How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Blade Runner.
Quote #1
DECKARD: You ever tell anyone that? Your mother, Tyrell? They're implants. Those aren't your memories, they're somebody else's. They're Tyrell's niece's. Okay, bad joke, I'm sorry... No, really, I made a bad joke. Go home, you're not a Replicant... (sigh) You wanna drink? I'll get you a drink.
Deckard tells Rachael the truth—before feeling bad and claiming that he made it up. Memories form the bedrock of identity in Blade Runner, and Rachael's entire world is founded on this fictitious bedrock.
Quote #2
DECKARD: Tyrell really did a job on Rachael. Right down to a snapshot of a mother she never had, a daughter she never was. Replicants weren't supposed to have feelings. Neither were blade runners. What the hell was happening to me? Leon's pictures had to be as phony as Rachael's. I didn't know why a replicant would collect photos. Maybe they were like Rachael. They needed memories.
This quote is from the voiceover—which isn't included in every cut of the movie. Here, Deckard is musing on why the replicants need memories and are collecting photos—it's like they're trying to create identities in the short amount of time they still have, thereby treasuring their lives even more.
Quote #3
TYRELL: After all, they are emotionally inexperienced with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past... we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.
DECKARD: Memories. You're talking about memories.
Tyrell thinks about memories entirely as a means of control. He's indifferent to the fact that he's messing with the replicants' whole sense of reality—while at the same time giving them a basis for their human feelings.