Boss Tweed quotes from Gangs of New York (2002)

Boss Tweed

The appearance of law must be upheld, especially when it's being broken.

Boss Tweed

You know why he wears short sleeves? So they can see he's got nothing stashed. I hope that never becomes the fashion.

Boss Tweed

Sweet Jesus, war does terrible things to people.

Boss Tweed

You killed an elected official?

Bill

Who elected him?

Boss Tweed

You don't know what you've done to yourself.

Bill

I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father. Now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon I'm gonna paint Paradise Square with his blood. Two coats. I'll festoon my bedchamber with his guts. As for you, Mr. Tammany-****-Hall, you come down to the Points again, and you'll be dispatched by my own hand. Get back to your celebration and let me eat in peace.

Boss Tweed

You may or may not know, Bill, that everyday I go down to the waterfront with hot soup for the Irish as they come ashore. Its part of building a political base.

Bill

I've noticed you there, you may have noticed me.

Boss Tweed

Indeed I have. Throwing torrents of abuse to every single person who steps off those boats.

Bill

If only I had the guns, Mr. Tweed, I'd shoot each and every one of them before they set foot on American soil.

Boss Tweed

That's the building of our country right there, Mr. Cutting. Americans aborning.

Bill

I don't see no Americans. I see trespassers, Irish harps. Do a job for a nickel what a **** does for a dime and a white man used to get a quarter for. What have they done? Name one thing they've contributed.

Boss Tweed

Votes.

Bill

Votes, you say? They vote how the archbishop tells them, and who tells the archbishop? Their king in the pointy hat what sits on his throne in Rome.

Boss Tweed

Bill, I can't get a days work done for all the good citizens coming in here to harass me about crime in the Points. Some even go so far as to accuse Tammany of connivance in this so-called rampant criminality. What am I to do? I can't have this. Something has to be done.

Bill

What do you have in mind?

Boss Tweed

I don't know. I think maybe we should hang someone.

Bill

Who?

Boss Tweed

No one important, necessarily. Average men will do. Back alley amusers with no affiliations.

Bill

How many?

Boss Tweed

Three or four.

Bill

Which?

Boss Tweed

Four.

Boss Tweed

That man was right born for this.

Amsterdam

He's killed 44 men, and laid low a couple hundred more.

Boss Tweed

Is that right? We should have run him for mayor.

Killoran

Monk's already won by three thousand more votes than there are voters.

Boss Tweed

Only three? Make it twenty, thirty. We don't need a victory. We need a Roman triumph.

Boss Tweed

You're a good one for the fighting, Bill. But you can't fight forever.

Bill

I can go down doing it.

Boss Tweed

And you will!

Bill

What did you say?

Boss Tweed

I said, you're turning your back on the future.

Bill

Not our future.