“No. 21 Luther Braxton” quotes from The Blacklist

I want to speak to somebody with real authority.

Harold Cooper

This is Harold Cooper, Assistant Director for the FBI.

Hello, Harold Cooper. I'm pretty sure you see how this works. I get what I need, or somebody dies. From here on forward I am the warden.

Boy, things got nasty in Belgrade, didn't they? It's funny-- up until then, I was aimless, just an ordinary thief, but after Belgrade, I became known as the man who bested the great Ray Reddington.

You didn't best me, Luther. You butchered and clawed your way into my pockets, and innocent people died in the process.

You're such a snob, Red. Always considered yourself above the fray with your handmade suits and your fancy wine, your private jets. Do you even drive? You got everybody convinced you're so hard, Red, but I know better. You're soft.

You're not getting the Fulcrum.

And how you gonna stop me, Red? Bore me to death with Beethoven? Put me to sleep quoting Nietzsche? Come on. We both know that in order to stop me, you got to have balls. You got to run the gauntlet. And after Belgrade, well that's just not gonna happen. So, tell me-- how are you gonna stop me, Red?

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

Was that Nietzsche?

No. Bruce Lee.

Have you ever heard of Bruno Ashmanskis? The most skilled cat burglar I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Bruno mostly did jobs on commission, but he always wanted to do something for himself, something special, so he got it into his head that he was gonna break into the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to steal an imperial vase from the Qing Dynasty worth millions-- the single biggest trophy of his career.

Elizabeth Keen

What happened?

I never heard from him again. I'd always assumed he'd succeeded, that he was sipping some umbrella-clad cocktail on a beach in Tahiti, until five years later during a remodel of the Fitzwilliam, they removed a wall. There was poor Bruno-- what was left of him, anyway-- stuck inside a heating duct, still clutching that vase. I prefer to think of old Bruno on that beach in Tahiti.

In Mexico, there are these fish that have colonized the freshwater caves along Sierra del Abra. They were lost. They found themselves living in complete darkness. But they didn't die. Instead, they thrived. They adapted. They lost their pigmentation, their sight, eventually even their eyes. With survival, they became hideous. I've rarely thought about what I once was. But I wonder if a ray of light were to make it into the cave, would I be able to see it? Or feel it? Would I gravitate to its warmth? And if I did, would I become less hideous?