Quotes / Filth

Listen to me, Bruce, you're different to him. You're different from that monster. He made his choices, you made yours. You're too hard on yourself, Bruce. You had a wife. You had a family. You chose to protect people from predators like him. You chose to uphold the law. They wanted you to be the same, right from the start, you were the only thing a desperate, isolated people could kick out at. That was the role you took on. But you're different, Bruce, you're different from him.

—The Self

You dig that coal baby? You dig that coal brother?
I don't fuckin well dig it or the filthy cunts that do.

—Bruce Robertson

My methods are my methods are my methods. I do not give an Ayelsbury Duck.

—Bruce Robertson

The feelings must be followed. It doesn't matter whether you're an ideologue or a sensualist, you follow the stimuli thinking that they're your signposts to the promised land. But they are nothing of the kind. What they are is rocks to navigate past, and each one you brush against, ripping you a little more open and they are more, always more, on the horizon. But you can't face up to that, so you force yourself to believe the bullshit of those you instinctively know to be liars and you repeat those lies to yourself and to others, hoping that by repeating them often and fervently enough you'll attain the godlike status we accord those who tell the lies most frequently and most passionately.
But you never do, and even if you could, you wouldn't value it, you'd realise that nobody believes in heroes any more. We know that they only want to sell us something we don't really want and keep from us what we really do need.
Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we're getting in touch with our condition at last. It's horrible how we always die alone, but it's no worse than living alone...

—Bruce Robertson

You've gone wrong somewhere, pal.

—Amanda Drummond

I only care about me and about why I don't care about anyone else.

—Bruce Robertson

That’s the beauty aboot being polis: it doesnae really matter whether or not everybody hates you, as long as they’re civil tae your face and can put up a good front. You can only live in the world you ken. The rest is just wishful thinking or paranoia.

—Bruce Robertson

She was your first love and you never really knew her as well as you wanted to. She liked music and looked and smelt nice and your heart used to and still does break, if you're honest with yourself, every time you think of her. Sometimes you can't help yourself but the games help.
Or at least they used to.
Now they are no longer enough.

—The Self

Sometimes, aye, you get your wee zones of relative freedom to retreat into, those light, delicate spaces where new things, different, better things can be perceived of as possibles.
Then it stops. Suddenly you see that those zones aren't there any more. They were getting smaller, you knew that. You knew that some day you'd have to get round to doing something about it. When did this happen? The realisation came some time after. It doesn't really matter how long it took: two years, three, five or ten. The zones got smaller and smaller until they didn't exist,and all that's left behind is the residue. That's the games.

—Bruce Robertson

Scotland. This nation brought the world television, the steam engine, golf, whisky, penicillin, and, of course, the deep-fried Mars Bar. It is great being Scottish. We're such a uniquely successful race. And as my wife, Carole, always says, 'There's no place like home.' The games are always, repeat, always being played. But nobody plays the games like me: Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson. Soon to be Detective Inspector Bruce Robertson. You just have to be the best, and I usually am. Same rules apply.

—Bruce Robertson (film)

I think they've left me. I think my family have left me. And I don't know how. I can't remember why. You see, there's something wrong with me. There's something seriously wrong with me!

—Bruce Robertson (film)