True Detective (TV Series)
Seeing Things (2014)
Matthew McConaughey: Detective Rust Cohle
Photos
Quotes
-
Detective Rust Cohle : I can't say the job made me this way. More like me being this way made me right for the job. I used to think about it more, but you reach a certain age you know who you are. Now I live in a little room, out in the country behind a bar, work four nights a week, and in between I drink. And there ain't nobody there to stop me. I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : I think about my daughter now, and what she was spared. Sometimes I feel grateful. The doctor said she didn't feel a thing; went straight into a coma. Then, somewhere in that blackness, she slipped off into another deeper kind. Isn't that a beautiful way to go out, painlessly as a happy child? Trouble with dying later is you've already grown up. The damage is done, it's too late.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : Yeah, back then, the visions, yeah most of the time I was convinced... Shit... I'd lost it. But there were other times... I thought I was mainlining the secret truth of the universe.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : Think of the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this... meat, to force a life into this... thresher. That's... so my daughter, she spared me the sin of being a father.
-
Lucy : What's your deal?
Detective Rust Cohle : I don't have "a deal".
Lucy : I mean, what do you do? Nevermind, I thought you were gonna bust me.
Detective Rust Cohle : I told you, I'm not interested.
Lucy : Yeah, I know. You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous.
Detective Rust Cohle : Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : You know me. I don't see the connection between two dead cats and a murdered woman...
[pause]
Detective Rust Cohle : But I'm from Texas...
-
Detective Rust Cohle : Came close another time... Lorry. Maggie introduced us. It broke off. It was for the best, you know, I gave her cause. I can be hard to live with. I don't mean to, but I can be... critical.
[sigh]
Detective Rust Cohle : Sometimes I think I'm just not good for people, that it's not good for them to be around me. I wear 'em down. They... they get unhappy.
Detective Maynard Gilbough : Hmm... yeah I think the job does that to a lot of guys. Changes ya. Some guys just notice that's all.
Detective Rust Cohle : Well, I can't say the job made me this way. More like bein' this way made me right for the job. I used to think about it more, but you reach a certain age, you know who you are. Now, I live in a little room out in the country behind a bar... work four nights a week... in between I drink. And there ain't nobody there to stop me. I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a... victory in that.
-
Detective Maynard Gilbough : Now what do you mean exactly... these visions you mentioned.
Detective Rust Cohle : Oh shit, I thought you knew. I told Marty about 'em... you know... down the line. uh... chemical... flashbacks... neural damage... from my time in the HIDTA... as in High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. I spent 4 years under cover.
[laughs]
Detective Rust Cohle : You know what that means? That's where they got them Fed rumors I first come in. What you two don't know 'bout them? Those files are still sealed huh? Shiiiiit, just what have you two heard about me?
-
[after Marty gives money to a young prostitute]
Detective Rust Cohle : That a down payment?
Detective Marty Hart : Is shitting on any moment of decency part of your job description?
-
[Rust sniffs]
Detective Marty Hart : What?
Detective Rust Cohle : You wash up. You got some pussy on ya.
Detective Marty Hart : Key to a healthy marriage.
Detective Rust Cohle : Oh, that's Maggie, uh?
Detective Marty Hart : Hey! What's with your fucking nose?
Detective Rust Cohle : Nothing, man. Sorry, forget it.
Detective Marty Hart : I get a connotation being implied here... about my wife?
Detective Rust Cohle : Are you saying that's wife? That high tide you're walking in with?
Detective Marty Hart : [angrily slams Rust into a locker] You got some idea how my wife's pussy is supposed to smell?
Detective Rust Cohle : No, I just meant you're wearing the same clothes as you did yesterday...
[slowly grabs Martin's wrists]
Detective Rust Cohle : Coupled with the fact that I ain't stupid. Wasn't making no comment as to the particularity of the scent.
Detective Marty Hart : You don't say fuck-all about my wife... don't say her name!
Detective Rust Cohle : You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over.
Detective Marty Hart : How would that work exactly?
Detective Rust Cohle : I'd just apply a couple of pounds of pressure...
[tightens the grip on Martin's wrists]
Detective Rust Cohle : Snap your wrists. You're senior detective. Think I'm lying?
-
Detective Rust Cohle : She articulated a person with vision. Vision is meaning. Meaning is historical.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : Back then, not sleepin', I lay awake thinkin' about women, my daughter, my wife... I mean, it's like somethin's got your name on it, like a bullet or a nail in the road...
[long pause]
Detective Rust Cohle : Shit, sorry, I drift... sometimes when I've had a few. That's why I like to drink alone. One of the reasons anyway.
-
Detective Rust Cohle : Days with nothing... that's what it's like you work cases. Days like lost dogs.
Detective Marty Hart : It goes on like that, you know the job. you're looking for narrative... uh... interrogate witnesses... parcel evidence... establish a timeline... build story... day after day.