Boardwalk Empire Quotes: Season One Premiere

Here are some quotes from the debut episode of BOARDWALK EMPIRE – Season One

Mrs. McGarry: Coward, monster, vicious brute
Friend to thief and prostitute.
Heartless, Godless, hell’s delight
Crude by day and lewd by night
Conscience dulled by demon rum
Liquor, thy name’s Delirium!

Enoch “Nucky” Thompson: Mr. McGarry, thank you for that stirring poem. Will you send me a copy?
(Addressing the audience): Year ago there was this young boy … the winter of 88 … a blizzard of biblical proportions. The family was snowbound, freezing, without food or heat. The father, vanished, laid to waste by alcohol. So it was left to this boy — this little man of tender years — to fend for himself and his family. Off in the cold he went, worn shoes wrapped in rags, newspaper lining his thin wool coat, as he trudged chest deep in the snow … he took a broomhandle and in desperation killed his family’s dinner — three wharf rats hiding in the hold of a ship. … the little boy speaks to you tonight from this very podium.
Jimmy Darmody: In the trenches, once we ate dog meat, but rats?
Nucky: First rule of politics, kiddo… Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Eddie Kessler: I heard screaming. Are you all right? May I enter?
Lucy Danziger: He is always interrupting us! Jeez Louise! Arggh!

Nucky: As you know, in less than two hours, liquor will be declared illegal by decree of the distinguished gentlemen of our nation’s Congress. To those beautiful, ignorant bastards! Rest assured that, dry as the country may be, I am in the midst of concluding arrangements that will keep Atlantic City wet as a mermaid’s twat.

Mayor: Geez Nucky you’re bleeping mermaids now?
Nucky: Every vote counts, Mr. Mayor.
Council Member: They might as well outlaw smoking.
George: How ’bout the law?
Eli Thompson: I am the law, Georgie Boy, or you’re so bleeping soused, you thought I’m Lilian Gish, huh?
George: The Feds! The bleeping prohis.
Nucky: Dogcatchers with badges — with all due deference to dogcatchers.

Nucky: What’s eating you?
Jimmy Darmody: Nothing. I don’t know. My stomach…
Nucky: Go have a Brioschi.

Jimmy Darmody: (reading headline) “Dempsey: Champ Was No Draft Dodger”
Angela Darmody: So what did he say?
Jimmy: I don’t know. He supported his mother. It’s a bunch of baloney.
Angela: They couldn’t write it if it wasn’t true.
Jimmy Darmody: Your mother’s screwy if she thinks I’m going to work for a sap like Ryan.
Tommy Darmody: Ryan’s a sap.

Margaret Schroeder: I would be honored to name my child after you.
Nucky Thompson: Enoch? You couldn’t possibly be so cruel.

Nucky Thompson: Stupid bohunk.
Mickey Doyle: It’s just a gag, okay.
Nucky: Yeah, you’re a real pistol.
Mickey: My name’s Doyle now. … I changed it. I ain’t Mickey Cusick no more.
Nucky: Why Doyle?
Mickey: It sounds better is all?
Nucky: A rose by any other name.
Mickey: What’s that supposed to mean?
Nucky: Read a bleeping book.

Jimmy Darmody: You make Ryan clerk? I can run rings around that chump.
Nucky: Oh, listen to Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Jimmy: C’mon Nuck, you were assistant sheriff when you were my age.
Nucky: And for 8 years prior, I spent night and day kissing the Commodore’s ass.
Jimmy: Nucky, I’m not the same kid that left. I’ve seen things. I’ve done things.
Nucky: Well, how we gonna keep you down on the farm.
Jimmy: Nucky, all I want is an opportunity.
Nucky: This is America, ain’t it. Who the bleep‘s stopping you?

Van Alden: January 16, it’s 8:03 p.m. Johnny Torrio meeting with Nucky Thompson.
Sebso: Which one’s Torrio?
Van Alden: The gray tweed. … We got a bead on Rothstein. He just came in with Luciano. This other fellow’s Big Jim Colosimo.
Sebso: Come again?
Van Alden: In the Homburg.
Sebso: The Hamburg.
Van Alden: The Homburg. Nevermind. He took it off.
Sebso: Who’s this guy in the brown suit?
Van Alden: The concierge. …The manager. He works here.
Sebso: So this guy in the red tie. That’s Big Jim?
Van Alden: Does that man look big to you? … It’s Arnold Rothstein!
Sebso: So it’s not Colosimo? Arnold Rothstein and Nucky Luciano.
Van Alden: Lucky. Lucky Luciano. Nucky Thompson.
Sebso: So who’s Colosimo?

Lolly Steinman: I don’t want to say nothing but this Rothstein’s a cheater. If he wasn’t who he is, they’d found him in the bleeping alley.

Nucky Thompson: Well, he is who is he is.
Lolly: That’s why I called.

Nucky Thompson: Where’d you get that money?
Hans Schroeder: What business is it of yours?
Nucky: That money belongs to your wife.
Schroeder: So it was you who give it to her. Here, ya prick, I’m winning anyway.

Eddie Cantor: My girl is so dumb, she thought that Daylight Savings was a bank.

Eli Thompson: The peculiar thing is, at the same time the Feds are raiding Mickey, this shit’s happening 3 miles away.
Nucky Thompson: Ain’t that a coincidence.
Eli: Jimmy? Who’s mysteriously gone missing all of a sudden.
Nucky: I can’t get over it. It don’t make sense.
Eli: He gives the Feds the funeral home, throws ’em off the sent. Meantime, he’s out pulling off this job.
Nucky: Not how, why.
Eli: Why, because he’s greedy. Jealous probably, too. That’s the way people are, Nucky.

Nucky: It’s 7 years today…. Mabel.
Commodore Louis Kaestner: I had just gone to jail.
Nucky: Not a day goes by, I tell ya.
Commodore: Well maybe she’s better off.
Nucky: It’s Jimmy … left me holding the bag.
Commodore: bleeping little prick. I never knew he had it in him.

Jimmy Darmody: I tried to tell you I’m not a bleeping kid anymore.
Nucky Thompson: And killing? And bleeping larceny? That makes you a man?
Jimmy: I’m 22 years old… I see fellas like bleeping Luciano with a fancy suit with bleeping diamonds.
Nucky: Is that what you want?
Jimmy: That’s what we all want. At least I’ve got the gumption to take it.
Nucky: You’d be very foolish to underestimate me, James. I could have you killed.
Jimmy: Yeah, but you won’t. Look, you can’t be half a gangster, Nucky. Not anymore.