Quotes

Eastern Promises

Anna: My uncle has gone missing, since I told you about him translating the diary.
Nikolai Luzhin: Your uncle is fine, he is in Edinburgh, in a 5-Star Hotel. I was ordered to send him to Heaven with a bullet in his brain... instead I gave him a first class ticket to Scotland. He is old-school, he understands things... exile or death.

Nikolai Luzhin: I need you to take Semyon out of the picture. I want you to arrest him.
Yuri: Arrest him for what?
Nikolai Luzhin: Rape. The girl was 14.
Yuri: And of course she will testify?
Nikolai Luzhin: She is dead, but she had Semyon's baby. If you can prove baby was his, and girl was underage, that is statutory rape. You have baby, you need Semyon's DNA. For poetic reasons, I suggest you take his blood.

Nikolai Luzhin: [referring to Soyka] Okay. Now I'm going to do his teeth and cut off his fingers. You might want to leave room.
[Nikolai motions for Azim to go away, and then puts out his cigarette on his tongue]

[last lines]
Tatiana's Voice: My name is Tatiana. My father died in the mines in my village, so he was already buried when he died. We were all buried there. Buried under the soil of Russia. That is why I left, to find a better life.

Azim: [referring to the bathhouse] Semyon recommends this place for business meetings, because you can see what tattoos a man has. Come on, we have a lot to cover. Let's cook.

Anna: Have you ever met a girl named Tatiana?
Nikolai Luzhin: I meet lot of girls named Tatiana.
Anna: She was pregnant.
Nikolai Luzhin: Ah, in that case - no, I've never heard of her.
Anna: She died on my shift.
Nikolai Luzhin: I thought you did birth?
Anna: Sometimes birth and death go together. She came in with needle punches all over both arms. Probably a prostitute, at the age of fourteen. Do you think Semyon's son knew her?
Nikolai Luzhin: [growing agitated] I am driver. I go left, I go right, I go straight ahead - that's it.

Stepan: Anna, how is it that your boyfriend wasn't here to carve?
Anna: I don't live with Oliver anymore, Uncle Stepan. Living back here for a bit.
Helen: For as long as you want.
Stepan: I knew he would run away from you.
Anna: He didn't run away. Christ, you make me sound like a burning building.
Stepan: Black men always run away.
Helen: Oh Stepan!
Stepan: I'm not allowed to be honest?
Helen: He was a doctor, Stepan.
Anna: What has that got to do with anything?
Stepan: It's not natural to mix race and race. That's why your baby died inside you.

Semyon: It's always good to have someone who I can trust, to do simple tasks. In this business, sometimes the biggest danger comes from the most stupid things.

[after Anna hands Semyon a copy of Tatiana's diary]
Semyon: I will need my spectacles and a clear head. Today I broke my rules and I drank vodka. Tomorrow I will translate it, and then I will bring what I've done to your home.