"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?"

"Never let your friends tie you to the tracks."

"Picture the scene. The other fucking week there, down the fucking Volley with Tommy, playing pool. I'm playing like Paul fucking Newman by the way. Giving the boy here the tanning of a lifetime. So it comes to the end, to the last shot, the deciding ball of the whole tournament. I'm on the black and he's sitting in the corner looking all fucking biscuit-arsed. When this hard cunt comes in, obviously fucking fancied himself, like, starts staring at me. Looking at me, like right fucking at me, as if to say, "Come ahead, square go." You ken me. I'm not the type of cunt that goes looking for fucking bother, like, but at the end of the day I'm the cunt with a pool cue, and he can get the fat end in his puss any time he fucking wanted like. So I squares up, casual like. What does the hard cunt do? Or the so-called hard cunt? Shites it. Puts down his drink, turns, and gets the fuck out of there. And after that, well, the game was mine."

"Well, it's not our fault! Your boy went down because he was a fucking smack-head, and if that's not your fault then I don't know what is! I was the fucking cunt trying to get hum off it."

"See, inside you won't last two fucking days."

"You better clean up your fucking act, sunshine. Cut that shite out forever."

"Hey rent boy, no fucking skag!"

"No way I would poison my body with that shite. All the fucking chemicals. No fucking way!"

"[Closing narration] Now, I've justified this to myself in all sorts of ways. It wasn't a big deal, just a minor betrayal. Or we'd outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing. But let's face it, I ripped them off - my so-called mates. But Begbie, I couldn't give a shite about him. And Sick Boy; well, he'd have done the same to me, if he'd only thought of it first. And Spud; well...okay, I felt sorry for Spud - he never hurt anybody. So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die."

"This seems however I really am the luckiest guy in the world. Several years of addiction, right in the middle of an epidemic, surrounded by the living dead. But not me. I am negative. It's official. And once the pain goes away, that's when the real battle starts. Depression. Boredom. You feel so fucking low, you'll want to fucking top yourself."

"Since I was on remand, they've had me on this programme. The state-sponsored addiction. Three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack. But it's never enough. And at the moment, it's nowhere near enough. I took all three this morning, and now I've got 18 hours to go till my next shot, and the sweat on my back is like a layer of frost. I need to visit the mother-superior for one hit. One fucking hit to get us over this long, hard day."

"Our only response was to keep on going and fuck everything. Pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile. Then squirt it into a stinking, purulent vein, and do it all over again. Keep on going, getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over. Propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong. Because no matter how much you stash or how much you steal, you'll never have enough. No matter how often you go out and rob and fuck people over, you always need to get up and do it all over again."

"It looks easy this, but it's not. Looks like a doss, like a soft option. But living like this, it's a full-time business."

"One thousand years from now, there won't be any guys and there won't be any girls, just wankers. Sounds all right to me."

"The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself. I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance. He came off junk at the same time as me — not because he wanted to, you understand, but just to annoy me. Just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don't you think?"

"I don't feel the sickness yet, but it's in the post. That's for sure. I'm in the junkie limbo at the moment. Too ill to sleep. Too tired to stay awake, but the sickness is on its way. Sweat, chills, nausea. Pain and craving. A need like nothing else I've ever known will soon take hold of me. It's on its way."

"[explaining the gaps in his employment history - from a deleted scene included on some home media releases] Yes, I can. The truth...well, the truth is that I've had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I've been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins. I've been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven't had a regular job in years."

"Relinquishing junk, stage one: preparation. For this you will need: one room which you will not leave. Soothing music. Tomato soup, ten tins of. Mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold. Ice cream, vanilla, large tub of. Magnesia, milk of, one bottle. Paracetamol. Mouthwash. Vitamins. Mineral water. Lucozade. Pornography. One mattress, one bucket for urine, one for feces, and one for vomitus. One television, and one bottle of Valium, which I've already procured from my mother who is, in her own domestic and socially acceptable way, also a drug addict. And now I'm ready. All I need is one final hit to soothe the pain while Valium takes effect."

"People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand, and you're still nowhere near it. When you're on junk, you have only one worry: scoring. When you're off it, you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can't get pissed. Got money: drinking too much. Can't get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships, and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit."

"[opening narration] Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"

"Everything is suspect...everyone is for sale...and nothing is what it seems."

"David Strathairn - Pierce Patchett"

"Danny DeVito - Sid Hudgens"

"James Cromwell - Capt. Dudley Smith"

"Kevin Spacey - Jack Vincennes"

"Kim Basinger - Lynn Bracken"

"Russell Crowe - Bud White"

"Guy Pearce - Det. Lt. Edmund Exley"

"It's a crime saga that will shock you. It's a mystery that will keep you guessing. It's a thriller that will keep you riveted."

"Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush..."

"It would be easier for you if there was an angle wouldn't it? You're afraid of Bud because you can't figure out how to play him. He doesn't follow the same rules of politics as you do. It makes him dangerous. I see Bud because I want to. I see Bud because he can't hide the good inside of him. I see Bud because he makes me feel like Lynn Bracken and not some Veronica Lake look-alike who fucks for money. I see Bud because he doesn't know how to disguise who he is. I see Bud for all the ways he's different from you."

"(to a person he has just fatally shot) Have you a valediction, boyo?"

"Don't start trying to do the right thing, boyo. You haven't had the practice."

"(after Bud sees pictures of Ed with Lynn) I wouldn't trade places with Edmund Exley right now for all the whiskey in Ireland."

"Go back to Jersey, sonny. This is the city of the angels and you haven't got any wings."

"Wendell, I'd like full and docile co-operation on every topic..."

"You may well reap the benefit, Edmund, but are you truly prepared to be despised within the department?"

"(At the end of an interrogation session) You know, I'm talking about the gas chamber, and you haven't even asked me what this is about. You've got a big "Guilty" sign around your neck."

"[to Rocco Lampone, after Rocco kills Paulie Gatto] Leave the gun. Take the Cannoli."

"Marlon Brando – Don Vito Corleone"