Boardwalk Empire: You’d Be Surprised Quotes

Mad dog in a sweat:

Gyp Rosetti: Wet towel.

Weasels and Weakling:

Eli Thompson: I headed up there as fast as I could. I tried to stop them. They wouldn’t listen cause Mickey… cause they were under orders to get you what you paid for.
Arnold Rothstein: And yet you escaped.
Eli: We lost 11 men. Was I supposed to get myself killed too?
Rothstein: Rosetti controls the roads in and out of Tabor Heights. Taken up residence in the town. Commandeered the sheriff’s department —
Owen Slater: He burned the sheriff.
Lucky Luciano: How about your million dollar bleeping highway?
Nucky Thompson: Must you swear every time you speak?
Luciano: When did you become a Quaker?
Eli: Between the mud, the ice and the law, it’s more than we can manage.
Nucky: That’s correct. (to Eli) Thanks for your input.
Rothstein: How long have you known Mr. Rosetti?
Nucky: A year or so. I don’t know. You were the one who introduced me.
Luciano: He kicks up to Joe Masseria.
Rothstein: With whom I have a very delicate truce… what might solve a problem for you creates a bigger one for me.
Nucky: What would you do about a mad dog?
Rothstein: Before anything else, I’d find out who its master was.
Nucky: Rosetti doesn’t respect any rules, Arnold. That makes him bad for business, yours and mine.
Rothstein: Do you think I entered in to this arrangement because I value your companionship? You are a convenience of geography and supply. You promised a quantity and a price. You have failed to deliver and now, owing to your inability to manage your own affairs in New Jersey, a state I have little interest in or affection for, you expect me to start a war in New York — where things actually matter?
Nucky: Rosetti is trouble for everyone. I lost an entire convoy.
Rothstein: Because of your own cavalierness. Because you run off to Manhattan at a moment’s notice to rut with some showgirl.”
Nucky: You’d be wise to leave Miss Kent out of this.
Rothstein: Why? You can’t. Do you even begin to understand how weak that makes you look?
Nucky: Big noise from a man who’s dead below the waist.
Rothstein: I practice discretion.
Nucky: You practice bullshit. Who the bleep are you, Arnold, aside from a weasel with a good poker face.

The Commodore left Luanne Pratt the house, Jimmy ripped up the Will, but now:

Leander Whitlock: Well, then, before anything else, the process of having him (Jimmy Darmody) declared dead is…
Gillian Darmody: (cuts him off) I really don’t see the point.
Whitlock: You refuse to acknowledge…
Gillian: He’s prone to long disappearances….
Whitlock: Until James is declared dead, you have no ownership, you have no title, you have no credit, and you’re wasting an old man’s time.

Vagina and Bodyguard Problems:

Margaret: I can hardly write “come discuss your vagina.”
Miss Predock: Couldn’t you put a picture on it somewhere? Kittens maybe?
Margaret: Are there to be bodyguards again?
Nucky: It’s just a precaution. There’s no cause for concern. And it makes me feel better.
Margaret: What was that about.
Owen: He worries sometimes.

What’s cooking in the Senate:

Andrew W. Mellon: I believe I have been quite clear that the cost of effectively policing this Act is somewhere in the amount of 28 millions of dollars per annum. Approximately 5 times what Congress has seen fit to offer us.
Gaston Bullock Means: Excuse me, I believe your left shoelace is in a state of deshabille.
Harvey: Now Mellon is in there talking.
Means: I ascertained that already, Harvey, but what is he talking about?
Harvey: Your boss’s dirty hands.

Virgins and Geldings:

Eddie Cantor: When they decided to call it “The Naughty Virgin,” I don’t think they had the male lead in mind.
Nucky: What about the other one?
Cantor: Vern? I’ve worked with him.
Nucky: Did he put his hands on your waist.
Cantor: I’ll never tell. … What do they call a horse when they cut off his kishkes?
Nucky: A gelding.
Cantor: And there’s nothing naughty about that.

Husband, I’ve got your back

Sigrid: Both of them napping.
Van Alden: When they’re down for the night, you say sleeping, dear. Napping means just a short while.
Sigrid: Is everything hunky dory?
Van Alden: We need to talk. I have not been completely honest about my past.
Sigrid: Your name is not your name because the bad persons they said words about you. That you stealed. That you have lied. That you’ve done terrible things. I know all this. You did not do them. They blame you to hide themselves. That is why we run so far so the bad person don’t find us.
Van Alden: That is exactly what I was going to say.

In case you’re getting the wrong idea

Dr. Mason: Mrs. Thompson, this is Helen Russell, my fiancee.
Helen: Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Margaret: Lovely to meet you, too. Good night now.

Daddy was a cruel bastard

Eddie Kessler: That was me knocking.
Nucky: Thank you for informing me.
Kessler: Miss Kent.
Nucky: Why don’t I talk to Lee (Shubert). New actor, new script, new songs. It happens, doesn’t it?
Billie Kent: You know what I hate the most? I keep hearing my father’s voice: “always on the move, but going nowhere fast.”

I can take Nucky Thompson down and fool the paperboy.

Gyp Rosetti: It was his attitude mostly. The arrogance…
Rothstein: Hubris, the Greeks call it ..
Rosetti: And look what happened to them — conquered by Italians, just like Nucky.
Paperboy: Evening edition.
Rosetti: Hey, thought you said this was today’s. All this stuff happened yesterday.
Paperboy: Well, sure, that’s …
Rosetti: I had you there for a second. From now on, Room 207 at the Kinneret Lodge. Add me to your route.

Eddie gets a new co-star:

Eddie Cantor: L’chaim.
Nucky: What’s that mean again?
Cantor. To life. In fact, I’ve got an uncle doing 10 years l’chaim up in Sing Sing.
Nucky: You know what that show needs?
Cantor: Some dope prancing around like a schwartze? Ooh, no-sir, ooh.
Nucky: It needs a star. It needs you.
Cantor: I don’t disagree.
Nucky: I’ll make it worth your while if that’s your concern.
Eddie Cantor: Listen fellows, are you sure you’ve got the right room?
Chalky White: You’re Eddie Cantor, ain’t you?
Cantor: It depends how big the bill is.
Chalky: We simple folk.
Dun Purnley: Make it something funny.
Cantor: Tell the son of a bitch I’ll do it.

Isn’t there another dress shop in town?

Madame Jeunet: Marguerite, an unexpected pleasure….
Nucky: I think she’d prefer something…
Margaret: Your plans have changed. Clearly. He expected to be out of town but he was able to stay at home after all.
Billie: Gus, it’s all too fancy for me. Why don’t we just… Gosh!
Margaret: I doubt that you’re free in the evenings but… (shoves a prenatal clinic flyer at Billie)

Stop sweating and lock up a bootlegger

Gaston Bullock Means: A man with 200 million dollars to his name can do whatever he chooses.
Jess Smith: It’s all a joke to you, Means?
Means: What I’ve learned — the truth is surprisingly easy to obfuscate.

I’m only going to put up with so much of your shit:

Nucky: I am sorry for demonstrating bad form.
Margaret: That would distress you wouldn’t it?
Nucky: Maybe I’ve changed.
Margaret: Perhaps you’re not the only one.
Nucky: I’ll look in on the kids then I’ll leave.
Margaret: I’d rather you didn’t look in.
Nucky: I’m still their stepfather.
Margaret: That’s one of the things you are.
Nucky: Fair enough. But you may want to ask yourself some practical questions.

I’ll kill for you

Agent Coughlin: You’re a hard man to track down.
Van Alden: Do you intend to extort money from me?
Agent Coughlin: I’d say it was the other way around, wouldn’t you? … That iron you sold me is a piece of junk. Used it two or three times then it totally fell apart.
(Sigrid bashes Coughlin in the head with a blunt object a few times.
Van Alden: No! He wasn’t here to arrest me. I sold him an iron.
Sigrid: I’ll hold his legs.
Van Alden: Please avert your eyes.
Dean O’Banion: Well, well! It’s the iron man. Hey. This must be a pressing issue.
Van Alden: I need your help.
Dean O’Banion: Flowers?
Van Alden: I must dispose of a body.
O’Banion: Oh, must you now?

Having fun, ladies?

Gillian Darmody: Get out on the porch and attract some customers.
Brothel Girl: I thought you didn’t want us doing that.
Gillian: Then why the goddam hell would I say it?
Gillian: (writing a letter to her dead son Jimmy). Life is nothing without you and there is no one who understand me…. Please come home. Your eternally devoted mother.

Thanks for the room number

Gyp’s Guard: Where’s the other kid?
Benny Siegel; Caught a fever.

Thanks, you big star, you

Billie: Yesterday we were closing. Today, they’re rewriting the show.
Nucky: Sounds like Shubert is protecting his investment.
Billie: What did you do, Gus?
Nucky: What does it matter? As long as you get what you want. Your father doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Billie: Eddie, you’re a lifesaver. Whatever you’re doing here, I promise I won’t let you down.
Eddie Cantor: Lucy Danziger. Ever heard of her? The next one won’t know a goddam thing about you either.”

The big fish got away: