Look, I know having four kids without a woman is hard, but my boot's harder.
— John, wipe the blood out of his eye.
— Since then did you give orders?
— I'm a trained nurse.
— Don't make me laugh. It hurts my face.
— I bloody am.
— You went to one first aid class in the church hall and got thrown out for giggling.
— Not before I learned to stop somebody from choking.
— I'm not bloody choking, am I?
— You will be when I wrap this cloth round your neck.
— What the fuck is wrong with him lately?
— If I knew, I'd buy the cure from Compton's chemists.
You must not let your personal history cloud your judgement.
This is England, not Belfast. Bodies thrown in the rivers wash up in the papers here.
Babies discarded with the fish bones and egg shells. Girls, 11 years old, pierced and punctured by old men for thrupence a time. Rutted upon like animals. Degradation. Fathers with their daughters, brothers and sisters sharing beds. Beggars and thieves left to run in the streets. And astride the whole stinking pile of wounds and rotting flesh... your masters! The men who you touch your cap to. The Peaky Blinders! The vicious, merciless gangs who blind those that see and cut out the tongues of those who talk. You are worse than them! Those of you who have taken their bribes these years since the war. Those of you who look the other way. You are worse than them! God damn you for soiling your uniforms!
You have your mother’s common sense but your father’s devilment. I see them fighting. Let your mother win.
Thomas, you're a bookmaker, a robber, a fighting man. You're not a fool. <...> Dump them {guns} somewhere...
Speak. God and Aunt Polly are listening.
— You know, there are days <...> that I really wish I'd let you take that bullet in France.
— Believe me, there are nights I wish you had.
— Let's have a show of hands from all those who fought in France. All those who stood side by side with your comrades, and watched your comrades fall. Raise your hands. The blood shed on Flanders Fields. The sweat of your brows. Who reaps the rewards? Is it you?
— No!
— Is it your wives?
— No, no.
— Well, who then? Do they stand among us?
— No!
— Or do they sit at home, comfortable, with a full belly? While you scrape to find enough to put shoes on your children's feet! And what is the reward they offer you for your sacrifices made? A fucking cut in your wages! That is your reward!
— She found a list of names left in the telegraph machine. And on that list was your name and my name together. What kind of a list would have the name of a communist and the name of the bookmaker side by side?
— Perhaps it's a list of men who give false hope to the poor. The only difference between you and me, Freddie, is that, sometimes... my horses stand a chance of winning.