Alien Quotes

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Laszlo: As an alienist, I treat mental and emotional disorders in my patients, and I try to alleviate their condition. I do not presume to cure them.

Laszlo: Tell me what you saw.
Moore: Tell you? It's all right there. I've drawn it for you.
Laszlo: You've idealized it. This looks like a martyred saint in a Renaissance painting, not a mutilated child.

Laszlo: The man being held for the murder of the Santorelli boy is quite innocent of the charge.
Roosevelt: And just how would you know that?
Laszlo: Because I interviewed him.
Roosevelt: On whose authority?
Laszlo: My own.

Moore: Laszlo, sometimes you can be as subtle as a blowtorch.

Connor: Miss Howard? Mind your petticoat. There's a sizable, hairless rat been spotted about the station house. 
Sara: Funny, Captain Connor. I see only a little pink mouse. 
Police officer: I like her even more now.

Moore: This is an unsavory neighborhood for a young lady.
Sara: I'm not here on savory business, and every panderer, mawk, lush, and billy noodle in the city pass through the doors of the police department, not to mention the mutton shunters that I work with. So please don't concern yourself with my blushes.

[sjohnson]

Mutton shunting sounds so bad I'm afraid to imagine.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

17 hours ago, sjohnson said:

Mutton shunting sounds so bad I'm afraid to imagine.

I was afraid it would be one of those things you regret googling but this actually not bad! Thanks to this delightful website, I learned that mutton shunter is just Victorian slang for police.

Another website told me that billy noodle means 1. “a soft fellow that believes the girls are all in love with him”; 2. a ladykiller; 3. a conceited ass.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Lucius: Thinking about becoming a socialist now, are you?
Marcus: You know the difference between capitalism and socialism?
Lucius: No.
Marcus: In capitalism, man exploits man. In socialism, ­it's the other way around.

Laszlo: What else did you learn about Santorelli?
Sara: His brother said that he was different.
Laszlo: Different?
Moore: I had the distinct impression that other boys found Giorgio â­in some manner effete or, well, inclined toward contrary sexual instinct.
Laszlo: Being effete and being inclined toward a contrary sexual instinct are two different things. Now, was the boy one or the other? Or was he both the former and the latter?

Sara: No, Tessie. I'll not wear an evening dress as I have no need to flatter myself.
Tessie: Will there be gentlemen present?
Sara: I should say, rather, there will be colleagues present.
Tessie: Colleagues are gentlemen, too. All the more reason to make an impression.

Moore: Hmm. His family grows by the day.
Laszlo: What are you talking about?
Moore: J.P. Morgan. Every beautiful young lady he's seen with claims to be his niece.

Laszlo: Poor Roosevelt. He dislikes the opera as much as you do.
Moore: Doubtful.

Marcus: Don't wait up for us tonight, Mama.
Mrs. Isaacson: Where are you going?
Marcus: We have police business.
Mrs. Isaacson: It doesn't smell like police business.
Lucius: She means you stink like a ten cent whore.

[audience applauds, waking Moore up from a nap]
Moore: Is it over?
Laszlo: Intermezzo.

Moore: I shall be forced to drink for two.

Marcus: Are you perchance waiting for Dr. Kreizler?
Sara: Yes, I am.
Marcus: I'm Detective Sergeant Marcus Isaacson. This is my brother.
Lucius: Detective Sergeant Lucius Isaacson.
Sara: I'm Sara Howard. I work for Commissioner Roosevelt.
Lucius: You're here to take notes?
Sara: Frankly, I don't know why I'm here.

Stevie: Let's eat!
Cyrus: You been grooming them horses, mucking out those stables, and touching your own private self. Clean your hands before you eat. I don't know why I have to keep telling you that.

Laszlo: A little resentment and introspection will do [John] good.
Sara: He's not as strong â­as he'd like you to think. You find that amusing?
Laszlo: Our weaknesses sometimes serve us better than our strengths.
Sara: I'm surprised to hear you admit you've a weakness.
Laszlo: I was speaking metaphorically.

Laszlo: Aside from the job of scrubbing floors, you're the first woman employed by the New York Police Department. That shows initiative and a desire to advance your place in society. Am I mistaken?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Laszlo: Every new thinker is at first condemned by those for whom change is far more terrifying than the murder of children.

Laura: You must wait by the punch bowl when you're dead.

Caroline's mother: I used to play bridge with your father. I regretted profiting on his misplays, of course, but he insisted on wagering.
Moore: He's a most proficient loser, Mrs. Bell. There's no denying that.

Cyrus: God created life, but God also created murder. If you're trying to figure out why, you're going to drive yourself mad.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Dominatrix: The mind is the most erotic organ of the body, doctor.

Sara: If the purpose of this story is to annoy me, then you've succeeded.

Laszlo: You understand the expectations that our society bestows on women - to marry, to have children, to smile when you feel incapable of smiling.

Laszlo: I believe we all possess the raw material required to commit horrible acts. We just need the right or wrong combination of events to make the raw material combustible.

Marcus: Is there a room with outside access? One with windows?
Woman: This is a basement.You know what a basement is, don't you?

Cooper: If there's only one thing I hate more than a sodomite, it's a rich sodomite.

Laszlo: You were asking me if I was jealous just now. Tell me, were you jealous when Julia left you for another man?
Moore: Would you care to rub any more salt in that wound?

Moore: Why must you push away those who care for you? To bring you pleasure or pain?
Laszlo: The question you should be asking is not why I push you away but why you stay.

Marcus: Doesn't the Torah say desire is no more a sin than hunger or thirst?
Lucius: If you'd ever bothered to read the Torah, you'd know it says no such thing!

Moore: Syphilis!
Laszlo: I beg your pardon?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Sara: Certainly you would agree that that's more than one kind of violence.
Laszlo: Look at your friend [John] here to see who's had more influence on his childhood.
Moore: Laszlo, my mother was absent a good deal of my childhood.
Sara: Doctor, we're not talking about the gilded upbringing of a  handsome but indolent member of the leisure class.

Sara: [Laszlo]'s made it clear that the only opinion he values is one that reflects his own.
Moore: I admit he can be rather pigheaded and impatient at times, but you shouldn't take it personally. He's that way with everyone.
Sara: He is a bully and I will not be bullied.
Kid: Shine, mister, shine?
Moore: I doubt any man living could bully you.
Sara: Don't patronize me.
Kid: Shine, sir?
Moore: All right.
Sara: Do you really expect me to stand here and wait while you get your boots shined?
Moore: As a matter of fact, I do.
Sara: Why?
Moore: Because you find me handsome.
Sara: I said you were handsome and indolent.
Moore: Damned with faint praise. Besides, I rather see it not so much as having my boots shined as offering a poor boy honest work.
Sara: And what do you know of honest work?
Moore: I know I don't care for it.
Sara: A slothful nature and a fondness for alcohol can be overcome with hard work and a willingness to change your life.
Moore: I'm afraid you sound just like my old grandmother.
Sara: Well maybe you should listen to her.
Moore: Very well then. Sara Howard, will you marry me? I, John Schuyler Moore, take thee Sara Howard to be my wedded wife rom this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, and to give you lots of little children who will be as lazy as me and just as stubborn as yourself.

Laszlo: I'd like to measure your progress.
Jesse: I've been in solitary confinement for twenty two years. You call that progress?
Laszlo: Some would say you were lucky to escape the gallows.
Jesse: And would you say that? Would you say I'm lucky? Or just insane?
Laszlo: I never considered you mad for killing those children, not even for all that which you'd done to them afterward. On the contrary, it was quite understandable.
Jesse: Understandable?
Laszlo: There's evidence to suggest you were driven to kill y something as simple as envy.
Jesse: Now listen to this. He thinks because I got a bum eye, I run around cutting up little kids just cause they got two good ones. If it is just envy, doctor, why aren't you out there chopping off people's arms?

Marcus: I once knew a nurse in training.
Lucius: Oy gevalt.
Sara: Did you now?
Marcus: Yes, but she failed her exams. They asked her how she would bathe the genitals and she said, "Why, the same way I'd bathe the Jews."

Laszlo: I'd very much like it if you would join me [for dinner]. Please.
Sara: Only on the condition that you fabricate no more stories about distraught mothers and their water-logged children.

Laszlo: Is the wine not satisfactory?
Sara: It's delicious.
Laszlo: You're not being truthful.
Sara: The truth is I prefer whiskey.
Laszlo: Bring the lady a whiskey, please.
Waiter: Yes, sir.
Sara: Please make it two.

Esther: I'm curious about your names. I don't recall a Marcus or Lucius in the Old Testament.
Lucius: Shakespeare. Our parents had just arrived in this country. In order to learn English, they took to reading Shakespeare.
Marcus: Or trying to.
Lucius: They were halfway through Julius Caesar when we were born. They didn't want their children to be subjected to any anti-Jewish feelings, hence we were named after characters in the play.

Laszlo: While it's too early to draw conclusions, Miss Howard, I must compliment you on your police work.
Sara: I suppose I should be grateful at the suggestion that what I'm doing is police work.
Laszlo: Searching all those records and drawing unconvincing inferences is certainly worthy of the term.
Sara: Commissioner Roosevelt might disagree with you.
Laszlo: I find Commissioner Roosevelt capable of disagreeing with most people on most things.
Sara: You're of similar temperament then.
Laszlo: If I were to disagree with you, it would only prove your point.
Sara: Given your knowledge and experience, perhaps instead I should say that you are stubborn and intractable.
Laszlo: Intractable?
Sara: You have a gift for it.

Bishop: How would God distinguish an alienist from an alchemist or a spiritualist or someone who levitates tables and talks to the dead?
Laszlo: Psychology is a relatively new but well respected field of medicine.
Bishop: Without God, man's nature is to seek not good but evil. Everyone is born in sin. Salvation is required by all.
Laszlo: If the need for salvation did not exist, the church would surely find its invention necessary.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Whenever one of the characters says "while" or "why," I think of this:

[pezgirl7]

On 2/20/2018 at 3:37 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Whenever one of the characters says "while" or "why," I think of this:

I know they're all doing it on purpose because I guess that's how upperclass New Yorkers spoke back then, but sometimes it really annoys me. Especially when Dakota says it because it sounds even more pronounced and intentional, not natural.

Edited February 21, 2018 by pezgirl7

[Hazel55]

13 hours ago, pezgirl7 said:

I know they're all doing it on purpose because I guessed that's how upperclass New Yorkers spoke back then, but sometimes it really annoys me. Especially when Dakota says it because it sounds even more pronounced and intentional, not natural.

I've noticed the same thing. Though Fanning's been great at times (the scene in which Kreitzler was taunting her about her father, and her palpable discomfort at her Vassar reuinion are two standouts),  I've also noticed that at times, she comes off as stiff and awkward, due to her somewhat stilted delivery of the period speech.

This is particularly pronounced, for whatever reasons, in a few of the scenes she shares alone with Bruhl. The carriage scene in episode two; the scene between Lazlo and Sarah in episode three before her Vassar reunion; and most recently, the restaurant scene between the two in last night's episode. (I was thrilled that Sarah stood up for herself in this scene, but simultaneously, I couldn't help but say..."Really? They went with that cut? Didn't they have a director on hand to tell them to do it again, and make it look a little bit more natural this time?" To me Fanning came off as either a bored adolescent delivering her lines listlessly for a highschool play; or a mildly autistic adult awkwardly trying to imitate adult social behavior, attempting to hide her social ineptitude beneath a veneer of phony "mysteriousness.")

Don't get me wrong, she's great in some scenes; she generally delivers on the intense emotional scenes, and was charming and natural during her "proposal" scene with Luke Evans. But when it comes time to delivering the more blatantly "late Victorian Era" lines of the dialogue, or having "intense" interactions with Kreitzler, she tends to not quite pull it off. Then again, she's only had three of those "intending to be intense, but simply coming off as awkward" scenes with Bruhl; and I'm sure period dialogue is difficult to deliver naturally, so perhaps I'm being far too hard on her. People here have noted that viewers are frequently more critical of the females in these pieces, and I hope I'm not falling into that trap. Still, when Fanning delivered that line about "a handsome but indolent member of the leisure classes", she literally sounded like she was reading listlessly off of a cue card. 

Fanning clearly knows that Sarah is a late Victorian Era lady from an upper class background, but she still comes off as quite a bit too deliberately mannered to me. 

[pezgirl7]

14 hours ago, Hazel55 said:

I've noticed the same thing. Though Fanning's been great at times (the scene in which Kreitzler was taunting her about her father, and her palpable discomfort at her Vassar reuinion are two standouts),  I've also noticed that at times, she comes off as stiff and awkward, due to her somewhat stilted delivery of the period speech.

Yes to your entire post! I was just talking to a friend about this, and she disagreed with me, so I'm glad that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Like you said, she's pretty good at the emotional scenes, but many times it just sounds like she's reciting dialogue without actually thinking about what she's saying or delivering it a natural manner. Even her very first scene where she stands up and says "John Moore!" just seemed so unnatural. And then in the scene where she's talking about mutton shunters to John outside the brothel, it was like she had to memorize this incredibly hard dialogue, and was just trying to get through it as quickly as possible.

[bosawks]

I found Dakota’s delivery halting and stilted but I’ve grown to kinda love it.

I can almost see Sara editing every single thing she says and weighing them as her father’s child in a man’s world.

I’ve also come around on Teddy.

Edited February 24, 2018 by bosawks

[Neurochick]

I think the way Sara speaks is part of her character.  She doesn't really want to speak like a Victorian upper class lady, but knows she has to, so the way she speaks in public comes across unnatural.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Moore: Did you know egg creams have neither egg nor cream in them?
Joseph: You mean the man g***** me?

Joseph: What do you do?
Moore: Me? Well, I'm an illustrator
Joseph: What's that?
Moore: I draw pictures.
Joseph: And people pay you?
Moore: Yes.
Joseph: That's stupid.

Moore: Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.

Moore's grandmother: Tell me, do you think bidding at auction allows for the same titillation as games of chance.
Moore: Only for the losers.
Moore's grandmother: What do you mean?
Moore: For some, the pleasure is in the pain.
Moore's grandmother: Wherever did you hear such a thing?
Moore: I read it in a book.

[pezgirl7]

Moore: Spirits copulate?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

4 hours ago, pezgirl7 said:

Moore: Spirits copulate?

Natural history museum guy: I suppose there's not much more else to do.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Morgan: I think there are two reasons a man does what he does - the good reason and the real reason.

Morgan: Gentlemen, you have made yourselves a very wide variety of very powerful enemies in a very short period of time.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

John: Your attention certainly seems to be drawn elsewhere this morning.
Laszlo: If you're referring to the fact I've not asked about what happened to your face, it's only because I wanted to spare you the embarrassment.
John: What if I told you I'd met an old friend for a drink?
Laszlo: That resulted in two black eyes?
John: Sometimes, Laszlo, there are words spoken between people that are to be left private.

Laszlo: There's a French alienist named Broca I came across when I researched Mary's aphasia. He believes there's a certain section of the brain responsible for speech, another for empathy, even one for love.
John: Love resides in the heart.
Laszlo: Nonsense. The heart is simply a muscle. Love isn't a mystery any more than cholera.
John: Cholera is a disease.

John: Newton, Massachusetts. I believe there's a factory there that makes a biscuit my grandmother is very fond of. 
Laszlo: Your grandmother? 
John: Yes, made with figs. Ghastly sounding, but she swears by them.

Marcus: It's not respecting the dead. 
Lucius: What isn't? 
Marcus: This. You're sightseeing, acting like a ghoulish tourist visiting a gravesite.
Lucius: People visit the pyramids. They're gravesites.
Marcus: That's different.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Roosevelt: Please forgive me for offering you the same advice you once gave me. You are not alone in your sorrow, and there's no shame in grieving for those you love.

Stevie: It ain't fair he's living like that and Mary's in the ground. It's a pity she didn't finish him off. Because if I got the chance, I would stick a shank in his throat.
Cyrus: You ain't gotta cut a man's throat to kill him. All you gotta do is cut a man on his leg, nick a vein, you put him away right quick.

Murray: He was a decent fellow. Polite. Religious. Scrupulous. Personally, I never gave much credence to the allegations.
Sara: What allegations?
Murray: I had to fire him after a complaint from a Jewish family. They claimed he had been visiting their daughter on several occasions when he wasn't scheduled for an interview. How old was their daughter? 12 at the time, but I'm sure you appreciate it that girls of that age have vivid imaginations And people of the Hebrew faith even more so.

Marcus: You haven't, by any chance, kept his employment records?
Murray: We're the census department. We keep everything.

Moore: I'd feel much safer if there were a couple of roundsmen present.
Sara: Not after they shot you in the back.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Sara: The last thing an honest politician can expect is gratitude, if I may quote you.

Sara: I've learned from you. We can either let it haunt us for the rest of our lives or we can accept it and use the memory of our pain to help others.
Laszlo: I'm not sure the choices is entirely in our hands.
Sara: I disagree. If it weren't, we'd all be murderers.

John's grandmother: Laszlo was just explaining the difference between a common murderer and a multi-murderer.
John: Laszlo, now, is it? Please tell me you haven't come here just to frighten my grandmother.
John's grandmother: I'm not the least bit frightened by these psychopaths.

Laszlo: We set out to find a monster but all we found was a wounded child.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Sara: We have to stop this!
Byrnes: One of the female agitators, I see.
Sara: This woman is innocent! This is an outrage, an abomination!
Byrnes: I am surprised, Miss Howard, a lady of your bearing should be participating in such hooliganism and lawlessness.
Sara: A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, Mr. Byrnes.
Byrnes: The words of anarchists and agitators.
Sara: They're the words of Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Byrnes.

Sara: Put your hands up and face me! Stay where you are!
[Laszlo turns around]
Sara: I could have shot you!
Laszlo: You would have been doing me a service.

Laszlo: How goes it with your brave new adventure, detective?
Sara: It seems that most of my clients are rich old dowagers who think their servants are stealing from them.

John: V, this is Dr. Kreizler.
Violet: The famous Dr. Kreizler? The alienist?
Laszlo: I hazard that I'm more derided than acclaimed.

Stevie: Dr. Kreizler, ain't we wasting our time?
Laszlo: Time is never wasted when we are thinking. That is what is wondrous about the human mind. We may appear still, yet all the time in here, we're conducting symphonies, solving the most arduous mathematical problems, and contemplating the mysteries of the universe.
Stevie: You're doing all those things right now, doctor?
Lazslo: No.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Laszlo: I intend to be there to ask questions and perhaps hasten his fall from grace.

John: Hudson Street is a preserve of ruffians and hoodlums.
Sara: Oh, hogwash, John. I doubt you've ever been there.

[paigow]

21 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

John: Hudson Street is a preserve of ruffians and hoodlums.
Sara: Oh, hogwash, John. I doubt you've ever been there.

John: Would you believe a wretched hive of scum and villainy? 

[Razzberry]

[pezgirl7]

Laszlo: John, it is my great privilege to be your friend. And as Voltaire said, ‘ Virtuous men alone possess friends.’ You are indeed a virtuous man. A free spirit, restless soul, blessed with kindness, bravery and passion. You are sometimes reckless, certainly careless, and occasionally hopeless. But, it is my sincerest hope, wish, that Violet sees you as we do, cares for you like we do, will know you as we have known you, and will love you like we do. Should she dare. 

[Razzberry]

Sara:  "You don't like oysters, then?"
Libby: "No. The city dumps all the horse manure into the harbor, I believe that's why they get so fat."

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Laszlo: Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitatem.
John: Oh, please, Laszlo. No one speaks Latin anymore.
Lucius: Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.

John: How did you persuade them to let you down here?
Sara: I didn't ask.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Libby: People who can't stand up for themselves are often unhappily blamed for the sins of others.

 

[Souris]

John: “Bitsy, please! Will you have a little decency and not pound on my door like some persistent woodpecker!”

[ElectricBoogaloo]

John: This is monstrous.
Laszlo: It is appalling, I grant you, but equally, it's enthralling.

Laszlo: To what shall we drink?
Karen: Let us drink to getting drunk.

Laszlo: In truth, there are facets of the female mine I find very difficult to grasp.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Laszlo: Liars are like magicians. We are deceived by what we see, what we are told. But beneath the sleight of hand, there's still a simple trick.

Karen: Breasts are erogenous zones.
Laszlo: I'm aware of that.