Short Umbrella Academy quotes by theme: family, love, saving the world, time travel
| Theme | Short lines from the tables above |
|---|---|
| Family dysfunction | “Wonder if it’s too late to be un-adopted.” (Five) · “Extraordinary! How much do you want for it?” (Reginald) |
| Love | “We only have one life. And we gotta go with our hearts.” (Vanya) |
| Saving the world | “We have to risk everything to save everything.” (Luther) · “Keep faith.” (Allison) |
| Time travel humour | “Time travel is a crapshoot.” (Five) · “Hence the reason you’re not ready.” (Reginald) |
Umbrella Academy quotes that are misquoted or not in the show
Each popular version below was searched in all 36 subtitle transcripts.
| Popular version | Seen on | What the English subtitles say |
|---|---|---|
| “He’s dead! Yay!” (Klaus) | Game Rant, Google’s AI answer | S1E1, in his father’s study: “And he is! He’s dead. Yeah!” |
| “Well, it was the ’60s, babe. Everyone had one.” | Screen Rant, Game Rant, Google’s AI answer | S3E4, Klaus: “…Everybody had one.” |
| “Chaos is exhausting.” (as Klaus) | Screen Rant | S3E5: Klaus answers it, “Only for amateurs. I’m a professional, Mom,” so it reads as his mother’s line. |
| “Everything about our family is insane.” | Google’s AI answer | S1E7, Five: “Everything about us is insane. It always has been.” Then “We didn’t choose this life, we’re just living it” (credited to Five on IMDb). |
| “Like you wouldn’t climb Luther Mountain.” | Game Rant | S3E1, Klaus: “Come on. As if you wouldn’t climb Luther Mountain.” |
| “If you keep undressing me with your eyes, I’m gonna catch a cold.” | common search | S2E1, Klaus at a poker table: “…I’m gonna catch cold.” (no “a”) |
| “A true selfless act always sparks another.” / “And here I am without an umbrella.” | common searches | Neither line is in the subtitles of any of the 36 episodes. |
The Umbrella Academy facts: creators, seasons and cast
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Based on | The comic series written by Gerard Way, drawn by Gabriel Bá and published by Dark Horse Comics (Wikipedia) |
| Made by | Created for Netflix by Steve Blackman and developed by Jeremy Slater |
| Seasons | 4 seasons, 36 episodes: 15 February 2019, 31 July 2020, 22 June 2022, and a six-episode final season on 8 August 2024 |
| Main cast | Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min, Ritu Arya, Colm Feore (Netflix) |
| Opening line | “On the 12th hour of the first day of October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth. This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began.” (S1E1; IMDb credits Pogo). Season 3 repeats it with “16 women”: a new timeline. |
| Ratings and awards | TV-14 for Seasons 1–2, TV-MA for Seasons 3–4 (raised in Season 3 mainly for more profanity); six Emmy nominations (Wikipedia) |
How to shadow Umbrella Academy lines to practise English
Shadowing means playing one short line, pausing, and saying it back with the same speed, stress and pauses (see the shadowing practice guide). Start with Five and Luther; Klaus is faster. Capitals mark the stress.
| Line | Say it | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| “Time travel is a crapshoot.” | TIME travel is a CRAP-shoot. | One stress per half; “shoot” rhymes with “boot”. |
| “Well, it would if you were smarter.” | WELL, it WOULD if you were SMART-er. | Short pause after “Well”. |
| “We have to risk everything to save everything.” | we HAVE to RISK everything to SAVE everything. | have to sounds like “haf-ta”. |
| “I just thought you should know.” | i just THOUGHT you should KNOW. | should is weak: “shud”. |
Five, Luther and Allison: slow and clear
B1Time travel is a crapshoot.
We have to risk everything to save everything.
Keep faith. Believe that good things will happen. Because the fight for a better world is never over.
Read it aloud
Listen to a model reading, then record yourself. You get your speaking pace, the share of words that came through clearly, and the words to repeat.
Klaus: fast and funny
B2You look like Antonio Banderas with the long hair. I just thought you should know.
Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.
Read it aloud
Listen to a model reading, then record yourself. You get your speaking pace, the share of words that came through clearly, and the words to repeat.
More drills: the English pronunciation practice guide and how to practise speaking alone. Other shows: Lucifer quotes and Money Heist quotes. To check your level, take the English speaking test.
Say the lines out loud and get feedback
Fluently is an AI speaking coach for non-native English speakers on iOS and Android. You speak out loud and get feedback on pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary and grammar. The download is free and starts with a free four-minute speaking assessment; full practice is a subscription after a free trial.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Number 4 in The Umbrella Academy?
Klaus Hargreeves, played by Robert Sheehan. He can talk to the dead and for a while make them visible; in Season 3 he finds he can come back to life after being killed (Wikipedia). Dante Albidone plays young Klaus.
Who was Klaus in love with?
Dave, a soldier. In Season 1 Klaus opens a stolen time-travel briefcase and is gone “almost a year” (S1E5); the case’s owners note a trip to 1968. In Season 2 ghost Ben mocks “your little Vietnam fling” (S2E3), and Klaus warns the younger Dave: “Dave, if you enlist, they’re gonna send you out to Vietnam” (S2E4).
Are there LGBTQ+ characters in The Umbrella Academy?
Yes. Viktor comes out as a trans man in Season 3, a change that follows Elliot Page’s own transition. In Season 2, Vanya falls in love with Sissy Cooper (Marin Ireland) (Wikipedia). Klaus falls in love with Dave, a soldier (see the answer above).
What did Five say to Reginald in Greek?
He quoted Homer in the original Greek. In S2E6 Reginald asks him why, and Five answers: “You forced us all to learn it as kids. In the original Greek, no less.” No less here means “which is even more impressive”.
