Peaky Blinders (TV Series)

Strategy (2019)

Kate Dickie: Mother Superior

Quotes 

• Mother Superior : May I ask what this meeting is about?

  [Polly places a folder on the table] 

  Thomas Shelby : The Grace Shelby Foundation is the biggest single source of funding for this charitable institution, devoted to the care of the orphaned girls of South Birmingham, yeah?

  Mother Superior : For which we give thanks.

  Thomas Shelby : Uh-huh.

  [he slides the folder across the table] 

  Aunt Polly : I have a temper similar to the one described in that report. Yet unlike you, I wait until I'm matched in size.

  Mother Superior : Whose report?

  Aunt Polly : The testimony of children.

  [Mother Superior opens the folder] 

  Mother Superior : Who have they spoken to?

  Aunt Polly : You'd have them only speak to God.

  Mother Superior : God be their witness.

  Thomas Shelby : There is God, and there are the Peaky Blinders. This is Sparkhill, we're in Small Heath. We're much, much closer at hand than God.

  Aunt Polly : And we have heard terrible things.

  Mother Superior : We have in this place children of the worst sort. They lie as easily as breathe.

  Aunt Polly : You had a child half-black. You made her wash with a different soap.

  Mother Superior : Mr. Shelby, your own sins are legend.

  Thomas Shelby : Our sins? Our sins, against the beating of children with bricks and hoses? Our sins? Our sins...

  [he pulls out a small vial, pours some powder into his hand, and blows it across the table at Mother Superior] 

  Thomas Shelby : ... against the black child who hanged herself for fear of your temper?

  Mother Superior : I do not see how...

  Thomas Shelby : You do not see?

  [he snatches Mother Superior's glasses off her face and smashes them on the table] 

  Thomas Shelby : Now put 'em on. Put 'em on your face, or it'll be your eyes that are broken. Please don't imagine that I won't use this minute to do it, or that I am afraid of your prayers or your crosses.

  [she hesitates, then puts the shattered glasses back on] 

  Aunt Polly : You see the world broken. Like those beaten children will.

  Thomas Shelby : Now look at me.

  [no response] 

  Thomas Shelby : Look at me.

  [no response] 

  Thomas Shelby : LOOK AT ME!

  [Mother Superior fearfully raises her eyes to Tommy's] 

  Thomas Shelby : Funding withdrawn.

  Aunt Polly : All children to be taken into our own institutions.

  Mother Superior : You have no say in where the children--

  [Polly suddenly draws a dagger and points it in Mother Superior's face] 

  Aunt Polly : If I come for you--and I still might yet decide to come for you--I will wear high heels so you can hear my approach on the cobblestones and have time to repent. You listen for my footsteps.

• Mother Superior : You wanted to speak to us, Mr. Shelby?

  Thomas Shelby : Yep.

  Mother Superior : All of us?

  Thomas Shelby : Yeah.

  Mother Superior : At 6:30 in the morning?

  Thomas Shelby : [impatiently]  Yes.

  [he and Polly light cigarettes] 

  Mother Superior : We don't smoke in here.

  Thomas Shelby : Well, I fucking do.

  Mother Superior : Nor do we use language.

  Aunt Polly : Nor do we find fault in the innocent. Yet you do. You fucking do.