Michael Collins (1996) quotes

Director
Neil Jordan.

Cast
Liam Neeson.
Julia Roberts.
Aidan Quinn.

Neil Jordan’s historical biopic of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, the man who led a guerrilla war against the UK, helped negotiate the creation of the Irish Free State, and led the National Army during the Irish Civil War.

You’re seven minutes late, Mr. Collins.
– British officer
You’ve kept us waiting 700 years. You can have your seven minutes.
– Michael Collins

Is it true, Mick, that all of the women in America wear trousers?
– Kitty Kiernan
Absolutely! Shameless hussies, the lot o’ them.
– Michael Collins

The Minister is as usual exceeding his brief!
– Cathal Brugha
And what is my brief, Cathal?
– Michael Collins
Intelligence.
– Cathal Brugha
Bullshit! I’m Minister for Gun-Running, Daylight Robbery, and General Mayhem.
– Michael Collins

What happens next time?
– Harry Boland
Next time, Harry, we won’t play by their rules. We’ll invent our own!
– Michael Collins

I want peace and quiet. I want it so much I’d die for it.
– Michael Collins

The problem with the Irish is that they’ll sing at the drop of a hat, but ask them to talk and they won’t.
– Soames

There was a man in west Cork who proposed to five sisters.
– Michael Collins
I suppose they all refused.
– Kitty Kiernan
Then the father died and he proposed to the mother.
– Michael Collins
Are you trying to tell me something?
– Kitty Kiernan
I was working up to a proposal.
– Michael Collins

We have a weapon more powerful… than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon… is our refusal!
– Michael Collins

I hate them for making hate necessary, and I’ll do what I can to end it.
– Michael Collins

Once I start, they’ll be no stopping me.
– Michael Collins

The Irish people established the Irish Republic. It can only be disestablished by the Irish people.
– Eamon de Valera

If they shut me up, who will take my place?
– Michael Collins

Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof, hey boy?
– Soames
Yes, sir.
– Ned Broy
Or is it Broy?
– Soames
Broy, sir. Good night, sir.
– Ned Broy

So which one of you gunslingers is going to ask me to dance?
– Kitty Kiernan

There is one weapon that the British cannot take away from us: we can ignore them.
– Michael Collins