Top 30 Quotes From Simon Russell Beale

[Ferdinand Lyle kills one of the witches with the small pistol Ethan Chandler gave him]
Ferdinand: [firing a shot into the witch's stomach] Never underestimate the power of a queen with lovely hair, my dear.
[firing the final kill shot]

[Madame Kali tells Ferdinand Lyle about the time during the Renaissance]
Madame: Did you know that during the Renaissance... women used to put poison into their eyes? A little drop of belladonna to dilate the pupil... to simulate erotic excitement. But like all addictions, it took more and more to produce the desired effect. So they slowly... killed themselves. What won't we do for beauty?
Ferdinand: And youth.
Madame: Ah, yes. Youth. That takes more than a drop of poison. That takes everything... doesn't it? Such a price we pay. Such a price.

- Damn it.
- All right. I'm at the tailor's.
- I want you to call me back here every 15 minutes with an update.
- You understand? Every quarter hour.
Roy: Uh-huh.
- Uh-huh.

[Ferdinand Lyle meets Ethan Chandler for the first time]
Ferdinand: Mr. Chandler! You are so very tall. You render me Lilliputian.
Ethan: Hello, Mr. Lyle.
Ferdinand: American! I am undone.
[Ferdinand giggles all over]

[Ferdinand Lyle talks with Madame Kali as she gets a massage from the younger witches]
Ferdinand: I gave that up long ago. It was too embarrassing. Forever trying to remain fit with rubdowns and medicine balls and glandular injections, while always around me there were more handsome men who had the thrill of genuine youth. Guardsmen in shining uniforms and stable hands with thicker arms. Yes. I admit to vanity about my complexion and hair color. What harm there, really? So I render myself foolish? Well, hang a man for that and it'll be a very crowded gallows. But then there's you. Quite a different paean to youth we sing there.
Madame: Well, we will sing it, won't we?
Ferdinand: Oh, yes. The sword you dangle over my head would cut deeply.

[Ferdinand Lyle tells Sir Malcolm and Vanessa Ives about the non-urgency of the Egyptians]
Sir: This is a matter of some urgency.
Ferdinand: Good heavens, Sir Malcolm, there hasn't been anything urgent about the Egyptians for 2,000 years. And I'm dreadfully busy now, you understand. Ever so many papyri to translate. Isn't that a delicious word? Papyri. Sounds like something being eaten by little Persian boys, doesn't it? So, I shall see you Friday next.

[Victor Frankenstein and Ferdinand discuss what a demon is]
Ferdinand: Why does the Scorpion sting?
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: To protect itself.
Ferdinand: To kill its enemies.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: And the Demon's enemy?
Ferdinand: God!

[Ferdinand Lyle asks Sir Malcolm if he knows the source of the Egyptian hieroglyphics he carries]
Ferdinand: I do assume you know the source of the writing?
Sir: No.
Ferdinand: It's from the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead.'

[Ferdinand Lyle concludes the tale to the group, of who is looking for Vanessa Ives]
Ferdinand: 'In the great war for the Heavenly Throne we were vanquished, so God looked down on his defeated angels and found us to be evil angels, so he cast us out. He took us by our winged backs and raised us over His head. Thence did he fling us from His Heavenly Throne and cast us down, to Earth and to Hell. So we were... cleaved apart... two brothers cast out to two realms. One brother to Earth and the other brother to Hell. And thus were we set in eternal enmity. My brother on Earth, to feed on the blood of the living by night. And myself in Hell to feed on the souls of the dead. Both in an eternal quest for the Mother of Evil, who will release us from our bondage and allow one of us to reconquer Heaven and topple God from his bloody throne. And so will the darkness reign, on Earth, in Heaven, everlasting.' And so comes the Apocalypse.

[Vanessa Ives talks to Ferdinand Lyle at the Ball]
Ferdinand: [as the two look at the dancing guests] A dizzying panorama, isn't it? All the toys of love out of the box and scattered around the floor.
Vanessa: And at the end of the night to be put carefully away. These terrible games.
Ferdinand: And do you ever play... or only spectate?
Vanessa: [Vanessa smiles] I never learned the rules.

[Madame Kali and Ferdinand Lyle discuss how unique Vanessa Ives is]
Madame: The time comes when the spider must touch the fly.
Ferdinand: And if the fly eats the spider?
Madame: You admire her.
Ferdinand: Fine. In our dolorous old bestiary, she's a truly... unique creature.

[Madame Kali tells Ferdinand Lyle that God turned away from her]
Madame: Despite what you may think... I didn't turn from God. He turned from me. From all of us. Look around. You tell me, where is He... in this city of perpetual suffering? In this life? You tell me where.
Ferdinand: There are those who say you can find Him within.
Madame: They're wrong.

[Ferdinand Lyle tells Sir Malcolm the story of Amunet]
Ferdinand: Amunet was the consort of Amun-Ra, one of the great gods. He was the first 'Hidden One.' The original serpent prince. So named not for any particular reptilian qualities, but for the power of rebirth; like a snake shedding it's skin. Everlasting, perpetual life... sustained by feeding on the souls of others. Amunet and Amun-Ra never appeared in the same incantation. It is inconceivable in Pharaonic Religion to conjoin them, their narratives are kept completely separate.
Sir: Why?
Ferdinand: Because if they ever came together, Amunet would become the mother of evil. All light would end, the world would live in darkness. The hidden ones would emerge and rule. Amunet-Amun-Ra conjoined. This is a spell foretelling the annihilation of man and the coming of the beast.
Ferdinand: [Sir Malcolm remains silent] I would not tell Miss Ives this. After all, who wants to know they're being hunted by the Devil.

[Madame Kali asks Ferdinand Lyle if Ethan Chandler loves Vanessa Ives]
Madame: Does Mr. Chandler love her?
Ferdinand: Do you?
Madame: [Madame Kali scoffs] Does she love him?
Ferdinand: She's opaque.

[Madame Kali threatens Ferdinand Lyle to know where Miss Ives and Ethan Chandler are]
Madame: And you've absolutely no idea where they've run off to?
Ferdinand: None.
Madame: [Madame Kali holds the blades of her ring into Ferdinand's neck] Are you telling me the truth?
Ferdinand: Yes.
Madame: I can feel your blood pumping. The most minute pressure and the artery is open to me. Your blood would paint this room.
Madame: [Madame Kali smiles when releasing her hand away from Ferdinand] I know you're not lying. You always bat your eyelashes most coquettishly when you lie.

[Victor Frankenstein and Ferdinand discuss what the Devil's plan is]
Ferdinand: One phrase, 'The Hound of God.' Like a musical refrain sounding over and over in our otherwise chronological narrative. Why?
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: A bit of poetry, a flourish. I don't know.
Ferdinand: No, no no. Think how your mind works, Doctor. When it can't settle something in peace you return to it again and again. It obsesses you.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Becomes a neurosis.
Ferdinand: Procisely, and it's repeated neurotically here. Like the Demon chewing on a bone it couldn't swallow. It can't make peace with it.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: It's a danger to him.
Ferdinand: Yes! Yes, the Demon, the Hound, the Scorpion. Endlessly circling one another.

[Vanessa Ives enters Ferdinand Lyle's office when seeing his glass case of beetles]
Vanessa: What are these?
Ferdinand: Oh, Carrion beetles. We employ them when the usual solvents are deemed too abrasive. They eat the flesh, don't you know. Sorry, my dear, it's a bit ghoulish to the lay-person.
Vanessa: Very exotic. Where do they come from?
Ferdinand: Actually, Waveney, in Suffolk.
Vanessa: Not exotic at all.

[Victor Frankenstein and Ferdinand discuss what love is]
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: What is love but a kind of creature awaiting to be undone? A malady. What does it bring any of us but... confusion and bedevilment? The Egyptians were hardly unique in that.
Ferdinand: Yes, but to them it was quite literal. They called it the Scorpion's sting, a kind of eternal infection that had no end, not in time or death. The Gods Amunet and Amun-Ra were immortal and their love was without end as well. According to the myth, if they were to become conjoined, 'All light would end and the world would live in darkness. The Hidden Ones would emerge and rule.'

Roy: Monk!
Roy: Who walks out into the cold, in December, in Chicago, without his coat?
Monk: I ain't good at riddles.

[Ferdinand Lyle talks to Hecate Poole at Dorian Gray's Ball]
Ferdinand: I'm not sure what game you're playing, my dear, but I so enjoy watching your scales catch the light as you coil.
Hecate: Don't you like games, Mr. Lyle?
Ferdinand: Some. And is your mother aware of yours?
Hecate: My mother has games of her own. Mine are more far-sighted. But there's time enough for that. I am, after all, very young.
Ferdinand: As is she.
Hecate: For now.

[last lines]
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: [Vanessa Ives walks at the center of the Ball and sees the witches surround her, and the room and all of its guest dance under a rain of blood, as Vanessa faints] Miss Ives! Miss Ives! Can you hear me! Can you hear me!
Ferdinand: Miss Ives!

[Ethan Chandler and Ferdinand Lyle have a discussion about wolves]
Ferdinand: On battle shields the heraldic iconography's not actually meant to strike terror in the opponent as you'd think. Rather, it's meant to evoke protection. The figures are more spirit guides and totems of significance to the owner. Dragons and griffons and the like.
Ethan: So the wolves will protect.
Ferdinand: Yes, grisly bit of business. But that's why they call them the Dark Ages.
Ethan: I saw wolves where I grew up, in the New Mexico territory. Timber wolves. Enormous things.
Ferdinand: Oh?
Ethan: They hunted in packs. They'd isolate a cow or sheep or what have you by barking and growling. But when they finally attacked, it was completely silent. They'd... they'd tear out the windpipe first. You couldn't hear anything, but the blood splashing on the ground. They didn't protect anything. They just fed.

[Sembene asks Ferdinand Lyle why the brother of Lucifer wants Vanessa Ives]
Sembene: Why her? Why Vanessa?
Ferdinand: There are old prophesies from prehistory that tell of such chosen ministers of evil. Amunet from the Egyptians, Lilith from the Talmud, the Nordic Hella, Celtic Macha. Mara from the Hindus. All variations of deities or demigods who were destined to unleash annihilation on the world.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: And all women.

[Ferdinand Lyle finishes the story of the Verbis Diablo]
Vanessa: What happened to Brother Gregory?
Ferdinand: Ah. Locked away by his brothers, the visitations from the demon did not abate. They were deep within him. A curse, if you will. Seemingly inescapable.
Vanessa: And?
Ferdinand: After years of confinement, and torment, they were finally convinced that he was not in fact mad, but possessed by the devil. They burned him at the stake.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: God love religion.

[Ferdinand Lyle rides home with Victor Frankenstein and calls him his friend]
Ferdinand: It's good to have a friend on such a night.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein: I'll be fine.
Ferdinand: I needed the friend, Doctor. I have not seen such things or done such things. And with such relish. God help me.

- I'm sorry.
Francis: Move.
Roy: I am.
Francis: Sit her down.
- We'll clean up after.
Mable: I-I'm telling you the truth.
- All right, the last time that I saw Richie, h was inside this shop.
- I was closing up for the night.

[Laughs softly] Boss, if I go alone, um...
- You got a problem, Francis?
- No. No problem.
- You stay here and I'll...
- I'll go find Richie.
Roy: Francis.
- Bring my boy back to me.

Ferdinand: The British Museum holds the world's largest collection of historical pornography. Aside from the Vatican, of course.

[Ferdinand Lyle and Ethan Chandler joke about bringing Chandler's guns to some investigation work]
Ferdinand: [Ferdinand eyes Mr. Chandler] Will you bring your gun belt?
Ethan: Both guns.
[Ferdinand quietly chuckles]

[Ferdinand Lyle asks to walk Vanessa Ives home from the Ball as he feels she's in danger]
Ferdinand: Let me escort you home, please?
Vanessa: Let me say good night to the doctor. I'll be right back. And thank you.
Ferdinand: It's not every night I leave with the most beautiful woman in London on my arm.