Notable Quotes from "The Blacklist"

THE CRIMINAL MIND

I’m a criminal. Criminals are notorious liars. Everything about me is a lie. (Raymond Reddington)

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Raymond Reddington: Have you ever wondered how criminals who know they can't trust one another are still able to conduct business with each other?

Elizabeth Keen: They replace trust with fear and the threat of violence.

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Lawyers find and exploit loopholes. It's what makes them so loathsome. And Marvin Gerard is the most loathsome of them all. That's what makes him so invaluable. (Raymond Reddington)

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Raymond crafted a plan based on an ancient principle: If you want your enemy to become your friend, create a problem and then solve it. (Mr. Kaplan/Kate Kathryn Nemec)

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She preyed on the weak and the innocent while dressed in the wings of a savior. (Raymond Reddington)

YOUTH & AGE

People say youth is wasted on the young. I disagree. I believe wisdom is wasted on the old. All you can do is part with it, but very few will take it, least of all the people closest to you. They want no part of it. (Raymond Reddington)

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Picasso said it took four years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child. They live in a delightful space somewhere between dreams and reality. They taste color, hear shapes, see sounds. We should all have such special needs. (Raymond Reddington)

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The ripe apple falls. It doesn't know what else to do. (Raymond Reddington)

RETRIBUTION, REVENGE, REGRET & REDEMPTION

Regret requires age or wisdom. (Raymond Reddington)

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You will make a mistake, and when you do I will be there to indulge the undeniable pleasure and the sweet satisfaction of "I told you so." (Raymond Reddington)

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Agent Ressler, once you cross over, there are things in the darkness that can keep your heart from feeling the light again. (Raymond Reddington)

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I'm a violent man. I've taken on a life that requires it. I hurt people. I kill people. And each time I do, in that moment, another part of me dies along with them. (Raymond Reddington)

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A farmer comes home one day to find that everything that gives meaning to his life is gone. Crops are burned, animals slaughtered, bodies and broken pieces of his life strewn about. Everything that he loved taken from him - his children. One can only imagine the pit of despair, the hours of Job-like lamentations, the burden of existence. He makes a promise to himself in those dark hours. A life's work erupts from his knotted mind. Years go by, his suffering becomes complicated. One day he stops. The farmer who is no longer a farmer sees the wreckage he's left in his wake. It is now he who burns, he who slaughters, and he knows in his heart he must pay. (Raymond Reddington)

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Revenge isn't a passion. It's a disease. It eats at your mind, and poisons your soul. (Raymond Reddington)

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Elizabeth Keen: You're a monster.

Raymond Reddington: Yes.

Elizabeth Keen: How can you live with yourself?

Raymond Reddington: By saving your life.

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Elizabeth Keen: I know you think you care about me. But every time you do something that makes me think you really do, you do something else that reminds me that you simply aren't capable of it.

Raymond Reddington: I'm a sin eater. I absorb the misdeeds of others, darkening my soul to keep theirs pure. That is what I'm capable of.

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Few things in life are truly impossible. Talking an Irishman out of vengeance for his brother's death is one of them. (Raymond Reddington)

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You're a glutton for vengeance. I understand. There is almost nothing as satisfying as revenge. Wanting someone to hurt because you hurt. An eye for an eye. Feels like God's work -- until you realize there is no God and you've committed sins for which there is no absolution... Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. (Raymond Reddington)

TIME

You'll find your time with her goes by too quickly. That's why cuckoo clocks are perfect. I don't really care what time it is. I just wanna hear the birds sing. (Raymond Reddington)

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Time is the only thing that will allow you to find yourself again. (Raymond Reddington)

ACTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

Every cause has more than one effect. (Raymond Reddington)

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A Mongolian peasant gets brought into an office where an important man offers him a million dollars on one condition: that he press the red button on his desk. He tells the poor man that if he presses the button, an old man in Mongolia drops dead. He won't tell him why, only that his death is good for the people. So he pushes the button, takes the money and goes home. But he's haunted by what he did. He can't spend any of the money, and eventually he commits suicide. A man recently told me the story -- said we all have a Mongolian peasant in our lives, something we've done that we're ashamed of and that the minute someone finds out what that is, he can make you do anything, say anything, confess to anything either to cover it up or to atone. (Donald Ressler)

SIN AND FORGIVENESS

Sins should be buried like the dead -- not that they may be forgotten but that we may remember them and find our way forward nonetheless. (Raymond Reddington)

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Forgiveness doesn't mean accepting what you've done, Donald. It means understanding that the line dividing good and evil cuts through the hearts of all of us. (Raymond Reddington)

HUMAN NATURE

People are creatures of habit. They gravitate to what they know. (Elizabeth Keen)

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When you try to do something good, you cannot seem to understand where your selfishness ends and other people's lives begin. (Harold Cooper)

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I have found in my experience people rarely change, and when they do, they're not to be trusted. (Raymond Reddington)

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A man's greatest enemy is the dark forces pent up within himself. (Raymond Reddington)

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I used to think in terms of black and white -- you are either a bad guy or you weren't. I'm not sure about that anymore. Under the right circumstances, I believe that even the best of us are capable of almost anything. (Donald Ressler)

PERSPECTIVES AND TRUTH

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. (Raymond Reddington)

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Cultural peculiarities notwithstanding, I find cock fighting to be abominable. However, truth be told, I do love fried chicken. (Raymond Reddington)

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Everyone has a way they want to be perceived– a cover story, a lie. They tell you what they want you to believe. But I think actions speak louder than words, especially the ones we take out of loyalty or our sense of duty or love or out of hope for a second chance. (Tom Keen)

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Progress. It's a bitch. (Raymond Reddington)

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Clicking like a hairless fruit bat is impressive, Manuel, but you and I both know avoiding a lamppost is very different from avoiding an assassin's bullet. Echolocation can't help you with that, but I can. (Raymond Reddington)

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Manuel Esteban: You're an anarchist.

Raymond Reddington: Probably. Maybe more of an opportunist.

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Giza Barrera: A rose is a sign of beauty.

Donald Ressler: Except when laid on a grave.

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Belief is such a relative concept. (Raymond Reddington)

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You said something before: 'The truth doesn't matter, that the only thing in this world that matters is just the appearance of truth. I fear you might be right about that. Lately, I find the truth has become so elusive, often imaginary. But in the end, it's all that we're left with, isn't it? What is real, what you can taste and touch and feel. The words that pass between us as we look each other in the eye are all we have to hold on to. (Raymond Reddington)

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As Rat said to Mole, 'There is nothing, absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.' (Raymond Reddington)

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Leave the past in the past, Tom. Nothing good will come from digging up secrets. (Raymond Reddington)

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My mother used to say, 'A driver's license is nothing but an invitation to injury and heartache.' She was agoraphobic... (Raymond Reddington)

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... I did not poison him. I merely provided the means for someone else to do so. (The Apothecary)

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It's not a lie -- it's just delayed honesty. (Thomas Keen)

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So many people find cemeteries to be a reminder of loss. I find them to be a fervent reminder to seize the day. (Raymond Reddington)

LOVE

The man you saw in the picture was my employer. He lost his way. At least, that's how I saw it. He placed a lovely young woman and her baby in terrible danger. Not deliberately, mind you. He loves them deeply -- enough to blind him to the reality that his very presence in their lives constitutes a threat, not just to them but to himself as well. I tried to help. All I managed to do was to place her and the child in even greater danger. My efforts earned me a bullet in the head. (Mr. Kaplan/Kathryn Nemec)

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Love did it, if you can believe. It doesn't make much sense, but sometimes you can feel too much. Hold on too long, it poisons you. (Constantin Rostov)

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Losing someone we love is painful, agonizing even unto death. The Japanese call it takotsubo: a grieving surge of abnormal electrical waves that causes the heart to deflate and contort until it resembles a fishing pot, hollow and cold, an empty vessel at the bottom of a fathomless sea. (Raymond Reddington)

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Trust me, Dr. Perry, no matter how sterling your reputation, people will believe the most awful things. (Isabella Stone)

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Katarina Rostova: How many children have you raised?

Kathryn Nemec: I've seen seven children through their elementary years. Some of them siblings, of course.

Katarina Rostova: What do you feel toward them now?

Kathryn Nemec: Pride, mostly. You want to know if I love them? They were never mine to love. But I would have died or each and every one of them.

Katarina Rostova: What must a child do to earn this eternal devotion of yours?

Kathryn Nemec: Not much. Take Masha, for instance. We have a pact, she and I. Every time she takes a bottle from me or falls asleep in my arms, she's telling me that she trusts me completely. That is a profound gift. I would do anything to protect your baby.

LEADERSHIP

Leadership is more than showing strength... It's also about knowing when to show restraint. (Raymond Reddington)

NEGOTIATION

I believe one gets more flies with honey than vinegar... If the goal is to get one to tell something they don't want to tell, empathy and rapport are vital. (Dembe Zuma)

BETRAYAL & LOYALTY

No, Elizabeth. Dembe didn't stay with me because he saw me as his savior. He stayed with me because he saw me for the man I really was: a man surrounded by darkness; no friends could be trusted; no faith that loyalty or love could ever truly exist... Dembe connected his life with mine to show me that day, and every day that the world is not what I fear it to be. He's the light in the darkness -- living proof that there is another way, that life can be good, that people can be kind, that a man like me might one day dream of becoming a man like him. He pledged his life, offered it up as evidence that I was wrong about this world. Dembe guards my life because he's determined to save my soul. (Raymond Reddington)

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I’ve always found stories of betrayal to be so compelling, so tragic for all those involved. Judas, Iago – men who were beloved by those they betrayed... Ironic, isn't it? That the ones in whom we place our greatest trust are best positioned to put the knife in our backs. (Raymond Reddington)

SUFFERING

What happens in life writes a story in our flesh. (Kathyrn Nemec's father)

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The world can be such an unsparingly savage place. One could be forgiven for believing that evil will triumph in the end. (Raymond Reddington)

GOODNESS

There is no shame in hoping for the best, even for the worst of us. (Harold Cooper)

DREAMS

...like my dad always said, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' Elizabeth Keen)

WAR

Meera was a casualty in a war that she didn't even know she was fighting. (Raymond Reddington)

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...for a war to end, both sides have to be willing to find peace. (Raymond Reddington)

SURVIVAL

We will not start killing each other just to die anyway. (Dembe)

TAXATION

Hershey Dekker: As you know, the IRS is conducting an audit of Critter Cabin.

Raymond Reddington: Let me ask you, how come you get to audit me and I don't get to audit you?

Hershey Dekker: About the audit...

Raymond Reddington: Granted, you use my money for some worthy causes -- roads, schools. But building a border wall, prosecuting people for smoking pot, building even more prisons to hold, even more young men of color? Why should my money finance that?