MI-5 Quotes

  • Harry Pearce: ...before he got religion - if world anarchy *is* a religion.

  • Jools Siviter: And you brought little terrier Tom along with you, what a nice surprise...

  • Jools Siviter: Are we going to have to come over the river and potty-train you people?

  • Jools Siviter: The great joy of an obo post is that the Powers That Be can't see how much you're drinking.

  • Danny Hunter: Earl Grey tea bags.

    Zoe Reynolds: What?

    Danny Hunter: You didn't get any.

    Zoe Reynolds: Why would I get *you* Earl Grey tea bags?

    Danny Hunter: I like them.

    Zoe Reynolds: Look, we have a flat share, okay? We are not married!

    Danny Hunter: Is Earl Grey tea bags married?

    Zoe Reynolds: Oh, yes!

  • Harry Pearce: We're in a state of collective desperation here.

  • Harry Pearce: Oh, shag.

  • Jools Siviter: Little tinkering Tom here is responsible for this mess!

  • Jools Siviter: Lively on this side of the river, isn't it?

  • Jools Siviter: Bug your own office, do you, Harry?

    Harry Pearce: Only for special occasions.

  • Ruth Evershed: Shall I hit him again Adam?

    Adam Carter: Only if you want to.

  • Colin Wells: Didn't we bug this suite when Bill Clinton used it?

    Malcolm Wynn-Jones: We did.

    Colin Wells: Happy days!

  • Home Secretary: You know, back in my days as a student radical, our dreams were all about the glorious proletariat.

    Harry Pearce: We've still got those dreams on file somewhere.

  • Tom Quinn: Colin, when the word "Yes" will do, use it.

  • Adam Carter: I was just shoring up an asset.

    Harry Pearce: Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?

  • Tariq Masood: [confronting Calum] I've met a lot of people like you. Piss-takers. You go through life finding everything so easy you think it's all a joke.

  • MOD Desk Officer: They're making a map of Secret Britain. They want the public to know just how much is being kept from them. I quite agree with them, actually.

    Tom Quinn: And so you just handed it over! Without a thought that they might be working against us.

    MOD Desk Officer: What's going to happen to me?

    Danny Hunter: Bad things.

    [Tom and Danny leave. The Desk Officer starts to tremble and puts his head in his hands]

  • Danny Hunter: I may not be able to do everything I want to do to you, but there is a lot I can do.

  • Ros Myers: [comprehensively beats up a tail] Follow me again, and I'll get really cross.

  • Danny Hunter: [decides to sacrifice himself] You will never win. Acts of Hate often bring forth Acts of Love and so you will never win. In another World, you might be tied to this chair and I might be holding the gun. So I suppose you've been unlucky. But you will never win.

    Al Qaeda Man: [infuriated, embarrassed] I'm... unlucky?

    Fiona Carter: Danny, don't!

    Danny Hunter: If I weren't tied to this chair, I would be up in your face, you Death-Worshipping Fascist!

    Al Qaeda Man: And you know what my answer would be.

    [Shoots Danny in the back of the head]

  • Danny Hunter: They're going to kill us.

    Fiona Carter: At least we're together, Danny.

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: He's done it!

    [Smiles, then his face falls]

    Adam Carter: [Having swerved the car into the middle of a deserted public square, Adam Carter leaps out. The bomb detonates. Adam Carter disappears into the fireball mid-run]

  • Tom Quinn: So how did it go?

    [Harry is silent]

    Tom Quinn: Oh, that's right, I forgot. I'm a Civilian, now!

    Harry Pearce: ...You are.

  • Double Agent: You're so young! Too young to be wasting your life with this nonsense...

    New Recruit: [Still typing away, close to the incriminating data] It's my duty.

    Double Agent: [She garrottes him to death with a ring-wire]

  • Ruth Evershed: I was on an operation where a Conscience exploded. Five people died.

  • Lucas North: This job is a Machine that chews up good people and then spits them out!

  • Ros Myers: How old are you?

    Crackhouse Girl: Why?

    Ros Myers: You look like someone I knew.

    Crackhouse Girl: It's not a nice feeling, is it?

  • CIA Man: So how much information do you have on this Shining Dawn?

    Harry Pearce: About as much as you had on Al Qaeda when they were sunning themselves in Florida and learning how to fly.

  • New Recruit: We don't have to understand them, we just have to stop them.

  • Ros Myers: You dropped your potato-peeler.

  • Harry Pearce: Because of what we are, we have to watch each other, as much as that pains us.

  • Tom Quinn: [trying to talk someone out of getting himself shot by Special Forces] They want you to self-destruct!

    Disillusioned Colonel: There's not a Soldier in Britain would shoot me!

    Harry Pearce: Green light!

  • IRA Man: [offers handshake] We could have been friends in another life!

    Tom Quinn: [declines] It'll just have to wait until then.

  • Ros Myers: I know you may find this hard to believe, but there are more important people in the World than your Boss.

  • Jo Portman: You journalists do it to make some point about morality, but we're just trying to make the World safer. And do you know how much we get paid to do all this running around in the dark? You don't wanna know.

  • Harry Pearce: [hunting a Rogue Agent] I didn't choose you for this mission because of your skills, but because you have absolutely nothing to lose.

  • Harry Pearce: [agitated, thinks the World is ending and that he has contracted a disease via a biological weapon] All things that are of any worth, think on those things...

  • Angela Wells: [holding up the Grid with a detonator] Things were better back when this Country was more Christian.

  • Ros Myers: It's a living.

  • Tom Quinn: There are no medals for what we do. But what we do give is respect. And that you have. I know Agents twice your age who couldn't go through what you did.

    Radicalising Mosque Informant: You said you'd keep me safe.

    Tom Quinn: I'm so sorry.

  • Tom Quinn: We don't have anyone of your background.

    Egyptian Refugee: Does that mean race?

    Tom Quinn: Yes.

    Egyptian Refugee: [examines Spykit] Is this necessary? This Chocolate Box James Bondery?

  • Tom Quinn: We have procedures for this!

  • Egyptian Refugee: I found this in the Student Bookshop.

    [gives Tom a Koran]

  • Egyptian Refugee: Suicides' a bit extreme even for an Aston Villa fan, don't you think?

    "Nest of Angels" Radical: What?

    Egyptian Refugee: Your shirt! It's Villa, right? Football. It's one of the finer things in life.

    "Nest of Angels" Radical: The Mullah said that for a martyr Allah would intercede for 10 loved ones...

    Egyptian Refugee: Well, what do you think? I think the only way we will see Paradise is if we build it here. Come on, you know it's true. You know it.

    "Nest of Angels" Radical: [moves his hand]

    Tom Quinn: He's going to go!

  • Angela Wells: Mind-reading 101: throw out enough guesses, eventually you'll get something right.

  • Danny Hunter: Any ideas?

    Zoe Reynolds: We could stop selling arms to the regimes so these people stop escaping over here, but since that's not going to happen...

  • Note: [Character opens a Manila Envelope and finds photos of a hit] Are you happy with your wash?

  • Harry Pearce: Thanks for letting us have first bite at the rotten apple.

  • Harry Pearce: Colin, tell me something uplifting.

    Colin Wells: It's looking to be the driest Autumn on record.

    Harry Pearce: Do you want to be taken out and shot?

  • Danny Hunter: Do you ever wonder about this path we've chosen?

  • Danny Hunter: Everybody out! There is BLUE ASBESTOS in the Building!

  • Recruit: ...You're burning me?

  • Ros Myers: Do you know where you are?

    Terrorist's Girlfriend: No.

    Ros Myers: Exactly.

  • Depressed Source: I miss my wife, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong about this.

  • Caption: Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori.

  • Danny Hunter: It was just an ear stud.

  • Zoe Reynolds: It's a honeytrap and it's naff!

    Tom Quinn: Naff can work.

  • Ruth Evershed: [World is Ending] We should be with our Loved Ones! Even if that is just a Cat...

  • Egyptian Refugee: I will say it for your ear only. The fruit of the Zaqqum Tree shall be the sinners' food.

  • Ruth Evershed: Is that your wife? Be brave for her.

    [burns off her wrist restraints with a steam iron]

  • CIA Man: What's an MI5 Pretty Boy got that I haven't?

    Sarah Caulfield: I think you answered your own question.

  • Jools Siviter: [mobile rings]

    Opera Patron: Will you turn that off, I mean, really!

    Jools Siviter: Are you a Nazi, Madam? We're a rum lot, we Wagner fans. I personally bugger skinheads, so kindly do not tell me what I can and can't do.

  • Fiona Carter: Tear this place apart.

  • CIA Man: I'm an American! You got the wrong guy.

  • CIA Man: Because I believe it.

  • Danny Hunter: You've got to ride the bicycle again. That Doctor...

    Tom Quinn: Did I notice her?

  • Jools Siviter: Well, come on! Spit it out, you Russian Baboon!

  • Zoe Reynolds: Connie's running Phantom Agents.

  • Harry Pearce: [to a whole TV Studio Audience] Sign the Official Secrets Act.

  • Jo Portman: It's not like you haven't been trained.

    Adam Carter: Give them a chance to find us.

  • Ros Myers: [gang surveillance] Adam, they are discussing your presence!

  • Fiona Carter: [Uncut] Danny, don't!

    Danny Hunter: Look at all the Cake and Presents Pooh...

  • IRA Man: Don't you miss the days when he'd be Innocent until Proven Irish?

  • Harry Pearce: [Danny's been shot] Where's Alice?

    Ruth Evershed: She's under sedation.

    Harry Pearce: Well let's make sure we're not under sedation.

  • Ros Myers: [over the phone] Harry, there is no gun!

    [But there is one]

  • Zoe Reynolds: No, they chose to go!

  • Ruth Evershed: [Funeral Eulogy] Let no stone mark my grave.

  • Harry Pearce: She thinks she knows.

  • Thug: [hanging Colin] You're doing very well.

  • Harry Pearce: [Torture] No longer this we do not do.

  • Ros Myers: That's not good enough! Tell me you didn't take bribes!

  • Ros Myers: How much did you pay him?

  • CIA Man: You'll do it because you know what happens when you slice a man's eyelids off and deprive him of sleep for 72 hours.

  • Lucas North: Working for the Chinese, have you got a Death Wish?

  • Callum: Hey, I wasn't born with a Silver Spoon!

    Tariq Masood: You didn't have to be, because you're Cocky and Full of Yourself. But I had to prove everyone wrong, my teachers, my parents. So when it fucks up I take it seriously.

  • Tom Quinn: [to Pen-Top Suicide Capsule Guy] You Idiot.

  • Elderly Spy: We have now come to the part of the proceedings where my Prostate makes an appearance.

  • Tom Quinn: They prefer it if we don't date normal people.

  • Tom Quinn: [Underground footage now has insert edit of a hand pushing the Spy under the train] That's been tampered with!

  • Tom Quinn: [Crisis Simulation] London Outranks Edinburgh you Stone-Headed Scot!

  • Tom Quinn: [walks out into a field to meet another male Spy. They both start taking all their clothes off]

  • Double Agent: Why are you murderers always so sentimental?

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: [Vx molecule on the Screen] Look at those strong Chloride Bonds!

  • Adam Carter: She had no weapon!

  • Zoe Reynolds: Hi! Well, it doesn't really matter who I am, but I'm looking at your tax return and I'm afraid there's some bad news.

  • Harry Pearce: [Grisly False Flag against the IRA Story] And after all that, it didn't work!

  • Jo Portman: Let me see the photos, I'll know if it's him.

    Adam Carter: You don't want that. They'll always be there, in the corner of the room.

  • Jo Portman: Who killed him?

    Adam Carter: You did.

  • Tom Quinn: Before a mission, you have to put yourself in a box.

    Professor: Ah, but what if the box gets lost?

  • Tom Quinn: Ah, Bible Games!

  • Tom Quinn: Give me your weapon!

    Special Forces: I don't think I can do that, Sir.

  • Terrorist: My life is useless, now!

    Adam Carter: No life is useless.

  • Tariq Masood: He didn't push him.

    Terrorist's Girlfriend: Then what did I just see?

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: [Ransom in diamonds] Don't touch them! They're covered in Genetically Modified Cobra Venom. It slips through the skin and...

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: Kill me if you must but don't touch that boy.

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: I'm getting too old for this.

  • Spurned: Nobody dumps me like a sack of shit!

  • Spurned: [Vengeance, everyone thinks Tom Quinn is a Gigolo] The look on your face!

  • Adam Carter: [what it'll be like to do a hit on a defecting Scientist] First, you'll cry like a baby...

  • Ros Myers: [rinses off her hands after an interrogation]

  • American Hacker: I can't stand one more day in this Hobbit Village!

  • Ruth Evershed: [Surveillance] Just let me hear the end of this one! Ha-ha!

  • Ruth Evershed: [Watching "The Red Shoes" at home, mesmerised]

  • Harry Pearce: [Watching "The Weakest Link". Bored, knows all the answers]

  • Harry Pearce: [Stuck in Traffic, listening to Terry Wogan]

  • Russian Mobster: Why do you care? It's only American Money.

    Kidnapped Bank Employee: [does the hack, is shot]

  • Russian Mobster: Now, the first thing I'm going to do is push this knitting needle into your eye.

  • Danny Hunter: [toothpick tracker] See, Sergei? Technology's moved on.

    [backup blow a hole in the wall]

  • Policewoman: [on a stakeout] You've got children, haven't you?

    Tom Quinn: Yes!

  • Ruth Evershed: [after scaring someone off her trail] Well, I played Lady MacBeth once.

  • Ruth Evershed: That's what's wrong. There's a guy in Hospital, immobilised by the horror of what he went through. And I'm right as rain.

  • Ruth Evershed: [Civilian life] Things were simple and elegant!

    Harry Pearce: You were made for more than that.

  • Harry Pearce: If you kill him now, it would be gratuitous, because you know I won't tell you either way.

  • Muslim: I ate with you!

    Hindu: I just wanted to play football with you!

  • Dodgy MP: [TV] In the wake of these pop stars and their murder-suicide, I think it shows that there's nothing more useless than fame.

    Harry Pearce: Adam! I need you for just one more thing...

  • Tom Quinn: I'm Security Services, there's a bomb in my house!

    Policeman: You're the fifth one I've had today, Sir.

    Tom Quinn: Well, call the number!

    Policeman: Which number's that, Sir?

    Tom Quinn: [reels it off]

    Policeman: [stunned] Right...

  • Ros Myers: [Getting ready to Waterboard Someone] My shrink tells me I'm grief-stricken and see saving this hostage as a metaphor for saving my dead friend...

  • Lucas North: Take me with you.

  • Sarah Caulfield: What do you know that I don't?

    Tom Quinn: Oh, lots of things.

  • Harry Pearce: My Office?

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: Did you just send someone to their death?

  • Adam Carter: I didn't tell you because the Malcolm that thought he was dying anyway was invincible.

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: [freezes up in front of the wires]

    Adam Carter: [cuts one at random, bomb shuts down]

    Malcolm Wynn-Jones: Do you know how dangerous that was?

    Adam Carter: Better than doing nothing!

  • Fiona Carter: I love your Country!

  • Recruit: I stuck my neck out for you, I got the USB drive back!

    Ros Myers: Nobody asked you to.

    Recruit: Ros!

    Ros Myers: That's not my name and I don't know who you are.

    [Leaves]

  • Ros Myers: [surrounded by danger, EEG showing straight lines]

  • Harry Pearce: [pentathol hallucinations] I must speak to the Home Secretary.

    Interrogator: Ha ha! You're not going to speak to the Home Secretary. You're going to be sent off to live in the most terrible poverty we can bestow.

  • American Ambassador: [thrown off a balcony, doesn't scream his murderer's name]

  • Adam Carter: [Microdots] It's called Spycraft.

  • Harry Pearce: Sharecropper.

  • Autistic Savant's Brother: Show them the Magic. Without me, you could fly.

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: [foiling a Fingerprint Scanner] We go through the trash until we find something we can use.

  • Harry Pearce: [meets Russian Mob Wife in front of a Painting of the Execution of Lady Jane Grey]

  • Lucas North: They told me you were a force to be reckoned with.

  • Sleeper Agent: [has no escape]

  • Lucas North: What would you do?

    Jo Portman: Send a runner to catch up with us?

  • Harry Pearce: Escort her to a safehouse and tell her to await further instructions...

  • Harry Pearce: [zipped into a Body Bag for transportation]

  • Pop Star: [faked kidnapping] But WHY?

    Pop Star's Model Wife: To survive! You're not famous any more, and I'm too old to be a Model. We can have another baby.

    [shot]

  • Pop Star: I'll meet you at the Beginning of the World.

    Malcolm Wynn-Jones: [Surveillance] What could that mean?

    Harry Pearce: Anything.

  • Pop Star: [Caught] Ha! "Pop Star in Murder-Suicide!"

    [shoots himself in the mouth]

  • Adam Carter: Swedish Meatballs, please.

  • Pop Star: [crying, carves his son's name into his arm]

  • New Recruit: [Bomb Defused] They'll never know!

    Jo Portman: Isn't that a good thing?

  • Ruth Evershed: [EMP pulse stopped the missiles] The Hospital Generators kicked in, I shouldn't think more than 200 died.

    Harry Pearce: Is it just about the numbers?

    Ruth Evershed: I think sometimes it is.

  • Lucas North: I bet you say that to all the boys.

  • Harry Pearce: Not even All-Forgiving Sweden would take you in.

  • Callum: I'll open a Hotmail Account for you, save a draft email with your instructions and then give you the password.

    Tariq Masood: It's a good trick, we learned it from Al Qaeda.

  • Pakistani Ambassador: We need you in tip top Health before you're Interrogated.

  • Russian Mobster: How do I know I can trust you?

    Ros Myers: [kisses him]

  • Harry Pearce: Our people found this during the cleanup operation

    [hands over the Religious Icon to the Dying Banker]

  • Russian Mobster: [catches sight of a Religious Icon] What is it? Is beautiful!

    Banker: [sighs] A gift, enjoy it Sir.

  • Danny Hunter: What are they doing?

    Zoe Reynolds: They're praying.

  • Russian Mobster: [Stand Down order] Your lucky day!

  • Malcolm Wynn-Jones: If you don't want to make your boy an orphan, stand up and get on with it!

  • Adam Carter: [handing a witness over to Malcolm] Does he look dangerous?

  • Ruth Evershed: He wrote a book called "The Future does not need us"

  • Harry Pearce: Well, if he's going to put himself in Harm's Way...

  • Fiona Carter: He recruited me... he was very sweet.

  • Danny Hunter: Now that is what you call a non-credible source.

  • Revenant: And do you know what the Spider does when he comes out of Hiding? He builds another Web, more glorious than the last one.

  • Maisie: He promises not to get shot again!

  • Anti-Abortion Fanatic: After me there will be others, it's not over.

    Tom Quinn: It's never over.

  • Anarchist: [in the toilets] Can I ask you a personal question?

    Tom Quinn: What?

    Anarchist: Would you die to protect a cause you believed in?

    Tom Quinn: No.

    Anarchist: Well, I would

    [jitsu-hacks Tom in the throat, steals his belt and then hangs himself]

  • Mace: We'll wait for a good day to bury bad news.

  • Harry Pearce: [Stares mournfully at a Computer Screen showing the Employment File of the Desk Agent who was killed at the end of her first Field Mission, then Deletes it]

  • Ruth Evershed: [American Embassy] Seriously? The password's 1776?

  • Tom Quinn: [Giving a Recruit a Cover Story as a Mature Student] If you're going to hide, hide among the Young.

  • Al Qaeda Man: ISIS is a business just like any other. Now, would you like me to have the woman who mishandled your coat murdered and her house robbed?

  • Al Qaeda Man: Tell him Life is just a Dream.

  • CID: Please, I have a wife!

  • Al Qaeda Man 2: She says I must kill you.

    Al Qaeda Man: Then you must kill me.

  • Terrorist's Girlfriend: What happened to you? You're talking like a Robot!

  • Fiona Carter: He wasn't though, he was a Solid Gold Asset and we got him killed.

    Tom Quinn: How are things at Langley?

    Fiona Carter: They're in meltdown.

    Tom Quinn: And you?

    Fiona Carter: I'm in meltdown too, you nearly died.

  • Adam Carter: He's got CIA written all over him.

  • Spy: [Debrief, she's just been traumatised by witnessing a Procedural Dogpile to contain the blast from a Suicide Bomber] He looked right at me and smiled! He looked like a Dad!

  • Terrorist's Girlfriend 2: My Life is Useless Now!

    Adam Carter: No Life is useless.

    [Extends his hand]

    Terrorist's Girlfriend 2: [moves what is apparently a bin-liner bagged gun up to aim at Adam, provoking Special Forces to shoot her. It turns out that it was a prop within the bin-liner, and so a "Suicide by Cop" Event in Malcolm's estimation later]

MI-5

Director: Alrick Riley, Omar Madha, Antonia Bird, Charles Beeson

Language: English Release date: July 22, 2003

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