Mark Renton quotes from T2 Trainspotting (2017)

"Choose life." "Choose life" was a well-meaning slogan from a 1980s antidrug campaign. And we used to add things to it. So I might say, for example, choose... Designer lingerie in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags. Choose high-heeled shoes. Cashmere and silk to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window, and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South Asian firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand other ways to spew your bile across people you've never met. Choose updating your profile. Tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don't look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging from your first wank to your last breath. Human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who'd had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut shaming, revenge porn, and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work, and choose the same for your kids, only worse. And maybe tell yourself it's better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody's **** kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment. And choose losing the ones you loved. And as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them. Until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone. And there'll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life. Anyway, it amused us at the time.

Hello Mark.

Simon.

So what you've been up to... for 20 years?

I've been in Amsterdam.

Nice.

Alright.

So what else? Married?

Aye.

Nice.

Dutch woman.

Kids?

Two.

Boys or girls?

One of each.

Wee mark 'ey? Raise a chip off the old block.

James actually, and Lora. How about you?

I have a son. He is in London with his **** whore mother.

See him?

Pretty regular, currently once every ten years!

Alright.

Job?

Aye. I did an accounting course. I work for a small business. Stock management software for the retail sector.

Very nice. Well, as you can see I run my old aunty's pub. Very few customers, then they don't spend much. Sometimes I... I wonder if it's worth opening. The great wave of gentrification is yet to engulf us. There we go, eh? My lotted life!

I see.

six...teen...thousand...pounds! You thieving **** bastard!

You missed the trick, that's what hurts isn't it? I had the brains and **** balls to steal the money, and you didn't!

I can feel again Mark, you know. I need to detox the system.

Oh Spud, detox the system... What does it even mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's not getting it out of your body, that is the problem, it is getting it out of your mind! You are an addict!

You think I haven't heard that a 100,000 times Mark? You go 12 steps ahead of me comrade.

So be addicted. Be addicted to something else.

Like running until I feel sick?

Yes! Or something else. You've got to channel it! You've got to control it! People try all sorts. Some people do boxing.

Boxing?

Well, it's just an example. I don't... I don't mean you should...

So what did you channel it into?

Getting away.

You not gonna give us a song?

I can sing. I'll just... I'll just **** make something up. You can play the piano.

I can't play the **** piano.

You know those two chords. The **** F and G march you used to play at school. Do that. [Renton takes the stage and Simon takes the piano] Good evening. My mate and I would like to sing a song that we wrote.

No. Is... Is that it? It was the year of 1690, on the 11th of July, or the first in Julian calendar. Wait, wait, wait. Give me something with a little bit of rhythm. Here we go. It was on the field of battle, of hope we were bereft, but by the time that it was over, there were no more Catholics left.

We looked up to King William, on his chin a royal cleft, and by the time that it was over, there were no more Catholics left. Aye! **** right. His strategy was strong, his strategy was deft, by the time that it was over, there were no more Catholics left, the battle now victorious. We foiled his papist theft, when the time was over, there were no more Catholics left, aye!

And it's midnight. Start again.

So, there's this room service guy, right? And he comes into the room, and there is Georgie Best lying on the bed with two Playboy models. Three in a bed, champagne and a little bit of Charlie, and there's banknotes. But they're lying on the banknotes.

Veronika

Lying on the money?

Yes.

Veronika

Why?

I don't know. Because he has a lot of money. Or at least he had a lot of money at the time, anyway. The room service guy, he comes in, and he sees this scene that I just described to you, and he says, "George Best..."

Greatest footballer of all time.

Exactly. "The greatest footballer of all time, I have to ask you, "'Where did it all go wrong?'" Where did it all go wrong? Where did it all go wrong? Where did it all go wrong, George Best?

Veronika

Yeah, but... I think that the room service guy, you know... I think he makes a very good point. No?
...

He played for Hibs in 1979 between stints for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and the San Jose Earthquakes. I went to see him play, apparently. My dad took me. He said, "You've got to see this. You've got to see this player. "Got to see this greatest footballer of all time." So it was a big game, it was a big crowd, and a big guy in front of me. I couldn't see a thing. Not a single thing. Not for 90 minutes. But I've got the program, so... I mean, I've always got that, you know?

Thin. Thin. Nobody was fat back then.

It's not just the football, is it?

It's the end of austerity. There was no such thing even as a calorie till 1974.

Welcome to the new age of civil rights, space exploration.

You know what happened in 1974? The first McDonald's in the UK.

He's basically John Barry with football boots.

See, look at that guy. He would be scrawny today.

A great, swaggering, filthy piece of music.

But then... That was totally normal till 1974. It's insurrection!

That's the beauty of what he does.

You know what happened in 1974? First McDonald's. South London. Woolwich.

Cheers. Up your ass.

Placebo.

There's a ****...

Do it. Let's do it. **** off.

Yeah!

Yeah!

So, are you the woman in the video?

Veronika

My face is not seen.

Do you have any identifying marks? Tattoos on your buttocks?

Veronika

Certainly not.

On your perineum? [Veronika looks confused and Mark leans over to whisper]

It's the bit of skin between your vagina and your bumhole.

That's disgusting.

So you're not vajazzled. May I ask, what is your relationship with the accused?

Veronika

We are friends.
...

Mark. [Mark walks back over]

She's too young for you. [Mark walks away unimpressed]
...

Here it is. [Reading off laptop] "EU Small Business Development Loans. Zero-interest loans distributed regionally towards projects that stimulate regeneration of formerly industrial areas. Loans are available of up to 100,000. Applications should be made online, which may be followed by an invitation to present a business plan."

Blah, blah, **** blah.

I'm trying to help you, Simon. We're blowing all that cashpoint money on lawyer's fees.

You could've got someone cheaper.

Well, I wouldn't have had to get anyone at all if you hadn't engaged in **** blackmail. Is there anything left of your 4,000 I gave you?

No, I've got expenses, just like everyone else.

What, all of it? You snorted the whole **** wad?

It's called debt, Mark.

The point is, we need cash now, not in six months' time.

And you realize what's at stake here? I promised to set up a sauna for Veronika. And if I don't get it up and running soon, she's gonna leave me.

**** leave you anyway.

No, it's not gonna happen.

Is she actually even with you?

She's my girlfriend.

You've never ever been a normal junkie.

I have **** her, and I'll **** her again.

What? When she was working at the sauna?

That's not fair. You know, since we're having this conversation, I can tell you that fully consensual, emotionally driven, not-for-profit sexual intercourse has been attained.

Simon, you're a romantic.

Veronika and I have had our rough patches. I'll be the first to admit that.

Shall we submit this application?

Do what you want, but I need someone on-site working. I need progress. Now.

Veronika

Simon and I do not sleep together.

No? I had wondered.

Veronika

Once, but... I'm his girlfriend, but it's business, really. Simon is not a good person. But I like him. More than he likes himself, I think.

Right, but if you're not... If there's no physical aspect to your relationship, I mean, you don't want to be, like... You know, wasting your time.

Veronika

What's "choose life"?

What?

Veronika

"Choose life." Simon says it sometimes. He says, "Choose life, Veronika."

Veronika

I like you, Mark.

This is the renovation and conversion of an iconic Leith building. We see it very much as being an artisanal bed-and-breakfast experience. A destination in its own right. Artworks by local artists on the walls. Locally sourced fresh food. Outreach programs to inspire children in school to think outside the box. To inspire in them a belief that... Yes, they can. There was a time when this port served thousands of ships around the globe. Now it can rise again. And we believe our business will occupy a central role, both physically and emotionally, at the heart of this new wave of regeneration in Leith.

Leith 2.1.

Exactly.
...

We used to steal all this stuff. Fancy wallpaper. Sell on to the middle classes and that. Me and Mark used to steal all kinds of stuff, actually. Till we got caught. He got off. I got six months. Still, you find out what you're good at inside. Signatures... That's what I found out. Anyone's. If I seen it once, I can do it. So, when I got out, "Bye-bye, shoplifting. Hello, checkbook. Hello, check card. Up to Western Union. Signature, cash in hand. Up to Swanney's, pay off my debts, buy some skag. I was a portable **** goldmine.

Veronika

So, what happened?

Chip and PIN, debit cards, e-banking. Billionaires moving money at the touch of a button. There's no room for an honest artisan like me anymore.

Veronika

So, what did you do?

Back on the pavement. Seven days a week.

Veronika

I like your stories. I think you should write them down.

You think?

Veronika

Yeah. Just write them the way you say them. They're funny. I would like to read them. Mark and Simon can help.

"Tommy looks well. It's terrifying. He's gonna die. Sometime between the next few weeks and the next 15 years, Tommy will be no more. Chances are that I'll be exactly the same. Difference is we know this with Tommy. Tommy cannot get out.

He cannot afford to heat his home, put himself in a bubble, live in the warm, eat good fresh food, keep his mind stimulate with new challenges. He will only live five or 10 or 15 years before he is crushed. Tommy will not survive winter in West Granton."
...

Well, I'm trying hard, Mark, but I'm not feeling anything. We were young. Bad things happened. It's over. Can we go home now?

Two hours to the next train.

Oh, for ****'s sake.

Look, we're here as an act of memorial.

Nostalgia. That's why you're here. You're a tourist in your own youth. Just 'cause you had a near-death experience, and now you're feeling all fuzzy and warm. What other moments will you be revisiting? Here's a good one. How about the time you sold Tommy his very first hit, leading him on to heroin addiction, HIV infection, and ultimately his death at the age of... What was it, 22, 23?

Twenty-three.

Twenty-three. How innocent was that?

Aye, that's mine. How's yours?

Don't know what you're talking about.

She'd be a woman by now. Maybe kids of her own. But she never got that far, did she? Never got to lead her life. Because her father, someone who should have been looking after her, protecting his own infant, was too busy filling his own veins with heroin to check that she was breathing properly. How do you keep a lid on that one?

Well, that's that, then. Here we go.

****'s sake.
...

All right, doll.

Thanks.

Looking good, baby.

Not bad yourself, daddy-o.

Why, bring it over here.

Really?

I'm not wearing any knickers.

For ****'s sake. Well, tell you what... Just away for a piss. Back in a moment. We'll see what's happening, okay?

All right, then.

Aye.

I didn't know.

Okay, okay. I might've heard something. I'm sorry I didn't mention it.

You might've heard something?

All right, **** it. I knew. I knew, and I could have served you up to him on a plate any time I wanted to.

I bet you were **** looking forward to it, too, weren't you?

Yeah, yeah, I was. I was looking forward to it.

I ought to **** kill you.

**** is this?

It's Mark and Simon, right? Do you know who I am? Good. So you know that I own a couple of saunas in the north of Edinburgh. In fact, you boys should know, I own all the saunas in Edinburgh. So your venture was never gonna happen, was it? I couldn't have you on my doorstep in competition for my members of staff, for my clientele. It was never gonna happen, Simon, was it?

No, Mr. Doyle.

Right answer. I wouldn't let it happen. And it's not gonna happen, right? Thankfully for you two, I've done some due diligence on you, and what I hear [Scene of Doyle is showing their picture on his phone to sauna girls who nod in recognition] is you're a couple of losers. Two absolute losers. How's that sound, Simon?

Yeah, yeah, that's probably right enough.

Aye. "Probably right enough." Right answer. Take your clothes off. All of them. ****'s sake.
...

"Probably right enough, Mr. Doyle."

If you groveled a bit more, we might not be going home in the buff.

At least I have my dignity.

Is that what you're calling it?

Are you ready?

No.

Come on.