House of Cards (trilogy) quotes

You approve of my choice? Utterly incorruptible, absolutely impartial. He just can't stand Frenchmen, and who can blame him for that?

After the smiles. After the handshakes. After the arms around shoulders and the merry, hollow laughter. After the conditional promise and the purchased friendship. After the elusive, dangling reward, the nagging threat. After all that - the calculation of the odds, the sifting of the probabilities - and then, the fear. Fear in the smell of damp newsprint and the crackle of the radio. Fear that this might be the day that we wake to find the magic gone.

Elizabeth

The Margaret Thatcher Memorial. Is there really no way of preventing it?

It would seem not. It's all been paid for out of the Foundation. And the site was earmarked fifteen years ago, apparently. For a time, there seemed some possibility of putting it up in Grantham. Where no one would have to look at it.

Elizabeth

Except the unfortunate inhabitants. Where is Grantham, anyway?

No one seems quite sure.

Elizabeth

Couldn't the Arts Council do something about it?

You forget, my dear. We abolished the Arts Council a year ago.

Elizabeth

Of course. Department of National Heritage?

No, not their pigeon, apparently. It seems the best we can hope for is to keep the scale of that thing down and perhaps plan a somewhat larger memorial of oneself to stand nearby.

175 of my honourable colleagues firmly intend to vote for me, 123 are almost certainly against me. How dare they! They owe me everything. Half of them wouldn't even have jobs let alone seats in Parliament. As if I hadn't won three elections in a row and kept their noses in the gravy and these stuffed suits, these lumps of lobby fodder dare to raise themselves against me?

Claire Carlsen implied that what we need now is a miracle, as if she thought me capable of splitting Earth's crust. [pause] The Earth's crust...

Elizabeth

Francis?

Suppose we leak information to the Greeks and the French that they have been cynically conned. There are massive oil deposits off the coast of Cyprus. The British and the Turks have known it all along and are now exploiting it to enrich themselves.

Elizabeth

No, it's too dangerous.

[excited] Thus provoking an international incident. A small war, perhaps! To which we can react with moral outrage, uniting the country behind a strong Prime Minister.

Elizabeth

But we couldn't control the outcome. We'd risk losing everything.

Better to do that than to slink away. One way or the other I'll be remembered. This could be our Falklands, Elizabeth.

[to the statue of Margaret Thatcher] I will outlast you. Six more days. I'm not done yet.

There's not a problem, is there?

I'm sure there won't be. I just wanted to be quite clear. You see this particular document has such a high security clearance I'm not authorised to read it myself.

Really? How do you manage then?

I avert my eyes, Mrs Carlsen. Now this is for the Prime Minister, you say?

Yes, that's right. I am his PPS. I'm going straight from here to Downing Street.

And you're prepared to sign for it, taking full responsibility for its safety?

Yes, of course.

Fine, if you'll just sign and date there, please. Thank you. This is the document.

But this is in a clear folder. You could read it easily.

But I don't, Mrs Carlsen. I avert my eyes. As you will too, of course.

Elizabeth

Francis, my dear. Safe now. It was the only way, my darling. You do understand.

Elizabeth... [dies]