My Left Foot Quotes

[Christy's father builds him a room next to his parents' house]

Mrs. Brown: Well, Christy, that's the nearest he'll ever come to saying he loves you.

Christy Brown: I need a light

Mary: What?

Christy Brown: I need a light.

Mary: I don't smoke.

Christy Brown: I need a light.

Mary: I'm not deaf, I can hear you. I haven't got any matches, so you'll just have to wait here while I go and get one... Don't think I'm your mother just because I'm looking after you for the evening.

Christy Brown: I don't need a fucking psychology lesson, I just need a fucking light.

[writing a suicide note]

Christy Brown: All is nothing, therefore nothing must end.

[sarcastically offering congratulations to Eileen, his beloved therapist]

Christy Brown: Con... Con... Con... gra... tu... la... tions, Peter and Eileen on the won... wonderful news. I'm glad you taught me how to speak so I could say that, Eileen.

Christy Brown: Fuck off.

Dr. Eileen Cole: With speech therapy, I could teach you how to say "fuck off" more clearly.

Christy Brown: What are you going to do about it, Peter? You're a nice man. What are you going to do about it?

Peter: I'm gonna wheel you out of this restaurant.

Christy Brown: Yeah?

[starts beating his head on the table]

Christy Brown: [chanting] Wheel out the cripple! Wheel out the cripple!

[reading a speech Christy has written]

Lord Castlewelland: "I was born in the Rotunda Hospital on June the fifth, 1932. There were 22 children in all, of which 13 survived. It would not be true to say that I am no longer lonely. I have made myself articulate and understood to people in many parts of the world, and this is something we all wish to do whether we're crippled or not. Yet, like everyone else, I am acutely conscious sometimes of my own isolation, even in the midst of people. And I often give up hope of ever being able to really communicate with them. It is not only the sort of isolation that every writer or artist must experience in the creative mood if he is to create anything at all. It is like a black cloud sweeping down on me unexpectedly, cutting me off from others. A sort of deaf-muteness. I lay back in my chair while my own left foot beat time to a new rhythm. Now I could relax and enjoy myself completely. I was at peace. Happy."

[last lines]

Christy Brown: What'll we drink to?

Mary: Let's drink to Dublin.

Christy Brown: To Dublin? Why?

Mary: Because Christy Brown was born there.