30 Best River Quotes

Thomas: Have no fear of robbers or murderers, they are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. The great dangers are within us. What threatens our souls? It is forbidden to kill. Therefore, all murderers are punished. Unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of trumpets.

[first lines]
Fast: Can I take your order?
Jackie: Hurry up.
[pauses]
Jackie: Burger, extra cheese, no onions.
John: Uh, burger, uh, cheese, onion.
Fast: Window number two, please.
Jackie: [scoffing] Muffed it.

Ira: I had an Aunt who used to talk to herself.
John: Did you like her?
Ira: She tried to strangle my Uncle Ralph.

Thomas: I have always thought a country should be judged on how it treats its insane, rather than its sane; the stranger on our shores rather than those already home.

John: I love you. I love you more than life. More than life.

John: Where's your balls?
Chrissie: When did I ever need balls? When did balls ever make you a better detective? In 33 years in the force, that's what blokes say. Where's your balls? I got where I got. I did it, and I didn't need a pair of sodding nuts. Now piss off and let me do my shopping.

John: You paid to have Haley killed. Did you do the same with Stevie?
Michael: You see, that's my point. You can never under estimate the power of family. Stevie never really understood that. She always put truth before blood.

Jackie: Sex is an itch to scratch. Love is an itch so far down your back that you can never scratch it with your own hand.

Bridie: My whole life you police have taken... every time. First my son. Then my husband. And then you take my daughter and put her in a uniform - and you take her as well. Sixteen years. Sixteen years she didn't speak to her brother. Justice? The only real justice is when you take the law into your own hands.

Chrissie: What were you thinking? You're not on the case!
John: It's the same car.
Chrissie: Well, we'll leave that to forensics, shall we? You see psychs in the morning, like I asked you. Rosa, 9 AM. Be early. She'll only say what everyone else says.
[softly]
Chrissie: You can't bring Stevie back.
Jackie: [as River walks away] What does she know?
John: [chuckling] Exactly. Exactly!
[as Stevie turns to follow, we see that she has a gaping hole in the back of her head, and River is actually talking to himself]

John: [noticing photo near victim's desk] Fishing... A solitary sport...
Jordy: I like my own company.
John: Me too. You don't have to pretend when you're on your own.
[looks up but Merton is not really there]

John: There was a playground near my grandmother's house. No children. Not for miles. I used to think it was just for me. And I would see this old man looking down at me from his flat. And he would wave at me, and I would wave back. So one day I said to myself, I'll go and knock on his door. I'll speak to him. I was a very nervous boy. But still I walked over to his block of flats and knocked on the door. No one in. I walked back home across the playground and there I saw him, lying in the snow. I didn't know what had happened, but he was dead. And I ran so fast. To Mr. Ahlgren's house. That's what everyone did. And he said, "I'm a policeman. You're alright now." And he took me home. But what I could see that he could not... the old man came home with me and stayed. And talked to me. And I wasn't alone anymore.

Marlena: I wrote to the university, like you said. I asked if they'd, um, hold her place, but they wouldn't. She's got all A stars. A star in English. She's dead, Mrs. Fielding. But she's not dead, 'cause I haven't got her body. I've still got her train ticket.
[sighs]
Marlena: I just wanna feel the weight of her in my arms. Even if it's bones and mud, it's something. Something of her. She's mine. I made her, and I will bury her. I have to bury her, so I know where she is. You promised me you could give me that. You both promised that. 'Cause how do you let go of a person if you don't know why they've gone?

Thomas: We trust to our peril. But to naught is to be alone. And then, oh the silence.
John: [tries to walk on past]
Thomas: [following] Is that why you keep us all so close? You see, I understand you, Inspector. I really do. This pretense of yours, but are you capable of anything more? Love all, trust few, do wrong to none. If only that were true.
Thomas: [blocking his path] So, wind her in slowly. Yes, pull her in close to your breast. Then once in your grasp, break her heart. Break her heart as you did to Stevie. You larter!
John: [grabbing him by the shirt] Why do you do this? Why do you do this?
Thomas: Because I am you. I am the darkest part of you. I am the heart-breaker. I am despair. I am death.
[grins]

John: Your questions. Yes I've taken medication before. No I've never disclosed this. Yes, Stevie helped me control my condition. No I've never been formally diagnosed. Yes, I'm aware this is a breach of police protocol. And when was the last time I spoke to a friend? I don't have any. The only one I have... had is dead, so... I'm a good officer. But in this world that's not enough. In this world, you have to be able to nod and smile and drink a pint, and say, "How was your day?" In this world no one can be different or strange or damaged. Or they lock you up. So what do I do know?
Rosa: You keep talking.

John: Motive is easy. It's execution I'm talking about. That takes nerve. That takes experience. That takes someone who knows what it's like to extinguish life.
Jimmy: No comment.
John: [suddenly lunges at him]
Ira: River!
Jimmy: [nose to nose] You're mad.
John: No comment.

John: You talk too much.
Ira: If I don't talk, then we have nothing but air.

John: Mosquitos have 47 teeth.
Ira: How do they fit in such a tiny mouth?

Jackie: You're jealous.
John: I'm not jealous. This isn't jealousy. I'm just trying to find out the truth. I'm trying to find out who did this to you. Who you ARE!
Jackie: Is it so surprising that I might have had a boyfriend?
John: You have your arms around him. You're smiling and you have your arms around him.
Jackie: Didn't you ever wonder?
John: You didn't tell. I didn't ask.
Jackie: And you weren't ever curious?
John: [Scoffs] The thought that... The thought that someone... And that he then... And he then... That he could be the person that did this to you... If it was sex you wanted...
Jackie: Then what? And you would have given it to me? If that had been true, then we would have... We would have...
John: We're born alone. We die alone.
Jackie: You always say that, but there's more to that quote, you know. I couldn't take my clothes off with the lights on. How was I ever going to take my clothes off for a man? For just any man? Sex is an itch you just scratch. But love... That's the itch so far down your back, you can't ever reach it with your own hand.

[first lines]
Christopher: [appearing in his apartment] Can't sleep? Do you know what does that to you? What would I shoot at people for? Some of them are my best customers.
John: Then who did?
John: [now to an empty apartment] Then who did?

Erin: Morning.
[Her reflection appears in the mirror beside River's. She brushes her teeth as he brushes his]
Erin: Do you know your teeth are the last thing to rot, after bones, and hair, and skin?
John: George Washington wore hippopotamus teeth.
Erin: You've run out of Shreddies again.

Ira: Revolver or Sgt. Pepper?
John: [softly] Sgt. Pepper.
Ira: [nodding] Agreed. I'll see you in the morning, then.
John: Yeah.
Ira: You'll be alright?
John: Yeah.
Jackie: [after Ira leaves River's apartment] Linda or Yoko?
John: Linda.
Jackie: 'Cause she's blonde?
John: [chuckling] No.
Jackie: [laughing] 'Cause she's blonde.
John: No!

Thomas: "My grandmother gave me warm chocolate, and bread, and wrapped me in a towel, and I sat there, warm and tired, and she sang to me." Such sentimentality, Inspector. Such reinvention, sir. Such a blatant disregard of the facts. But the truth is you sat there on her knee, while your mother... your mother just left you. You were a burden to your grandmother until the day she died. You weren't wanted there. What did your grandmother call you? Idiot? Mutterer? Babbler? A fairy tale you've told yourself, to calm you in the dark. They're all lies, sir. All lies. All lies. ALL LIES!

John: The person to fear the most, is the one to whom you gave all your trust.

Rosa: Some people never encounter death their entire lives. And you, you live with it - everyday.

[first lines]
Chrissie: [playing his interview video] Just to go back over around. You came out of the Chinese restaurant...
John: Yeah.
Chrissie: After a brief exchange, she crosses the road. Did you see who shot her?
John: No, my view was obscured by the van.
Chrissie: But you saw the car pull away?
John: She crosses the road...
Chrissie: Do you recall the last thing she said to you?
John: [sighs]
Chrissie: River...
John: "Screw you, Mr. Magoo."
Chrissie: That's the last thing she said to you?
John: I got the blood all over my shirt.
[looks down at his sleeve]

Thomas: [appearing] You are a good liar, Inspector. I shouldn't be surprised, as your entire profession is formalized curiosity. Poking and prying into other's deception has prepared you well for your own. "10,000 pounds," That's some "Chinese." But beware, Inspector. Your greatest deception is to the self.

Chrissie: River, Detective Sergeant King.
Ira: Ira.
John: [shaking his hand] Ira. From the Hebrew, meaning watchful or full-grown.
Ira: [joking] Father Muslim, mother Jewish. I'm the original Gaza Strip.

Jackie: Rosa. That's a good name for a psychiatrist. I thought it went quite well.
[shaking her head]
Jackie: There's stuff you could have said. How long we've worked together, when we met, how I bug the shit out of you, how I won't give you any rest. Just stuff, stuff.
John: What are her credentials, references? Where does she come from, anyway?
Jackie: She done nine years with the Met and six years in Broadmoor.

Rosa: Even if you were just colleagues, there was love, perhaps?
John: [laughs] Love. I've been trying to remember what that feels like, to be in love. It's been a while. For whatever reason, it has passed me by. The closest I got felt like food poisoning.
[Rosa smiles]
John: In books and films and plays, it's always so compelling, so complex. There should be more than one word for love. I've seen love that kills and I've seen love that redeems. I've seen love that believes in the guilty and love that saves the bereaved. What we will do for love. Die for it, even.