- Veronika: What's 'Choose life'?
- Renton: What?
- Veronika: 'Choose life'. Simon says it sometimes. He says "Choose life, Veronika!"
- Renton: 'Choose life'. 'Choose life' was a well meaning slogan from a 1980's anti-drug campaign and we used to add things to it, so I might say for example, choose... designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you've never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don't look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank 'til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who've had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it's better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody's fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there'll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life.
- Simon: [in the Highlands with Mark and Spud to remember Tommy] Well, I'm trying hard, Mark, but I'm not feeling anything. We were young, bad things happened. It's over. Can we go home now?
- Renton: Two hours to the next train.
- Simon: Oh for fuck's sake.
- Renton: Look, we're here as an act of memorial.
- Simon: Nostalgia! That's why you're here. You're a tourist in your own youth. Just 'cause you had a near-death experience and now you're feeling all fuzzy and warm. What other moments will you be revisiting? Here's a good one: how about the time you sold Tommy his very first hit, leading him on to heroin addiction, HIV infection, and ultimately his death at the age of... what was it, 22? 23?
- Renton: 23.
- Simon: 23. How innocent was that?
- Renton: Aye, that's mine. How's yours?
- Simon: Don't know what you're talking about.
- Renton: She'd be a woman by now. Maybe kids of her own. But she never got that far, did she? Never got to lead her life. Because her father, someone who should have been looking after her, protecting his own infant, was too busy filling his own veins with heroin to check that she was breathing properly. Aye. How do you keep a lid on that one?
- Veronika: [to Renton and Simon, in Bulgarian] You know nothing. You understand nothing. You live in the past. Where I come from, the past is something to forget, but here it's all you talk about. You are clearly so in love with each other that I feel awkward in your company. Instead of looking at me you should get naked and fuck each other.
- Renton: Aha. Cheers.
- Simon: Up your ass.
- Renton: Placebo.
- Veronika: [laughs]
- Begbie: [Begbie drops Viagra in his bathroom stall]
- Renton: [Renton laughs]
- Renton: What's all this then? Planning a special event are we, sir?
- Begbie: Give me the tablets, pal!
- Renton: Remember not to exceed the stated dose.
- Begbie: Give me the fucking tablets or I'll come through there and pound your fucking head in!
- Renton: Alright fucking calm down.
- Renton: For fuck's sake.
- Begbie: Cunt.
- Renton: Prick!
- Begbie: [Begbie and Renton realize who they're talking to]
- Renton: [Renton slowly heads toward the stall door]
- Begbie: [Begbie slowly looks over the side of the stall] CUNT!
- Spud: "We went for a piss in the old Leith Central Station. Me, Renton and Begbie. Place was empty, soon to be demolished. An old drunkard whom Begbie had been looking at, lurched up to us, wine bottle in his hand."
- Begbie's Father: What're you up to, lads, eh? Trainspotting? In Leith Central?
- Spud: "He says laughing. I noticed Begbie seemed strangely subdued and uncomfortable. It was only then I realised. The old wino was Begbie's father."
- Begbie: There's something I have to do tonight, and then I'm going away. One way or another, it'll be a long time before you see me again. So I just thought I'd come by. I just thought I'd come by and say good luck, son. That's all.
- Frank Juror: Thanks, Dad.
- Begbie: See, it's difficult for me, 'cause... We never had any of that when I was a boy. Not, like, hotel...
- Frank Juror: Management.
- Begbie: Aye, hotel fucking management, all that shit. I never has any of that. Still... World changes, eh, June? Even if we don't. So... Look after yourself, son.
- [pause]
- Begbie: The old wino was my father. This fool is yours. You'll be a better man than either of us.
- Diane: So, are you the woman in the video?
- Veronika: My face is not seen.
- Diane: Do you have any identifying marks? Tattoos on your buttocks?
- Veronika: Certainly not.
- Diane: On your perineum?
- [pause]
- Renton: [softly] It's the bit of skin between your vagina and your bumhole.
- Veronika: That's disgusting.
- Diane: So you're not vajazzled.
- Renton: I did steal the money, but they shouldn't have been surprised. I mean, we stole from all sorts of people. Shops, businesses, neighbours, family. Friends was just one more class of victim.
- Renton: What are you gonna do?
- Veronika: I'm going to be the madame in Simon's bordello.
- Renton: But really... What are you gonna do?
- Veronika: I don't know. I should go home. But... To go home with nothing? No qualification, no career, not even bringing money.
- Renton: What's at home?
- Veronika: You know. Emotional attachment. That's all.
- Simon: 20 years ago, a couple of bags of H, quality stuff, took it to London, Me, Begbie, Spud Murphy. Sold it. Not a bad price. 16,000 pounds, to be divided into four equal parts. He ran off with it. Took it all. And now, what does he think I am? A whore? He can just pay me off? 4,000 pound - not even any interest. What am I supposed to do with that? Buy a fuckin' time machine? Live my life all over again? Only this time, not being robbed and betrayed by my *best* fuckin' friend! No, it doesn't work like that.
- Tourism Girl: Velcome to Edinburgh. Velcome to Edinburgh.
- Renton: Excuse me.
- Tourism Girl: Yes?
- Renton: Where are you from?
- Tourism Girl: Slovenia.
- Renton: Three months ago, I suffered what I been told was an episode of acute coronary insufficiency - like a heart attack. They put a - tube in here and I've got a metal stint in my left coronary artery. Good as new, apparently. Good as new. It should last another 30 years, they said. But, they didn't say what to do with those 30 years. 2 or 3, 5, I'll take that. I can cope with that. I can think of enough things to do to piss away what remains; but, 30? What am I supposed to do with that? I'm 46 and I'm fucked! I've got no home. I've got nowhere to think of as a home. I don't really know anyone. And what's the substance of our acquaintance?
- Simon: Friendship, please.
- Simon: Naturally, you'll have to lie to your wife. If you need inspiration, just imagine her reaction to that.
- [holds up a thumb drive]
- Simon: Or, how this might interest the pupils of that leading private school. I think they might enjoy the end a little bit with the strap on. I know I did. I'm going to text you the details of a bank account. I expect to see a thousand pound payment in there - by the end of the week.
- Simon: As you can see, I'm running my old Auntie's pub. Very few customers and they don't spend much. Sometimes its not even worth openin'. The great wave of gentrification has yet to engulf us.
- Renton: [pitch before a board for a small business grant for Veronika's 'sauna'] This is the renovation and conversion of an iconic Leith building. We see it very much as being an artisanal Bed and Breakfast experience. A destination in its own right. Artworks by local artists on the walls. Locally sourced fresh food. Outreach programs to inspire children in school to think 'outside the box'. To inspire in them a belief that: Yes, they can. There was a time when this port served thousands of ships around the globe. Now, it can rise again. And we believe our business will occupy a central role both physically and emotionally - at the heart of this new wave of regeneration in Leith.
- Simon: Leith 2.1.
- Renton: Exactly.