Max Payne

"They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was over."

"See? My last smoke. It's bad for the baby."

"Life was good. The sun setting on a sweet summer's day, the smell of freshly mowed lawns, the sounds of children playing-- A house across the river, on the Jersey-side. A beautiful wife and a baby girl. The American Dream come true. But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking."

"The sun went down with practiced bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding. I didn't like the way the show started. But they had given me the best seat in the house. Front row center."

"The feeling hit me like a point-blank shot straight in the face: something was not right about this. My Beretta stirred nervously under my coat... But the train doors had already shut behind me, and I was in for the ride. Next stop: Roscoe Street Station."

"So much for being subtle."

"The word was out. A deadly virus released into the city's corrupt circulatory system. Something wicked this way comes. Max Payne at large."

"A bomb went off, turning snow into liquid gold. (...) It was a lucky break. The goons inside were spooked, but luck always came with a price tag."

"Gognitti bailed. I made like Chow Yun-Fat."

"I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings."

"Ragna Rock was as inviting as a headache, flickering and flashing to a machine gun beat. The belly of the nightclub was a gothic theme park that began with bondage games, and led to the nasty stuff from there-- As subtle with its dark message as a cop killer bullet through the heart. Like father, like son. Just like Jack Lupino."

", the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the Earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost. I could see how someone impressionable might get it into their head that we were at the end of time."

"The flesh of fallen angels."

", , , , , , , Hela... Blood given to you all... He was after that old - your soul for power and fortune, just sign on the dotted line with your blood."

"After the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice. Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you."

"Secrets... living under the skin of reality. I've seen it, the corruption of flesh! I'm the wolf! Yeah! I am the wolf! It's close. It's coming. You have come. The witness to the end of time. It's now! I will rise to her side! I don't need the words! I'm beyond the words!"

"I had known there'd have to be a catch in it somewhere, and this one was the Empire State Building of catches. [...] Lupino was pumped up and dying to go 15 rounds with a mutant alligator."

"The nightmare was always the same. Violent shapes moving in darkness, old and ugly. The killer's mad laughter was a riddle filled with wicked innuendo. Somewhere the baby was crying."

"Shoot 'em fulla holes, blow 'em to bits, vaporize 'em, disintegrate 'em, no matter whatchu do, they'll still be back, good as new."

"None of us was a saint."

"No lurked in this labyrinth, but somewhere out there, on the clanking deck of his cargo freighter, the skipper of the was waiting..."

"The numbing cold of the broken night had followed me in. Upstairs the trio tangoed down the manor halls to the silent rhythm of their murderous hearts, the blood of their victims rust on their lips."

"Punchinello was a pushover. The moment I stepped into the room he folded like a deuce before a royal flush."

"Take me to Cold Steel."

"I was in a graphic novel. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of."

"I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of."

"Staggering on the mill roof in ice and snow and wild wind, I was a ninja. My kung fu was strong. I wasn't kidding anyone. At best, I was Superman on kryptonite, about to fall through a skylight, down to where it was all going down."

"I was close enough to hear the secrets just beyond the next doorway."

"I had taken on the role of the mythic detective: Bogart as Marlowe, or as going after the Maltese Falcon, to unravel all the mysteries. Following a path of clues to that final revelation, even if it would take me down to the cold, cavernous depths of a grave."

"Project . V for V for Valhalla. All of a sudden it read like a crackpot conspiracy theory."

"I hadn't slept in a million years."

"When the darkness fell, New York City became something else, any old Sinatra song notwithstanding. Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City."

"I had dreamed of revenge. Those dreams were always nightmares, of coming close and then failing. Now I was close. I had a name to guide me. Nicole Horne. I had nothing to lose."

"Mine wasn't the most original approach to the problem, it wasn't as if it hadn't all been done before-- An eye for an eye, the first principle of revenge, old as dirt, still going strong. The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was not to make it personal, which it almost always ended up being anyway."

"Valkyr had been meant to be a white-winged maiden who would lift you to a warrior's heaven. But it had turned out to be a one-way demon ride to hell. The devil was in the drug. I knew. I had met him."

"It's ridiculous you've made it this far."

"No begging, no bribes. She knew better. Honor among killers; we who are about to die. Both of us knew how this would end: in pain and suffering."

"They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was all over. The storm seemed to lose its frenzy. The ragged clouds gave way to the stars above. A bit closer to heaven."

"Life knows two miseries; getting what you don't want and not getting what you want."

"This hadn't been my first fall in the night, still just a prelude to the real deal, still a long way to the bottom."

"I lied to myself that it was over. I was still alive, my loved ones were still dead. It wasn't over."

"I didn't deserve to walk away. There are no happy endings."

"A bomb went off in my head. The bullet lodged in my brain moved a fatal, microscopic distance."

"Everything had started out as black and white. Somewhere down the road, the line went blurry. The colors started to run, got smudged and gray. Winterson had been above my suspicion. It felt like a goodbye."

"There was a blind spot in my head, a bullet-shaped hole where the answers should be. Call it denial. I wanted to dig inside my skull and scrape out the pain."

"Kissing her, I think of the cold laws of cause and effect."

"Mona's appearance had triggered a dislocation. Schizophrenia. I felt elation, but with it, fear that all the past evils had come along for the ride."

"Home, sweet home. Something in the night felt like a door had been opened, an echo of the past, an old monster snapping its eyes open in the depths of my brain. Closing your eyes forces you to look at the darkness inside."

"A funhouse is a linear sequence of scares. Take it or leave it is the only choice given. Makes you think about free will: have our choices been made for us because of who we are?"

"Mona had come through here, the dead cleaners is a sign of her passage."

"[Narration, after having seen Mona Sax, whom he thought dead] If you think nothing can get to you, you're lying to yourself. At best you're temporarily dead. A lightning bolt could re-animate you without a warning."

"The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But it's like looking down into the grave of your love, or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off."

"Throw the rules out the window, odds are you'll go that way too."

"Like all the bad things in my life, it started with the death of a woman. I couldn't save her."

"The genius of the hole: no matter how long you spend climbing out, you can still fall back down in an instant."

"All this time we got the fable of Sleeping Beauty wrong. The prince didn't kiss her to wake her up. No one who slept for a hundred years is likely to wake up. It was the other way round. He kisses her to wake himself up from the nightmare that has brought him there."

"They were after me, it was my fault. You can't run from your past. You'll end up running in circles. Until you fall back down to the same hole you were trying to escape from, only the hole's grown deeper."

"Death is inevitable. Our fear of it makes us play safe, blocks out emotion. It's a losing game. Without passion you are already dead."

"There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask "why me?" and "what if?". When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions."

"The trouble with wanting something is the fear of losing it, or never getting it. The thought makes you weak."

"Now, like all my loves, she is mine forever. She has brought me here, to this moment of clarity, where time slows down, and I choose to look back, to see myself. And in that act of seeing, I am reborn."

"As surely as the bullet rips through the victim's flesh, organ and bone, it shatters the image of the man who pulls the trigger."

"The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting. And you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free."

"I didn't know what Mona wanted, if it was the same thing that I was after. To kill those who were trying to kill her. The bullet, real or imagined, lodged in her head routing her synapses. Driving her on."

"This is what I see when I look back. These moments, blinding as snow, they kill you, change you. You die and live again, remade."

"I had a bomb ticking in my head. No amount of painkillers would disable it."

""The things that I want", by Max Payne. A smoke. A whiskey. For the sun to shine. I want to sleep to forget. To change the past. My wife and baby girl back. Unlimited ammo and a license to kill. Right then, more than anything, I wanted her."

"There are things in life you cannot choose: how you feel."

"Like always, the dead had all the answers I was missing. It wasn't that they weren't eager to talk; quite the contrary, the dead had plenty to say and once they started, they would never shut up. Their words would keep you awake at night."

"When you're waking up, the world is a blur. What was clear in a dream, suddenly makes no sense. No surreal rescues. No easy, magic way out. But you are awake."

"With no way to deal with the past, I kept my eyes on the road, off the rear-view mirror and the road-kill behind me. I chased lesser mysteries, other people's crimes."

"Einstein was right, time is relative to the observer. When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down. Your whole life flashes by, heartbreak and scars. Stay with it, and you can live a lifetime in that split second."

"This is love. When someone drags you from the wreckage when you have given in, ready to just lie there and die. This is love. When someone, no matter what the cost, shows you there is hope, a choice, that you can put down your gun. This is love. Love hurts."

"When entertainment turns into a surreal reflection of your life, you're a lucky man if you can laugh at the joke. Luck and I weren't on speaking terms, or maybe the place was just too damn lame to be funny."

"Your past has a way of sneaking up on you. You'll hear broken echoes of it everywhere, like a bad replay. You'll get mad at everyone for reminding you about it, even if it's all in your head."

"You come to, amidst the wreckage of your own making. Do you stay there, eyes squeezed shut, afraid to move, hoping to bleed to death? Or do you crawl out, help your loved ones, make sure the fire doesn't spread, try to fix it?"

"Firing a gun is a binary choice. Either you pull the trigger or you don't."

"The explosion in my apartment had started a fire. The flames couldn't burn away my past. They only made the shadows behind me leap higher."

"In a nightmare, every choice you make is a wrong one. I would wake up at night, afraid that day was a dream I'd forget."

"I am afraid. But I start again from the beginning, trace my own steps to the scene of the crime."

"The gilding on the mask had cracked to reveal the rot underneath."

"The world was getting too small for comfort."

""Cleaners" was a misnomer. They were making a mess of it."

"I felt like I was walking into a trap. I felt guilty, like I was about to get caught."

"Fraternizing with the enemy. I had stepped over the edge. The cartoon moment when the gravity waits for the coyote to realize his mistake before the plunge."

"Mona was still the answer. I caught glimpses of her out of the corner of my eye, felt her presence everywhere I went. I was trying to trace her path, recreate the winding course of the magic bullet in her head. I couldn't find her."

"She was dead. The bullet in her head had come to the end of its slow-motion journey."

"I'd found the sniper's hideout. They'd been spying on me for days, weeks, months even. My every action, observed, recorded, analyzed. The place was the proof every paranoiac dreams of."

"I had tried to run from it, edit it out. Winterson was dead. I was a murderer."

"One thing left to do. I was compelled to give Vlad his gun back. One bullet at a time."

"Home is where your heart is … [Cleaner in distance, speaking to other cleaner: "Simple, not like in the movies where the hero has a chance to disarm the bomb."] Once, it would have been a house in the suburbs … [Cleaner in distance, again speaking to other cleaner: "He opens the door, and BOOM!"] Now, nothing was left of it … [The door is opened by a third cleaner and blows all three up, as well as the apartment] I wasn't happy with the way the cleaners were doing their job."

"Behind the door [7th floor of the apartment building] were the suites. They weren't an improvement on the regular apartments."

"Without Mona's help, I'd be a dead man. Suddenly, for the first time in I don't know how long, I realized, I didn't wish to be dead."

"[Over microphone] Vlad, shut up and stay alive, I'm coming."

"Mona, these guys are packing, close to overkill, hardcore professionals."

"I felt the rise of that old familiar feeling. I hated it. I welcomed it."

"[In a dream, in a cell labeled "paranoid"] Wait, just wait, I can figure this out, I can fix this. I can make it better! Just think. Think!"

"It was all connected. The murder of Senator Gate, the Cleaners, the Inner Circle, Vinnie Gognitti. I had to make Winterson see it."

"Vinnie was about to piss his pants, he'd end up short circuiting the bomb and blowing us both up."

"Winterson would have found a way to do this nice, neat and clean. Logic told me backup should be on its way. Somebody must have heard the gunfire. Logic was such a liar."

"Mona's words on her being a "sitting duck" kept playing in my head. The bomb had misdirection written all over it."

"I couldn't crack her. I had to crack the case."

"Sometimes, something good comes out of it. Something you know you wouldn't deserve in a million years."

"You'd have to be a first-degree fool to fall for a woman who returns from the dead only to put a gun to your face."

"She was beautiful. I hated her for making me feel this way."

"Now that I was with her, I was reluctant to hear her answers."

"Your past is like pieces of a broken mirror. You try to pick them up, but you only end up cutting yourself."

"[Final quote] I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was all right."

"It was almost morning, waking up from the American Dream. We are willing to suffer, to die for the things we care about. For love, for the right choices, Because of her, I had solved the case. My case. All of it. Who I am. Is it worth it? Saying that it never is would be a lie. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes, something good comes out of it. Something you know you wouldn't deserve in a million years. Something that gives you a reason to go on."

"[To Max] What are you so afraid of? What do you want from me?"

"[Trying to assist Max, to herself] Sometimes, Mona, you gotta go down to get up."

"You're a bastard, Max."

"[To Vlad, having shot him in the arm] See? You're nothing but a one-armed bandit."

"[Final quote] God, I turned out to be such a damsel in distress."

"[Catchphrase] Have no fear, Vlad is here!"

"[catchphrase] (Name of person(s) he is talking to), dearest of all my friends...!"

"Max! 911! Bad guys with big guns!"

"[Over microphone] Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Max Payne. New York's Finest, with the biggest mobster bodycount ever. Dearest guests, prepare to die … [Assorted gunfire] Max, I'd love to come and welcome you, but I'm busy dodging bullets and hiding under a desk at the moment."

"[Over microphone] Max? Damn it … aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgghhhhh!"

"Hypothetically, if the only choice you've got is to do the wrong thing, then it's not really the wrong thing, it's more like fate."

"I hate to do this, but you know how you are, you would never let it go!"

"It's better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."

"No gun when you need one …"

"[About Mona] I know of her. Her reputation as a hired killer. I hear she is a stone fox. I would fuck her."

"[To Max] Besides, a gentleman always avenges the insults done to his lady. You did kill Winterson. [Shoots Max]"

"Of course, we agree to disagree."

"[Alfred Woden's message machine] I am coming to kill you, old man. You really know how to piss me off, you know? Would it have killed you to say "thank you" for once in your life, to say, "Vlad, my son – can I call you my son, because I sure do love you like one. – Vlad, my son, you are a true prodigy, everything you touch turns to gold." Oh, wait, it is going to kill you. I'm done doing your dirty work for you. You should be proud. I have learned all you've taught me. I'm coming to show you."

"You have wrecked my restaurant twice now. You can be so damn uncompromising, fanatical about these things Max. One of these days, it's going to get you killed!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Max?! Why don't you just die?! You hate life, you're miserable all the time, afraid to enjoy yourself even a little. Face it, you might as well be dead already. Do yourself a favor, give up!"

"[Last words] Max … dearest of all my friends … I was supposed to be the hero …"

"[Regarding his collection of Captain Baseball Bat Boy merchandise] What? What, I'm a collector! Do you know how much this stuff is worth? I tell ya', fuckin' much! There's nothin' nerdy about it, I'm a collector! Lots of tough guys are into this stuff! Frankie was into this stuff, he was a fuckin' tough guy! Just you wait till I sell my collection online! We'll see who's the nerd when I'm a millionaire!"

"Well, that was fun, in a fucking terrible, sick, not-at-all fun way!"

"Aw, man! Why does this keep happenin' to me? Oh, it was sooo perfect [the Giant-headed Baseball-bat boy costume], now it's ruined! [Max comes through the doorway] Aw, no! No way!"

"[Shooting his Ingram at Vlad] Die, Russian! Fuckin' die already!"

"No no no no no PAYNE WHADDYA DOIN?!! WHADDYA DOIN?!!! Those are priceless collectors items! Payne, whaddaya doin'?! Aww shit! Ohh..."

"The Pink Flamingo: [on TV] .mirrors are more fun than television"

"The Pink Flamingo: [on TV] .she has dyed her hair red"

"The Pink Flamingo: [on TV] .the flesh of fallen angels"

"John Mirra: [on TV, address Unknown] When Mirra killed again, the map of the city changed. Like a shifting glacier, a new crack appeared with every gunshot. I had abandoned all conventional methods of navigation. I was following the bloody signs he kept leaving me. And he was watching me do it."

"John Mirra: [on TV, address Unknown] Wherever I went, the pay phones started to ring. Finally, I collected enough courage to answer one."

"Dick Justice: [on TV] The rain was comin' down like all the angels in heaven decided to take a piss at the same time. When you're in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors."

"Mafia Thug: [fighting Cleaners] Motherfuckers! You think you can come in here, you think you can? Eh? Eh?! You think! You think wrong, motherfuckers! You think wrong!"

"Jim Bravura: They [the cleaners] hit your home? It's like a friggin' Kindergarten out there! What next? A kid with a bag full of guns and a head full of videogames turns the house into a shooting gallery. Breaks my heart."

"Jim Bravura: [after being shot by a cleaner] Bullshit!"

"Mike the Cowboy: Of course he's not dead yet, the sheriff only dies in the end. Well, Payne, I'm here, in the boss' office. Come on. I'm waiting. Let's finish this. What's taking you so long, sheriff? Scared?"

"This place was great. Really comfortable. I'm just gonna get settled in."

"Listen, if you still think I can do a job, what have I got to lose? Apart from the weight... Very funny, ha-ha. Yes, that is a fake laugh, you jerk."

"So I guess I had become what they wanted me to be. A killer. Some rent-a-clown with a gun who puts holes in other bad guys. Well, that's what they had paid for so, in the end that's what they got. Say what you want about Americans, but we understand capitalism. You buy yourself a product, and you get what you pay for. And these chumps had paid for some angry gringo without the sensibilities to know right from wrong. Here I was, about to execute this poor bastard like some dime store angel of death. And I realized, they were correct; I wouldn't know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister."

"And what kinda town was this? One where I didn't speak the language and they didn't water down their drinks. So, for now, we seemed to get along just fine."

"The family we were protecting were local celebrities. Rich parasites with delusions of humanity. The kind of people who end up in glossy magazines or body bags depending on how their luck runs."

"[after trying to play a piano in the penthouse] It wasn't the time and I was still a little rusty, but the tune was coming together... just as this 'new start' of mine was about to come to a shuddering halt."

"A couple days later, it was back to work ferrying the boss's broad and his dipshit of a brother out for the night so they could recover from their brush with mortality. Then again, what did I expect? These were the kind of people who went to nightclubs in helicopters."

"Marcelo Branco: I've been working far too hard -- like a whore during Fleet Week, as my roommate used to say."

"I hadn't see it coming, but that wasn't surprising; it's hard to keep your eye on the ball through the bottom of a glass."

"I knew this was gonna be a bad idea, but in the continued absence of any good ones, I decided to go with it."

"A couple of more seconds, and I'd have given some poor street cleaner a crappy start to his day. Now? I had a ride to catch."

"There was a goddamn army of these goons. Clearly, somebody wanted these girls bad. Or maybe they assumed that Branco's security team consisted of more than a drunk American has-been and a Brazilian never-was who should've paid more attention in flying school."

"[about Passos] We were two failed cops failing miserably at being bodyguards. He approached everything with about as little preparation as I did. Maybe that's why we got along."

"Things were turning pretty ugly in this town. The boss's girl was gone, and part of me wished I was, too."

"I had been shot more times than I could remember, but this felt different. Maybe fate was sending me a message. Trying to tell me my luck was finally about to run out. Or maybe I'd just severed an artery and was just bleeding out like any number of fools who got shot playing with guns. Either way, I was failing fast."

"At least one of us had a gun now. That raised our chances of survival all the way from 'nil' to 'slim'."

"I didn't know what to think anymore; this town had more smoke and mirrors than a strip club locker room."

"I might've written the book on dumb ideas, but Passos sure wasn't afraid to pull from it."

"I had a hole in my second favorite drinking arm, and the only way we were likely to get Fabiana back now was in "installments". Whoever our uninvited guests were, I was about done playing soldier."

"Looking back, it was strange how the cops never showed up. But things had a habit of only making sense to me looking back, long after I'd run out of time to fix them."

"I had been sitting at the bar for about three hours or about five years depending on how you looked at things. I tried not to look at things. I tried not to think about when it was that my existence became less about the things that make up people's lives and more about the holes that losing those things leave behind. But I wasn't doing a very good job at it."

"[on shooting Tony] I don't know why I did it. Guess I never liked seeing girls get hit. But from that moment, I was dead in that town."

"When had I ever needed to invite trouble in? It always found me, no matter where I hid."

"Brewer: My boy, don't be afraid of the fires. You think they'll hurt ya. You think they'll char your skin and char your bones... But it'll make you clean in the long run! The joys of hygiene!"

"Up and out. Scramble away from what's left of your life over dead bodies and a few loose roof tiles."

"Gunfire over Hoboken. Felt strange to be at the center of it again. The target, that is. Like an old comedian hearing one last round of applause."

"Passos: Yeah, I can see why you don't wanna leave this place, Max. It's real charming."

"Here I was, some hopped up gringo a long way from home, making trouble the only way I knew."

"Rodrigo Branco: Do you think a pile of shit feels popular because it's surrounded by flies?"

"Rodrigo Branco: Strange. You pay a couple million dollars and you expect to-- to push a button to-- to be able to make all your problems go away. All I got was some useless junk and a bit of false confidence. I'm done, Max."

"The real security guards had been run off, paid off, or bumped off. That left us. It wasn't a fantastically comforting thought."

"Seemed like breaching the perimiter had been no more difficult than strolling through the front gates. But hey, who needs a Trojan Horse when the alarm is down and your standing army is a dame, a dork, and a... drunk?"

"Poor girl was dead. Shot through the head by some hero fighting the rich, one lonely secretary at a time."

"I knew there was another way in upstairs for the helipad. The little luxury runaround that kept the rich looking down on the poor literally as well as metaphorically."

"Look at me. I'd been contracted to protect two people. One was being held in some hole, the other was sitting at his desk with a bullet in his head, and the company that had its logo on my paycheck was melting on top of my head."

"So much for a lazy Sunday afternoon. My next trick would be a high-wire act with a fiery pit for a safety net. It was nice that no one was shooting at me for a change, but I'd take shot in the head over a slow roast on a spit any day of the goddamn week."

"I was a mess. Rodrigo Branco was dead. Fabiana was held hostage. I had no idea who was behind any of this. I felt like a fool. I was a sweaty, grey-haired mess. This place... Well, this place was gonna kill me, too. I could see that now. I decided that I was gonna die sober, not drunk. At least then, I would see who shot me."

"It was time to take back control from whoever was out to get me. And if I didn't flush them out, at least my mid-life crisis would confuse them enough so they did something stupid. It was the only hope I had. I knew I wasn't thinking straight -- I'd been drinking and popping painkillers for years. I had a liver like a french goose and skin like red leather."

"Well... It wasn't perfect. In fact, it wasn't much good at all. But it was gonna have to do. At least I was... facing in the right direction."

"So I guess I was finally about to go and experience the other side of São Paulo firsthand -- the bit people try to ignore. The unpleasant memory they try to obliterate with cocktails and helicopters and parties and lines of blow, like rich fools the world over. I was off the sauce for the first time in years and knew I was due a hangover sent direct from Mother Nature."

"Way I see it, there's two types of people: Those who spend their lives trying to build a future, and those who spend their lives trying to rebuild the past. For too long, I'd been stuck in-between, hidden in the dark. What was I really doing, walking in there with my bad haircut and ridiculous shirt? Was I there to make something right? Or was I just using a messed up situation to indulge myself, grasping at some desperate delusion of control? Maybe the two went hand-in-hand more than I cared to admit."

"First day off the sauce and, somehow, I'd still ended up in the gutter."

"Well, they weren't gonna help me. And who could blame them? I was a dumb American in a place where dumb Americans were less popular than the clap."

"It looked like there was a bar up ahead. The irony was not lost on me. I figured sobriety was no use to me dead."

"Wilson Da Silva: I'm a cop. I mean, I'll fight corruption. I'll stand up to the rich and dumb, but if I go up that hill right now? I'll be dead in three minutes or less. Maybe you, too, Max! You're in the jungle now!"

"It was Monday afternoon, and I'd already been thrown out of a party, gone to a strip club, and got into a bar fight. This latest mid-life crisis was certainly ticking all the boxes."

"I was trying to decide whether to crash this party or to turn back when my natural grace and finesse made the decision for me."

"That much security, it had to be Serrano's pad. Since I was in the neighborhood, I figured he wouldn't mind if I dropped in and thanked him personally for his "hospitality". It wasn't like he wasn't expecting me."

"Here I was again, with all hell breaking loose around me, standing over another dead girl I had been trying to protect."

"We were only married a short time. By now, she had been dead longer than I knew her. I still hadn't really forgiven myself for the Mona business, but I knew that was just grief. The insanity that comes with losing the life you had built. Michelle... I missed her with every part of my being. I hated the world for not killing me with her, and I hated myself for allowing this to happen to her and our little girl. But I knew I had to leave town."

"I started to wonder if my luck was about to run out when I realized it had, a long time ago. That's why I was here."

"Passos: We gotta get out of here, man! I don't respond well to being blown to bits!"

"[referring to a security guard] Some poor bastard quite literally on the graveyard shift. Must've been wondering why there were more bodies above ground than below. All I can hope for is that he didn't even hear the shot that killed him."

"I had to admit, I almost felt bad for the guy. Sure, he had lived a bad life, but I of all people knew that living with this grief would be payment enough for any sins. Still, perhaps not so bad that I was prepared to dig my own grave and let these goombahs kill me without even getting some dirt on their hands."

"De Marco Thug: Your body ain't gonna bury itself. Dig, motherfucker!"

"[while playing the piano] This was the place, if not the time, to play my dirge. It didn't come out right, but I wasn't in much of a state to do anything apart from kill people. Maybe that's the only thing I'm good for in any circumstance."

"Here I was again, halfway down the world and still looking at the bodies of women I was supposed to protect. Only difference now is, I didn't understand the language."

"I'd failed Rodrigo and I'd failed Fabiana. In that awful nightclub, the stadium, the docks... I'd been given enough chances to make this right, and I'd blown it. Perhaps this was my punishments from the Fates -- keep reliving the same mistakes for all eternity."

"I'd already lost the ransom money, got the hostage killed, and I was only just getting started. This was turning into another fine example of private security work."

"I was still alive, and still not all that happy about it. Why did the easy way out never come? Maybe I thought I didn't deserve it."

"I was guessing these guys didn't spend their spare time studying the Geneva Convention."

"These bastards made the NYPD look like the Hare Krishnas."

"These charmers weren't there to make a couple of arrests; they were bussing them out by the dozen. But who was I to cast judgement on proper police procedure and justifiable use of force?"

"I had gone from out of luck to unarmed and shit out of luck. Another reminder -- not that I needed one -- that any low point can always go lower, as my new friends were about to find out."

"I decided I might as well follow them. I was lost and they were going somewhere, and it was the closest I was going to get to a plan."

"After a couple of hours of lying in shit, you learn to appreciate what you've got. And right now, all we had was each other. I was a wreck and Giovanna, well... I knew what she had seen, no amount of drugs or therapy could erase. That kind of pain follows you around forever. The constant shadow of a wasted life."

"When half the local police force and a crew of paramilitary psychopaths wanna send you upstairs, I reasoned the crowd was as good a place as any. At least when we got shot, maybe some kind soul would take a video and put it on the internet."

"Short of riding in on a parade float, we couldn't have made our arrival more obvious."

"A barely recovering alcoholic and an unarmed pregnant woman. We were hardly a SEAL team. I put our life expectancy at five minutes. If we were lucky."

"Our day had started with us hiding in filth, and gotten progressively worse. My luck was running true to form. Or, rather, I was running true to form."

"I was just about to leave for the roof when my savior and friend, the man whose unborn child I had just killed for, decided to leave without me."

"It was the middle of the day, and like any self-respecting idiot, I was half-cut."

"Everybody's drunk and tanned and listening to house music. Most of 'em have plastic surgery and they're all doing blow... I guess it is kinda like Jersey, huh?"

"The fire was sucking oxygen from the room. I didn't care if I got shot the second I got out of there; I needed one more gulp of fresh air before I died. It was like the need for a wake-up whiskey after a two day bender."

"So this was the famous Panama Canal. We could've gone to the moon while I was passed out and I wouldn't have noticed."

"There was something firing these guys other than good old fashioned socialist zeal."

"I was on a ghost ship in a ghost canal. The whole thing creeped me the hell out."

"[after trying to play the piano] And the band played on."

"I spotted Passos and Marcello. If I had known back then that they'd been up to no good while I was fighting my way through a band of violent paramilitaries and a worse hangover, I might not have wanted to get over to them so bad."

"On a boat full of drunks and bullshit artists, I'd been the cabaret act. Shooting whatever came in front of me was easier than coming to terms with that reality."

"Wilson: Wanna do something good? Wanna get yourself killed in a good cause? Then I need you to check something out for me."

"I wasn't too excited about the acoustics in this place; couple of gunshots would sound like I'd walked in here with a goddamn marching band. It wasn't pretty, but I guess none of what was about to happen was gonna be."

"I was convinced the Brancos had gotten the wrong man for the job, but maybe Da Silva was right; I was the stooge. The bad joke everybody got but me."

"The Imperial Palace Hotel was a five-star, bona fide shithole. I needed to find out why guests were checking in by the busload and checking out by the bagload."

"I knew this thing was bigger than me. Bigger than the Brancos. But I only had a glimpse of the whole picture. Like looking in the mirror and, for an instant, seeing what everyone else sees. A bad caricature of a better man."

"[while playing his own theme on the piano] There it was -- the soundtrack to my life. And, for a few seconds, came harmony. Finally..."

"When you've lived the kind of life I've lived, reality comes at you through a different lens."

"I didn't understand everything, and I never would. But I understood enough. Sometimes, a complicated problem is best tackled with a simple solution."

"Even I could guess what "demolição" meant. That building was condemned in more ways than one."

"These vermin had gone into a place where life was cheap and found a way to get rich off of it."

"No, "Come with me, Max, to Brazil! Be a chance to play the fall-guy in a plot that my boss's brother's hatching to profit from the selling of human organs. Yeah, it'll be perfect for ya!""

"I guess our little stunt helped other civic-minded people raise valid concerns about community relations."

"If someone had told me six months ago this was where my life was headed, I'd have ordered a double of whatever they were drinking, drunk it, and then blown my head off."

"Another dark, rainy night. Another police station. Another futile crusade for amends. Time moves forward, and nothing changes."

"I still didn't know how I'd gone from drinking myself numb in New Jersey to looting corpses in Brazil. But this was where I was -- five thousand miles from a home I couldn't go back to on another suicide mission to clean up a mess that wasn't even mine."

"My eyes and throat burned, but at least I could breathe. I was trying to work out what direction I was headed in when I discovered some more Brazilian architecture not designed for the American physique."

"Like so many times before, I'd found myself alone, locked on a path of destruction. It was at my worst when I was at my best."

"I felt like the avenging angel. I looked like a fat bald dude with a bad temper."

"Looking at it one way, shutting down the airport for their escape was a weird sort of "compliment". But one I didn't need."

"News Anchor: And now, your local forecast: Boy, it's dark in some places, but it's sunny everywhere else."