Lou Solverson quotes from Fargo

Lou Solverson

So I got two kinds of sandwiches, tuna and turkey. Tuna's for the fish. Unless you think they'd think that's cannibalism.

Lou Solverson

Not sure if you remember, but when you were five, they had to put you under anesthesia to fix your teeth. Gave you that mask.

Molly Solverson

Hmm. Gas that smelled like tutti frutti.

Lou Solverson

Yeah. My soft little girl in a hard world of drills and needles.

Molly Solverson

I'm 31, Dad. I carry a gun.

Lou Solverson

I know. But it's relative, you know? There's the kind of things a schoolteacher gets exposed to--truancy and the like-- and then there's the stuff a cop sees-- murder and violence and general scofflawery. And then there's the kind of deal you're looking at now.

Molly Solverson

Which is?

Lou Solverson

Which is, if I'm right...savagery, pure and simple. Slaughter, hatred. Devils with dead eyes and shark smiles. And one day, you're gonna get married and have kids, and when you look at them, their faces, you need to see what's good in the world, 'cause if you don't, how you gonna live?

Molly Solverson

You talk a lot, you know that?

Lou Solverson

It's always been a problem.

Greta Grimly

Hey, um, go fishing later?

Lou Solverson

You're the granddaughter I always wanted but was afraid to buy online.

Lou Solverson

Had a case once, back in '79. I'd tell you the details, but it'd sound like I made 'em up. Madness, really.

Lorne Malvo

Bodies?

Lou Solverson

Yes, sir. One after another. Probably, if you stacked 'em high, could've climbed to the second floor. Now, I saw something that year I ain't ever seen, before or since. I'd call it animal. Except animals only kill for food. This was-- Sioux Falls. Ever been?

Lorne Malvo

Went to Sioux City once back in my scandalous days. But anyway, you didn't answer my question there.

Lou Solverson

Well, I'll tell you what. You, uh-- you leave me your number. I'll make sure Lester gets it next time he comes in.

Lorne Malvo

Well, that's a solid offer, friend, but like I said, I'm just passing through. Thanks for the pie and the coffee. Haven't had a piece of pie like that since the Garden of Eden.

Lou Solverson

It's a diner robbery in Minnesota, Karl. Not a presidential assassination.

Karl Weathers

Oh, sure. That's how it starts-- with something small, like a break-in at the Watergate Hotel. But just watch. This thing's only getting bigger.

Karl Weathers

Unacceptable is what it is. A woman like that in the prime of her... With a young daughter! Tell her if John McCain could hold out for 5 1/2 years against Viet Cong thumbscrews, she can beat this cancer bullshit in her sleep.

Lou Solverson

I'll make sure to mention that.

Lou Solverson

Your dad said he'd be over Sunday in a suit of armor.

Ugh. Geez. You light one souffle on fire...

Lou Solverson

Say, you wouldn't by any chance be Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers, would ya?

Mike Milligan

You make us sound like a prog-rock band. "Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers." [A Kitchen brother grabs a shotgun] Double whoops.

Lou Solverson

Easy.

Mike Milligan

Minnesota cop. You do know you're in North Dakota, right?

Lou Solverson

Must've got lost on the way to the lake.

Mike Milligan

So, where'd you say you saw old Skip?

Lou Solverson

At your mother's house. I think going in the backdoor.

Mike Milligan

I like him. I like you. Met another fella from Minnesota yesterday. Big guy, sheriff, I think. I liked him, too.

Lou Solverson

We're a very friendly people.

Mike Milligan

No, that's not it. Pretty unfriendly, actually. But it's the way you're unfriendly, how you're so polite about it. Like you're doing me a favor.

Floyd Gerhardt

Maude Schmidt's boy here is trying to tell me your brother killed a judge.

Dodd Gerhardt

Nobody killed a judge. We own all the judges. What'd be the point of killing one?

Now, Dodd...

Dodd Gerhardt

Don't you "Dodd" me. We're not friends.

We found Rye's prints on the gun.

Dodd Gerhardt

You're gonna find my boot on your neck, you keep talking like that.

Lou Solverson

Well, now, to be fair - I'm the one who found the gun, so I think you're dancing with the wrong girl.

Dodd Gerhardt

What'd you say?

Lou Solverson

I says, I'm the one who found the gun, so you should be talking to me. And I'm from out of town, so forgive me if I should be terrified, but in Minnesota, when a police officer says talk, you talk.

Dodd Gerhardt

You want to dance? Let's dance.

Lou Solverson

You didn't fight, did you, Ed - in the war?

Ed Blumquist

No, sir. 4-F on account I got the one kidney.

Lou Solverson

So... There's a look a boy gets when he's been shot or a - or a land mine takes off his legs, and he's laying there in the mud, trying to get up, 'cause he doesn't feel it yet.

Ed Blumquist

I, uh, don't...

Lou Solverson

His - his brain hasn't caught up with the reality, which is... he's already dead.

Peggy Blumquist

Ed, he's scaring me.

Lou Solverson

But we see it, the rest of us. And we lie. We say, "Lay still. You're gonna be fine." If you'd been to war, you'd know the look. See, you and Peggy, you got the look.

Ed Blumquist

This is all just so crazy. And I can't stop thinking about that book. Noreen's book. It's, like, stuck in my head.

Lou Solverson

What? What book?

Ed Blumquist

It's about this guy who, every day, he - he pushes this rock up this hill. Like a boulder. And then every night, it just rolls back down. But he doesn't stop. You know, he just - he keeps goin'. And - and he wakes up every day and starts pushin'. By which I-I-I guess I'm - I'm sayin' it doesn't matter what they throw at me. I'm gonna take care of what's mine.

Mike Milligan

There's a man.

What - what man?

Mike Milligan

Just a man. He works in a factory. One day, the boss gets it in his mind that this man is stealing from him. So, every night at the gate, the guards search his wheelbarrow. But they never find anything.

Pat him down.

Mike Milligan

Oh, they do that. Strip him naked - nothin'.

So he's not stealin'.

Mike Milligan

Of course he is.

Lou Solverson

Wheelbarrows.

Mike Milligan

Thank you. That's right. He's stealing wheelbarrows.

What?

Mike Milligan

My point is sometimes the answer is so obvious you can't see it because you're looking too hard. See, we can't leave because we're the future, and they're the past. The past can no more become the future than the future can become the past.

Mike Milligan

So... is this a conversation about how it's time for me to pack up and go home?

Lou Solverson

No. Don't have to go home. It's a big country. Just maybe don't be here.

Mike Milligan

Are you familiar with the phrase "manifest destiny"?

Lou Solverson

Yeah, but see, here's the thing. I own two pairs of shoes - a summer pair and one for winter. We're not meant to have more than we can handle, is what I mean. So, this need for conquest, you know, tryin' to own things that aren't meant to be owned...

Mike Milligan

Like people?

Lou Solverson

That's an example. But also places - believin' we can tame things. That's a problem, right?... Not a solution.

Mike Milligan

You're saying capitalism is a problem?

Lou Solverson

No... Greed... Makin' this thing all or nothin'.

Hank Larsson

Well, that went wrong in a hurry.

Lou Solverson

You comin'?

Hank Larsson

No. Good to have at least one grown-up here, don't you think?

Lou Solverson

I'm gonna call my boss, see if he can stop this madness on a bureaucratic level.

Hank Larsson

Worth a shot.

Lou Solverson

This thing's officially out of control.

Lou Solverson

I was there at the end, you know? After the war, when Saigon fell, on the USS Kirk patrolling the coast. And when the country went, it went fast. And we had, like, you know, 24 hours to get everybody out. And not just Americans, but our allies, the South Vietnamese, all packed onto boats and helicopters. We stood on the deck and waved them in. And one by one, they'd land, unload, and then we'd push the whirlybirds into the sea. The damndest thing. But then, this Chinook comes. And those things - you can't just land one on a ship this size. So we wave them off. But the pilot's got his whole family inside, and he's running out of fuel, so it's now or never. So he hovers over the deck. People start jumping - scared or not - onto the ship. There's a baby - literally a-a tiny baby and the mother just - just drops him. And one of my boys like catching a ball, just sticks out his hands. So, now everybody's out, and I'm thinking, "How the heck is this pilot"- right? - "How's he gonna get out?" But he maneuvers off the port bow, and he hovers there for the longest time doing, you know, what we learned later - uh, takin' off his flight suit. And somehow he rolls the bird on its side, and just before it hits the water, he jumps. 6,000 pounds of angry helicopter parts flyin' all around him. And somehow he makes it. How'd he do that?

Peggy Blumquist

What are you sayin'?

Lou Solverson

Your husband, he said he was gonna protect his family no matter what. And I acted like I didn't understand, but I do. It's the rock we all push - men. We call it our burden, but it's really our privilege.

Peggy Blumquist

I never meant for any of this to happen. You know? Not to Ed. Not to anybody. I just wanted to be someone.

Lou Solverson

Well, you're somebody now.