Michael Collins (1996)
Liam Neeson: Michael Collins
Photos
Quotes
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[Michael Collins arrives at the ceremony to take down the British flag]
British officer : You're seven minutes late, Mr. Collins.
Michael Collins : You've kept us waiting 700 years. You can have your seven minutes.
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Cathal Brugha : The Minister is as usual exceeding his brief!
Michael Collins : And what is my brief, Cathal?
Cathal Brugha : Intelligence.
Michael Collins : Bullshit! I'm Minister for Gun-Running, Daylight Robbery, and General Mayhem.
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Harry Boland : What happens next time?
Michael Collins : Next time, Harry, we won't play by their rules. We'll invent our own!
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Michael Collins : There was a man in west Cork who proposed to five sisters.
Kitty Kiernan : I suppose they all refused.
Michael Collins : Then the father died and he proposed to the mother.
Kitty Kiernan : Are you trying to tell me something?
Michael Collins : I was working up to a proposal.
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Kitty Kiernan : Is it true, Mick, that all of the women in America wear trousers?
Michael Collins : Absolutely! Shameless hussies, the lot o' them.
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Michael Collins : I hate them for making hate necessary, and I'll do what I can to end it.
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Michael Collins : I would plead with every person here: Make me a scapegoat if you will, call me a traitor, if you will; But please, let's save the country. The alternative to this treaty is a war which no one in this room can even contemplate. If the price of peace, if the price of freedom is the blackening of my name, I would gladly pay it.
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[as the British flag comes down]
Michael Collins : So that's what all the bother was about.
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Eamon de Valera : They call us murderers.
Michael Collins : War *is* murder! Sheer, bloody murder! Had you been here the past year, you'd know that!
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Michael Collins : I want peace and quiet. I want it so much I'd die for it.
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Michael Collins : We have a weapon more powerful... than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon... is our refusal!
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Michael Collins : Give *us* the future, we've had enough of your past. Give us back our country, to live in , to grow in, to love.
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Michael Collins : If they shut me up, who will take my place?
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Michael Collins : Once I start, they'll be no stopping me.
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Michael Collins : There is one weapon that the British cannot take away from us: we can ignore them.
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[Collins and his men have just intercepted an intelligence report from the Royal Irish Constabulary]
Michael Collins : Jesus, these bastards know more about us than our own mothers.
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Harry Boland : Oh, did you hear there's a butterfly been seen in West Clare? Its wings are green, white, and yellow.
Michael Collins : Oh, God!
Harry Boland : The lads say it's a sign.
Michael Collins : Sign? My... fuck it!
Harry Boland : I'm tellin' ya.
Michael Collins : You know the problem with butterflies?
Kitty Kiernan : What's that?
Michael Collins : They only last one day.
Harry Boland : Aye, but what a day, Mick!