"How could I have known? How could I... How could I ever imagine?"
- Sol Roth's suicide (pictured). Basically, he is given some painless poison, and is treated to images of an Earth only a man of his great age could remember: beautiful and full of life. Thorn, who has come in to try and see what he has learned, can only say parting words and watch as his friend dies, seeing those very images of the once-vibrant planet.
- Even sadder: Edward G. Robinson was actually dying of cancer, and died only a few days after the scene was filmed. Only Charlton Heston knew that, so his tears are from a man genuinely watching his friend die.
- When Sol arrives at the euthanasia center, we see not only the elderly and the infirm, but young people who clearly have nothing to live for.
- Thorn brings Sol foodstuffs he looted from Simonson's apartment. Seeing an apple and beef for what must be the first time in ages, Sol breaks down in tears, asking "What have we come to?"
- The ending. After learning Soylent Green is made out of people, Thorn is left wounded and screaming the truth about the product. Hatcher, his superior, may be able to spread the secret if Thorn can't survive, but with no food left, there doesn't appear to be a future for much of the world. The film ends with the forlorn sense that human civilization — and possibly all life on Earth — was destroyed for nothing, that we could have prevented this tragedy and did not.
- The priest who learned of Soylent Green from Simonson's confession, is left with a dejected look of despair and seems lost most of the time.
- Simonson is so shaken by what he's helped to create, that he doesn't react to the assassin coming to kill him, seeing his own death as necessary for the survival of society.
- When Thorn finds Sol's suicide note, it ends with five X's — shorthand for kisses. Basically it was Sol telling Thorn he loved him before Thorn got to the clinic.
