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Emmeline Pankhurst: Deeds, not words.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: Don't bother arresting them. Let their husbands deal with them.
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Emmeline Pankhurst: Never surrender. Never give up the fight.
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Maud Watts: Your mother's name is Maud Watts. Don't forget that name. Because, I'll be waiting for you to find me. Will you find me George? Don't forget it.
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Violet Miller: You want me to respect the law? Then make the law respectable.
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Maud Watts: We break windows, we burn things. Cause war's the only language men listen to! Cause you've beaten us and betrayed us and there's nothing else left!
Inspector Arthur Steed: And there's nothing left but to stop you.
Maud Watts: What you gonna do? Lock us all up? We're in every home, we're half the human race, you can't stop us all.
Inspector Arthur Steed: You might lose your life before this is over.
Maud Watts: We will win.
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Maud Watts: You a suffragette, Mrs. Ellyn?
Edith Ellyn: Yes, well I consider myself more a soldier, Mrs Watts.
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Emmeline Pankhurst: For fifty years, we have laboured peacefully to secure the vote for women. We've been ridiculed, battered and ignored. Now we have realised that deeds and sacrifice must be the order of the day. We are fighting for a time in which every little girl born into the world will have an equal chance with her brothers. Never underestimate the power we women have to define our own destinies. We do not want to be law breakers. We want to be law makers. Be militant, each of you in your own way. Those of you who can break windows, break them. Those who can further attack the sacred idol of property, do so! We have been left with no alternative, but to defy this government! If we must go to prison to obtain the vote, let it be the windows of government, not the bodies of women, that shall be broken! I incite this meeting and all the women in Britain to rebellion! I would rather be a rebel than a slave!
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Sonny Watts: I took you on, Maud. Thought I could straighten you out.
Maud Watts: What if you don't have to?
Sonny Watts: You're a mother, Maud. You are a wife. You're my wife, and that's all you're meant to be.
Maud Watts: I'm not just that anymore.
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Maud Watts: [voice over, letter to Inspector Steed] Dear Inspector Steed. I thought about your offer, and I have to say no. You see, I am a suffragette after all. You told me no one listens to girls like me. Well I can't have that anymore. All my life, I've been respectful, done what men told me. I know better now. I'm worth no more, no less than you. Mrs. Pankhurst said, "If it's right for men to fight for their freedom, then it's right for women to fight for theirs." If the law says I can't see my son, I will fight to change that law. We're both foot soldiers, in our own way. Both fighting for our cause. I won't betray mine. Will you betray yours? If you thought I would, you were wrong about me. Yours sincerely, Maud Watts.
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[last lines]
Maud Watts: And reason, said to her, "Silence. What do you hear?" And she said, "I hear the sound of feet. A thousand times, ten thousands of thousands of thousands and they beat this way." They are the feet of those that shall follow you. Lead on.
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British MP #1: [First lines] Women do not have the calmness of temperament or the balance of mind to exercise judgement in political affairs.
British MP #2: If we allow women to vote, it will mean the loss of social structure. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, husbands.
British MP #3: Once the vote was given, it would be impossible to stop at this. Women would then demand the right to becoming MPs, Cabinet Ministers, Judges.
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Alice Haughton: This is your moment to come forward and speak up. And I will choose one person from this laundry to deliver their testimony at the House of Commons. These will be heard by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George.
Mrs Coleman: No one cares, love.
Violet Miller: Some of us do, Mrs. Coleman. So shut your bleedin' cake-hole!
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Alice Haughton: Thank you for your support. Vote for women! Ladies, vote for women! The power is in your hands. Thank you, ladies. Vote for women. Thank you.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: [Reviewing surveillance photos] Now, who's this here?
Police Detective and Developer: Watts, Maud Watts.
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David Lloyd George: What would the vote mean to you, Mrs. Watts?
Maud Watts: I never thought we'd get the vote. So, I've never thought about what it would mean.
David Lloyd George: So, why are you here?
Maud Watts: I thought that - we might. That this life - there's another way of livin' this life. Sorry. My words...
David Lloyd George: No. No. The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.
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Maud Watts: They lied to us!
Inspector Arthur Steed: They didn't lie. They promised nothing, they gave nothing.
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Violet Miller: There's a big gatherin' Friday. They're saying she's to speak.
Maud Watts: I can't go. I can't.
Violet Miller: You can't not.
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Violet Miller: And God shall wipe away all tears; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: Look at me.
Maud Watts: He deserved it. If I told you...
Inspector Arthur Steed: And do you think anyone listens to a girl like you? That anyone cares? They don't. You're nothing in the world. I grew up with girls like you, Maud. People who sacrifice life for revenge and a cause. I know you. And so do they. They know how to draw on girls like you. Girls without money or prospects who want things to be better. They primp and the preen and they fluff you and they tell you - you are the foot soldiers of the cause. But, you're only fodder - for a battle none of you can win.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: I'm offering you a lifeline. Take it. Before its too late.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: You women cleaned yourselves up well. Couldn't find a scrap of dynamite on any of you.
Maud Watts: Then why am I here?
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Inspector Arthur Steed: You know, there was a housekeeper on her way back when the bomb went off. She forgot her gloves. If she was two minutes later - what would that have done for your cause? Violence doesn't discern! It takes the innocent and the guilty! What gives you the right to put that woman's life at risk?
Maud Watts: What gave you the right - to stand in the middle of a riot and watch women beaten and do nothing? You're a hypocrite.
Inspector Arthur Steed: I uphold the law.
Maud Watts: The law means nothing to me - I've had no say in making the law.
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Benedict Haughton: The press can only be tamed so long. They grow more and more interested in these damned women while we in government must quash every new story.
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Benedict Haughton: Pankhurst claims responsibility for the bombing and faces prison while the real culprits go free. She's going to milk every ounce of attention she can in prison.
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Emmeline Pankhurst: We do not want to be law breakers. We want to be law makers.
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Inspector Arthur Steed: The fear is, they won't break, Sir. If one of them dies, we'll have blood on our hands and they'll have their martyr.
Benedict Haughton: That must not happen, or Mrs Pankhurst will have won.
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Sonny Watts: Your mother's name is Maud Watts.
Suffragette Quotes
Extended Reading
