Thomas Shelby – Character Quotes

Since I've entered politics, I've learned that the line doesn't go out from the middle to the left and the right. It goes in a circle. I'll show you. You go far enough left, eventually you'll meet someone who has gone far enough right to get to the same place.

It's not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way.

— Now, how soon did you know that i was not dead?
— You wrote me a letter, Alfie.

— She just stepped into the canal... It was me trying to stop her, for three days. In the end, she did it anyway.
— Did she say why?
— Nothing that made sense.
— Tell me the things that didn't make sense.
— She said it were the Gypsies made the nails for Jesus's cross. That's why we're cursed and restless. You have to move around or the guilt catches up with you. <...> And then she was gone... You see, I was in love with her, Tom. No one knew but me. Broke my fucking heart to pull her from the cut. You know, your grandfather, he went the same way. Suicide. Sometimes, these things run in the family. Fuck family, Tom. You just have to get on with it. You're a Gypsy. You have to move around, or it all catches up with you.

— So, you're still at it, eh, Tommy? You ain't go no Margate to go to.
— No. And I have no interest in shooting seagulls.
— Oh, you have in shooting cabinet ministers?

— He said it's God will. But you're not God.
— No i'm not God... Not yet.

— Are you coming back?
— Nothing to come back to.

— Thomas Shelby.
— My hand was blood.
— Oh, mine too.

— You're going to be up on the stage while this criminally insane gunman filled with cocaine takes aim at a man just a yard away from you?
— Welcome to the family, Aberama.

— There are some times, some nights... when I don't see the points of carrying on with any of it.
— Oh. That old dance routine. I put out a cigar, and an hour later I want another. Sometimes, the bridge between hours is a fragile as that. But use it anyway.

— You are forming an alliance with a fascist. So I made some enquiries amongst the worst people in Whitehall, and I found out that you are not forming an alliance with him at all. You are spying on him.
— Yes.
— Why?
— The honest answer is... I'm no longer sure.
— Did you dig your own garden, Mr Shelby? <...> ...there are certain species of weed that no matter how much you tug at them, poison them, they continue to grow back. In the end, the only solution is to plough up the top soil, create a field of mud and blow up and burn the exposed tap roots. That's what you and I did in France. But when I hear that man Mosley speak, I see the green shoots of another war growing up around his feet. And you see exactly the same thing I do. That's why you oppose him.

— ... And always happy to give smart answers to men born better than you.
— A man needs to prove he is better than me rather than show me his birth certificate. You see, I don't have one, so they mean very little to me.

— Mr Mosely is open to suggestion regarding who he can rely on to offer him support in London.
— Well, I would suggest the most competent organiser of men in the south... is Alfie Solomons.
— He's dead. And he's Jewish! And I'd say as far as our boss is concerned, him being dead would be less of an obstacle than him being Jewish.