- Kathleen Quigley: What are you doing here?
- Alice Quigley: I resigned.
- Kathleen Quigley: What?
- Alice Quigley: I can't work there anymore.
- Kathleen Quigley: Why?
- Alice Quigley: Nobody trusts me!
- Kathleen Quigley: Well did- did someone say something?
- Alice Quigley: No... I just know.
- Kathleen Quigley: Oh, for God's sake! Alice!
- Alice Quigley: It's a bloody bank, Mum! The IRA have robbed it four times, why should they trust me?
- Kathleen Quigley: Gerard didn't rob it!
- Alice Quigley: How do you know?
- Kathleen Quigley: ...Where will you work?
- Alice Quigley: I can't stay here anymore. I hate this country.
- Farnsworth: No no no, we didn't say "their own clothes", we said "civilian style clothes".
- Harrington: Now you listen to me! I am a diplomat of Her Majesty's government. I do *not* break agreements!
- Farnsworth: Well this is war, not diplomacy.
- Harrington: Really? I distinctly remember you saying to me that it *wasn't* war!
- Farnsworth: Look, I want you to start treating these people for what they are: a bunch of terrorists. You do what it takes to draw them out into the open, and then you finish them off!
- Annie Higgins: Our day will come.
- Kathleen Quigley: And what day is that, Annie?
- Annie Higgins: The day the Brits go home.
- Kathleen Quigley: The day the bloody Brits go home is all you people can think about, isn't it? Well, my life won't change either way.
- Annie Higgins: Well now, your life and my life are two very different things, Missus. My son was shot dead by the British, so you can take your brandy and shove it up your hole!
- Kathleen Quigley: [Reading a secret note given to her from the prison] "My friend, the Brits have finally forced us to live in our own dirt. The lads' morale is collapsing. If you cannot find a solution, then we must push this crisis to its conclusion by going on hunger strike. I'm not threatening you but stating the cold reality. Your friend and comrade, Bobby Sands."
- Annie Higgins: [Is stopped at a road block] What the hell is this? How are we supposed to get to our cattle?
- Inspector McPeake: It's to stop your son murdering people and running back across the border down there.
- Annie Higgins: My son would never run from you, McPeake!
- Inspector McPeake: Why don't you go home, Annie, before you get yourself in trouble?
- Theresa Higgins: Come on, Ma! Ignore them!
- Inspector McPeake: [as Annie walks off] Tell your Frankie we'll get him. No matter what he does.
- Annie Higgins: Tell him yourself!
- Farnsworth: The law clearly states that if your sons should lapse into comas, then you have the legal right to take them off the strike. Surely no mother would allow her son to die?
- Kathleen Quigley: Gerard, a man was shot!
- Gerard Quigley: But he was a soldier.
- Kathleen Quigley: He was somebody's son like you're mine!
- Gerard Quigley: He was waiting to kill us. He got shot.
- Kathleen Quigley: ...You lied to me.
- Gerard Quigley: I had to. I lied because I wanted to protect you.
- Kathleen Quigley: Protect me?
- Gerard Quigley: I didn't think you could handle it. You spent years like running away from all this stuff, okay?
- Kathleen Quigley: I'm your mother! Don't you talk to me about protecting me!
- Gerard Quigley: I'm sorry!
- Kathleen Quigley: Sorry's not enough, Gerard!
- [Composes herself]
- Kathleen Quigley: Listen... Listen, I've got a lawyer downstairs and he says that he can get your charge reduced to conspiracy...
- Gerard Quigley: -I have to tell you something. I'm probably going to get locked up for a long time, and I don't need a lawyer. Because I'm a prisoner of war. I'm not a criminal. I don't recognize the court!
- Kathleen Quigley: Are you out of your mind?
- Gerard Quigley: You know something? I've never seen things as clearly before as I can see things now.
- Kathleen Quigley: Look, they won't even let Bobby Sands talk to the press! He's our MP, we have no voice! You know thirty thousand people voted for Bobby Sands, that's more than voted for Thatcher! So what are you afraid of?
- Mother Superior: Get out of my school or I'll call the police!
- Annie Higgins: You think I'm scared of the police? You touch my child again and that outfit won't save you!
- Fr. Daly: This is wrong!
- Danny Boyle: What you said in there was an absolute bloody disgrace!
- Fr. Daly: What I said in there is God's law!
- Annie Higgins: You're telling me to betray my son?
- Fr. Daly: It's God's law, Annie! This isn't a protest anymore! These people are using these funerals to win support!
- Danny Boyle: These people are our friends and our families!
- Fr. Daly: [Turns to Annie and Kathleen] Look, you have to take your sons off. You have the right to choose, you can make a choice!
- Danny Boyle: Leave them alone!
- Annie Higgins: No I don't! It's not my choice to make. Jesus Christ, do you think if it was my choice, I'd let him die?
- Gerard Quigley: [Sees Bobby, wrapped only in a blanket and heavily bearded] Bobby?
- Bobby Sands: [Smirks] Do I look that bad?
- Gerard Quigley: You look like Jesus Christ!
- Frank Higgins: We are Irish Republican Army prisoners of war and we refuse to participate in this non-jury farce! This British court has no jurisdiction in Ireland. We will *not* be treated as criminals!
- Harrington: Gentlemen, I'm glad you find this situation so amusing! We need to win the moral high ground on this one. I know "compromise" is a dirty word in this room, but if we don't come up with some fresh ideas, and soon, we're really going to fuck it up!
- Frank Higgins: [Sees the size of Gerard's beard after weeks in prison] Fuck me! It's Robinson Crusoe!
- [Notices a priest glaring at him]
- Frank Higgins: Sorry, Father...
- Danny Boyle: Mrs. Quigley, I'm Danny Boyle, head of Sinn Fein in Belfast.
- Kathleen Quigley: Yes, I know who you are. What are you doing here?
- Danny Boyle: I'm here to support your son.
- Kathleen Quigley: My son does not need your support, Mr. Boyle!
- Farnsworth: We want to make the prisons an asset, not a liability. It is in the prisons that we will break the backs of the IRA.