Peaky Blinders (TV Series)

Strategy (2019)

Cillian Murphy: Thomas Shelby

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mother Superior : May I ask what this meeting is about?

  [Polly places a folder on the table] 

  Thomas Shelby : The Grace Shelby Foundation is the biggest single source of funding for this charitable institution, devoted to the care of the orphaned girls of South Birmingham, yeah?

  Mother Superior : For which we give thanks.

  Thomas Shelby : Uh-huh.

  [he slides the folder across the table] 

  Aunt Polly : I have a temper similar to the one described in that report. Yet unlike you, I wait until I'm matched in size.

  Mother Superior : Whose report?

  Aunt Polly : The testimony of children.

  [Mother Superior opens the folder] 

  Mother Superior : Who have they spoken to?

  Aunt Polly : You'd have them only speak to God.

  Mother Superior : God be their witness.

  Thomas Shelby : There is God, and there are the Peaky Blinders. This is Sparkhill, we're in Small Heath. We're much, much closer at hand than God.

  Aunt Polly : And we have heard terrible things.

  Mother Superior : We have in this place children of the worst sort. They lie as easily as breathe.

  Aunt Polly : You had a child half-black. You made her wash with a different soap.

  Mother Superior : Mr. Shelby, your own sins are legend.

  Thomas Shelby : Our sins? Our sins, against the beating of children with bricks and hoses? Our sins? Our sins...

  [he pulls out a small vial, pours some powder into his hand, and blows it across the table at Mother Superior] 

  Thomas Shelby : ... against the black child who hanged herself for fear of your temper?

  Mother Superior : I do not see how...

  Thomas Shelby : You do not see?

  [he snatches Mother Superior's glasses off her face and smashes them on the table] 

  Thomas Shelby : Now put 'em on. Put 'em on your face, or it'll be your eyes that are broken. Please don't imagine that I won't use this minute to do it, or that I am afraid of your prayers or your crosses.

  [she hesitates, then puts the shattered glasses back on] 

  Aunt Polly : You see the world broken. Like those beaten children will.

  Thomas Shelby : Now look at me.

  [no response] 

  Thomas Shelby : Look at me.

  [no response] 

  Thomas Shelby : LOOK AT ME!

  [Mother Superior fearfully raises her eyes to Tommy's] 

  Thomas Shelby : Funding withdrawn.

  Aunt Polly : All children to be taken into our own institutions.

  Mother Superior : You have no say in where the children--

  [Polly suddenly draws a dagger and points it in Mother Superior's face] 

  Aunt Polly : If I come for you--and I still might yet decide to come for you--I will wear high heels so you can hear my approach on the cobblestones and have time to repent. You listen for my footsteps.

• Mother Superior : You wanted to speak to us, Mr. Shelby?

  Thomas Shelby : Yep.

  Mother Superior : All of us?

  Thomas Shelby : Yeah.

  Mother Superior : At 6:30 in the morning?

  Thomas Shelby : [impatiently]  Yes.

  [he and Polly light cigarettes] 

  Mother Superior : We don't smoke in here.

  Thomas Shelby : Well, I fucking do.

  Mother Superior : Nor do we use language.

  Aunt Polly : Nor do we find fault in the innocent. Yet you do. You fucking do.

• Oswald Mosley : Michael. Michael Gray. You lost all your cousin's money in America playing the fool. A nightclub in Detroit called the Gladiator was your regular. You lost the money and found a wife there. And poor old Arthur Shelby standing there at the window is afraid his wife will never return. My spies tell me she's been seen with another man.

  Arthur Shelby : [Arthur's hand tightens on the back of a chair and breaks it] 

  Thomas Shelby : Arthur. Arthur.

  [Speaks to Arthur in Romany] 

  Oswald Mosley : And bingo. 20 seconds in, and I have them speaking their wog lingo.

• Arthur Shelby : So, who are we meeting?

  Thomas Shelby : The man we're about the meet is the Minister for the Duchy of Lancaster. He's also deputy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Cabinet adviser to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. You've both met bad men before. The man we're about to meet is the devil.

• Aunt Polly : Tommy, I'm 45 years old today.

  Thomas Shelby : 45 years old and still breaking hearts, eh?