A Man for All Seasons

More and the Boatman, pg28 "The river looks very black tonight. They say it's silting up, is that so?

"Not in the middle, sir. There's a channel there getting deeper all the time."

More and King, pg. 47 More: "We do it in better style, Your Grace, when we come by the road." King:

"Oh, the road! There's the road for me, Thomas, the river; my river ...

Rich and Cromwell, pg74 "I am lamenting. I have lost my innocence.

"You lost that some time ago. If you've only just noticed, it can't have been very important to you."

Rich, pg156 "He said, 'Parliament has not the competence.'

Or words to that effect"

The Common Man, pg69 "Oh, he is a deep one, that Sir Thomas More ... Deep ... It takes a lot of education to get a man as deep as that ... And a deep nature to begin with too.

The likes of me can hardly be expected to follow the process of a man like that ..."

More, pg 147 "Oh sweet Jesus!

These plain, simple men!"

More to Norfolk, pg132 "And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience,

and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

More, also, pg. 66. "This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast-man's laws, not God -

and if you cut them down-and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."

Henry - This was spoken to Sir Thomas More, pg. 55 "There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown,

and there are those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I am their lion, and there is a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves-and there is you."

Steward, pg. 17 "My master Thomas More would give anything to anyone. Some say that's good and some say that's bad, but I say he can't help it and that's bad...

because some day someone's going to ask him for something that he wants to keep; and he'll be out of practice"

More to King, pg 53 "There is my right arm. Take your dagger and saw it from my shoulder, and I will laugh and be thankful,

if by that means I can come with Your Grace with a clear conscience."

Henry, pg. 51 "I am a fool....What else but a fool to live in a Court,

in a licentious mob-when I have friends with gardens."

Cromwell, pg 98 "This silence of his

is bellowing up and down Europe!"

More, pg. 153 "The law is a causeway upon which,

so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely."

More's water as danger imagery, pg35 "If Wolsey fell ...

the splash would swamp a few small boats like ours.

More, pg 30 "...there's nothing wrong with your family. There's nothing wrong with your fortune-

there's nothing wrong with you - except you need a clock-"

More, pg. "I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties...

they lead their country by a short route to chaos"

More to Roper, pg.67 "Whoever hunts for me, Roper, God or Devil, will find me hiding in the thickets of the law!

And I'll hide my daughter there with me! Not hoist her up the mainmast of your seagoing principles!"

Cromwell, pg. 149 "So, now we'll apply the good plain sailor's art,

And fix these quicksands on the Law's plain chart!"

The Common Man, pg. 127 "I'd let him out if I could but I can't. Not without taking up residence in there myself.

And he's in there already, so what'd be the point? You know the old adage? Better a live rat than a dead lion, and that's about it."

More, pg. 140 "When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water.

And if he opens his fingers then - he needn't hope to find himself again."

More, pg. 66 "The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I cannot navigate.

I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God..."

Common Man, pg 162 "I'm breathing ... Are you breathing too?... It's nice, isn't it? It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends - just don't make trouble - or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected.

Well, you don't need me to tell you that. Good night. If we should bump into one another, recognize me."

Norfolk to Cromwell, pg99 "Goddammit, he was the only judge since Cato who didn't accept bribes!

When was there last a Chancellor whose possessions after three years in office totaled one hundred pounds and a gold chain."

More, pg. 121 "I can't relieve you of your obedience to the King, Howard.

You must relieve yourself of our friendship."

More on Cromwell, pg113 "He's a pragmatist and that's the only resemblance he has to the devil, son Roper

a pragmatist, the merest plumber."

More, pg. 59 "I neither could nor would rule my King. But, there's a little...little, area...

where I must rule myself. It's very little-less to him than a tennis court."

Wolsey to More, pg19 "If you could just see facts flat on,

without that horrible moral squint; with just a little common sense, you could have been a statesman."