Frank Semyon quotes from True Detective

Frank Semyon

Never do anything out of hunger. Not even eating.

Frank Semyon

A good woman mitigates our baser tendencies.

Frank Semyon

That’s what pain does. It shows you what was on the inside, and inside of you is pure gold. I know that. Your father knew that too.

Frank Semyon

This is one off the bucket list - a Mexican standoff with actual Mexicans.

Frank Semyon

In the midst of being gang-banged by forces unseen, I figured I'd drill myself a new orifice, go on and fuck myself for a change.

Frank Semyon

[To Mayor Chessani] Sober up, you might realize you’re getting fucked.

Frank Semyon

How’d a water stain get there?

Frank Semyon

It rained maybe twice this last year. It’s like everything’s papier-mache.

Stop thinking.

Frank Semyon

I don’t like being on a ledge.

Nobody gets rich on their own money.

Frank Semyon

I never really knew what to do with it. Money.

Frank Semyon

I see that about myself.

You always said you want lots of land.

Frank Semyon

Yes, but you need children to leave it to. It’s never really yours. You don’t take it with you.

You don’t take anything with you.

Frank Semyon

Just yourself. Whatever that was.

I’ve worked my whole life. Same as you. And not being poor is better than the opposite.

Frank Semyon

My old man back in Chicago, when I was a kid… [laughs] He used to lock me in the basement when he’d go on a bender. Usually last the night. Let me out the next day. Thought he was keeping me safe, I guess. This one time, I was six - he puts me down there. I wake up and it’s locked. It had happened before. Anyways, so I guess he ended up arrested, I guess.

God, baby.

Frank Semyon

Well, by the second morning I was out of food. The third day the light bulb burnt out. Pitch black in there. That’s when the rats started coming out. I dozed off and I felt a thing nibbling my finger. I woke up, it was, you know, chewing my finger.

What did you do?

Frank Semyon

I grabbed it in the dark with my hands, I started smashing. And I just kept smashing it until it was nothing but goo in my hands. Two more days I was in there. In the dark. 'Til my dad comes home.

Sometimes I wonder how many things you have like that. That I don’t know about.

Frank Semyon

Ever since, I wondered: what if he never comes home? What if I’m still in that basement in the dark? What if I died there? That’s what that reminds me of.

What?

Frank Semyon

The water stain. Something’s trying to tell me that it’s all paper-mache. Something’s telling me to wake up, like… like I’m not real. Like I’m only dreaming.

Frank Semyon

What's with the water?

Ray Velcoro

Booze tends to take the edge off. I wanna stay angry.

[showing Frank the door] Mr. Semyon.

Frank Semyon

You don't direct me, Khe Sanh motherfucker.

I'm Chinese.

Frank Semyon

Then go stand in front of a fuckin' tank.

Ray Velcoro

I would have been different.

Frank Semyon

Of all the lies people tell themselves, I bet that's the most common.

Ray Velcoro

I could have. You fucked me. I sold my soul for nothing!

Frank Semyon

If you were selling, it wasn't me buying.

Ray Velcoro

You wanted your hooks in a cop, so you used my wife's fucking tragedy to get me to kill somebody?

Frank Semyon

I didn't get you to do anything. I gave you a name and you made your choice, and that choice was in you before your wife or any of this other stuff. It was always there, waiting. Didn't you use that man to be what you were waiting to become? This thing, your wife, those are just excuses. You think you were Superman, previous? And hey, own it. You think I'd have done less? That's the kind of thing that keeps you out of Heaven. I don't want to go.

Frank Semyon

We met? You're a cop, right? Lady cop.

What gave me away - the tits?