Al Swearengen quotes from Deadwood

Al Swearengen

Well, I guess when it starts pissin' rain in here, you know who to blame, huh? Now, I know word's circulatin' Indians killed a family on the Spearfish Road. Now it's not for me to tell anyone in this camp what to do, as much as I don't want more people gettin' their throats cut, scalps lifted or any other godless thing that these godless bloodthirsty heathens do. Or even if someone wants to ride out in darkest night. But I will tell you this. I'd use tonight to get myself organized. Ride out in the morning clear-headed. And startin' tomorrow morning, I will offer a personal $50 bounty for every decapitated head of as many of these godless heathen cocksuckers as anyone can bring in. Tomorrow. With no upper limit! That's all I say on that subject, 'cept next round's on the house. And God rest the souls of that poor family. And pussy's half price, next 15 minutes.

Al Swearengen

Let her go; she ain't taking any business with her. And don't forget to kill Tim.

Al Swearengen

Let's leave it all alone. I'm stupidest when I try to be funny.

Al Swearengen

[during a meeting with Johnny Burns, E.B. Farnum, and Jimmy Irons] I wanna know who cut the cheese. [nobody answers] I'll tell you this for openers: we are gonna set off an area on the balcony. [opens the door to the balcony] And God help whoever doesn't use it, because the next stink I have to smell in this office, and whoever doesn't admit to it is going out the window, into the muck, onto their fucking heads, and we'll see how they like farting from that position, okay?

Al Swearengen

Every fuckin' beatin' I'm grateful for. Every fuckin' one of them. Get all the trust beat outta you. And you know what the fuckin' world is.

Al Swearengen

Her husband came here with childish ideas. Bought himself a gold claim with me an honest broker. Claim pinches out, which will happen. But he can't take that like a man, has to blame somebody. Seller's left camp, so he picks on me. Says he'll bring in the Pinkertons if I don't offer restitution. I got a healthy operation and I didn't build it brooding on the right, and wrong of things. I do not need the Pinkertons descending like locusts. So I bend over for the tenderfoot cocksucker. Reconnoiter your claim fully, I say. And then, if you're still unhappy, I will give you your fucking money back. And the tenderfoot agrees. Just as he's finishing his reconnoiter, cocksucker falls to his death, pure fucking accident. But up jumps the widow in righteous fucking indignation. Wants the doctor to examine him for murder wounds. My visions of locusts return. I see Pinkertons coming in swarms.

Al Swearengen

Remember this when you run your own place: that type guy, hanging around, gets people agitated, forces 'em to take a position, one side or the other. And agitation brings a slight bump-up in whiskey sales but the sale of cunt plummets. That's why I often wonder if I should take that fucking picture of Lincoln down.

Al Swearengen

I'd rather try touching the moon than take on a whore's thinking.

Al Swearengen

We teach a special sweeping technique here.

Al Swearengen

Say what you're gonna say or prepare for eternal fucking silence.

Al Swearengen

Oh, do you worry for her, Dan? Wandering the muck of our thoroughfare, her tiny self all but swallowed up in horseshit?

Al Swearengen

Dan's a fucking expert. When he's not shit-faced drunk, so's Ellsworth.

Al Swearengen

My oath on this: every day that the widow sits on her ass in New York City, looks west at sunset and thinks to herself "God bless you ignorant cocksuckers in Deadwood, who do strive mightily and at little money to add to my ever-increasing fortune," she'll be safe from the wiles of Al Swearengen.

Al Swearengen

In life you have to do a lot of things you don't fucking want to do. Many times, that's what the fuck life is... one vile fucking task after another. But don't get aggravated... then the enemy has you by the short hairs.

Al Swearengen

You can't slit the throat of everyone whose character it would improve.