End Game

The Queen's Gambit 1×7

Alice Harmon: You know, most times when people tell us something's for the best, it's for the worst.

Jolene: I'm saving up for law school. I know, me, a lawyer, but the world is fucked up. And if I'm gonna change it, I can't spend all my time teaching white girls how to hold a badminton racket. I'm gonna be a radical.
Beth Harmon: Didn't know that was a career choice.
Jolene: It will be.

Beth Harmon: I read about this pop artist once. Bought an original drawing by Michelangelo. When he got it home, he took a piece of art gum, and just… Erased it… leaving nothing but a blank page. I remember being really shocked by that. Now, I wonder if I haven't somehow erased my own brain.
Jolene: Let's pretend that you didn't just compare yourself to Michelangelo.

Jolene: What I want is what you got. You've been the best at what you do for so long, you don't even know what it's like for the rest of us.

Benny Watts: Oh, it's official now. You're crazy. You are out of your fucking mind.
Beth Harmon: Maybe. Probably.

Benny Watts: Maybe? Maybe is a loser's word, Beth.

Beth Harmon: I don't need funds to undermine the government in Moscow. I just need… Money for my trip.

Mr. Booth: Remember, stay in your room at all times. Do not leave the hotel unless you're with me. I'll get you in the morning.
Beth Harmon: Will you knock two times fast and one time slow?
Mr. Booth: Good one. Welcome to Russia.

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Adjournment

The Queen's Gambit 1×6

Alice Harmon: Men are gonna come along and wanna teach you things. Doesn't make them any smarter. In most ways, they're not, but it makes them feel bigger. They can show you how things are done. You just let them blow by, and you go on ahead, and do just what the hell you feel like.

Alice Harmon: It takes a strong woman to stay by herself, in a world where people will settle for anything, just to say they have something.

Benny Watts: You know from your tournament experience you can't rely on your opponent setting himself up for a queen sacrifice, or a surprise mate with a knight and a rook. But that's who you are. You're bored with ordinary chess, even when it's played by Grandmasters.

Benny Watts: We're playing serious chess. Workmanlike chess. The kind of chess played by the best players in the world, the Soviets. And you know why they're the best players in the world?
Beth Harmon: They have the best suits?
Benny Watts: It's because they play together as a team, especially during adjournments. They help each other out. Us Americans, we work alone because we're all such individualists. We don't like to let anyone help us.
Beth Harmon: You're helping me now.
Benny Watts: Am I?

Cleo: You could never be a model. You are pretty enough, but you are much too smart... Models are empty creatures. The camera lens fills them with color and texture, and, once in a while, even mystery. But just like there is no mystery to a vacant lot, it's just there until you put something interesting on top of it… Models are the same. They are just what you put on them.

Benny Watts: You should always play your line, never his. You play what's best for you.
Beth Harmon: Thank you. Anything else?
Benny Watts: One more thing. They never say "check" at the big tournaments.
Beth Harmon: Are you serious?
Benny Watts: Yeah, very. They never lay their kings down, either.
Beth Harmon: I meant, "Are you serious? This is what you're thinking about right now?"

Beth Harmon: If I lived here… I would go to plays, and concerts, and… I would eat lunch in a different cafe every day. And I would dress the way that women do here, you know? So smart with their nice dresses, and their perfect haircuts...
Cleo: You already have so much more than they do. And something that none of them have. Talent. And that can give you a life that anyone would envy.

Beth Harmon: There's nothing keeping me in Kentucky. The possibilities are endless...

Beth Harmon: Why would they pay so much?
Benny Watts: They want us to beat Communists for Jesus.

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Fork

The Queen's Gambit 1×5

Alice Harmon: Dark's nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I'd go as far as saying there's nothing to be afraid of. Anywhere.

Alice Harmon: The strongest person is the person who isn't scared to be alone. It's other people you got to worry about. Other people. They'll tell you what to do, how to feel… Before you know it… you're pouring your life out in search of something other people told you to go look for.

Alice Harmon: Someday, you're gonna be all alone, so you need to figure out how to take care of yourself.

Harry Beltik: You don't ever study?
Beth Harmon: I analyze games. What actually happened, not what could have happened. And I play it by ear.
Harry Beltik: Like Capablanca.
Beth Harmon: He would have beaten Borgov.
Harry Beltik: Mmm, not every game.
Beth Harmon: Mmm, every game that counted.

Beth Harmon: You think I'm a prima donna, don't you?
Harry Beltik: It's chess. We're all prima donnas.

Harry Beltik: You're stubborn, so you get mad. When that happens, you can only see what's in front of you.
Beth Harmon: Anger clears my head.
Harry Beltik: Anger is a potent spice. A pinch wakes you up, too much dulls your senses.

Beth Harmon: Um… I-I just wasn't ready. I'm ready now... Now or never.

Harry Beltik: You're too sharp for me.

Harry Beltik: You have a lot in common.
Beth Harmon: Really? Morphy was a lawyer or something, in New Orleans.
Harry Beltik: You look at his games, the way he played. He sacrificed knights and bishops like he had a dozen instead of two, and then he'd move in on the king so fast, his opponents would just freeze up.
Beth Harmon: It's too bad Morphy and Capablanca hadn't been alive at the same time. They could've played each other.
Harry Beltik: Yeah, it's too bad Morphy fell into a muttering paranoia and died.

Harry Beltik: [Morphy] would stay up all night, in Paris, before his games, drinking in cafes, and talking with strangers. And then he'd play the next day like a shark. Well-mannered, well-dressed, moving the pieces with these small, ladylike hands. Crushing one European master after another. You know what they called him? "The pride and the sorrow of chess." And then he retired at 22.
Beth Harmon: And you think that's gonna be me?
Harry Beltik: I think that is you. I think maybe… It's always been you.

Benny Watts: Highest-rated players in the whole fucking country, and yet here we are at some second-rate university, playing on cheap plastic boards with cheap plastic pieces... If this were a golf or tennis tournament, we'd be surrounded by reporters, as opposed to... whoever these people are. You should see where they play in the Soviet Union.
Beth Harmon: I'm planning on it.
Benny Watts: You have to get past me first.
Beth Harmon: I'm planning on that, too.

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Middle Game

The Queen's Gambit 1×4

Beth Harmon: Do you play?
Tim: No, too cerebral. Played a lot of Monopoly, though.
Beth Harmon: Never played that game.
Tim: Mm, don't. It makes you a slave to capitalism. I-I still dream about making money, though.
Beth Harmon: So, why are you taking Russian classes if you're a slave to capitalism?
Tim: Mmm. I wanna read Dostoevsky in the original.

Alice Harmon: I think it's the culture. There's no hint of a Protestant ethic in Mexico. They're all Latin Catholics, and they all live in the here and now.
Beth Harmon: You really need to stop reading Alan Watts. It's annoying.

Alice Harmon: You know, perhaps, Beth, you have to work on yourself. Chess is not all there is.
Beth Harmon: It's what I know.
Alice Harmon: My experience has taught me what you know isn't always what's important.
Beth Harmon: And what's important?
Alice Harmon: Living and growing. Living your life.
Beth Harmon: With a sleazy Mexican salesman.
Alice Harmon: Treating yourself. Adventure...

Mr. Shaibel: People like you have a hard time. Two sides of the same coin. You've got your gift… and you've got what it costs.

Mr. Shaibel: Hard to say for you what that will be. You'll have your time in the sun, but for how long? You've got so much anger in you. You'll have to be careful.

Beth Harmon: How old were you when you started playing?
Georgi Girev: Four. I was district champion at seven. I will be world champion one day.
Beth Harmon: When?
Georgi Girev: In three years.
Beth Harmon: You'll be 16 in three years. If you win… What will you do next?
Georgi Girev: I-I don't understand.
Beth Harmon: If you're world champion at 16… What will you do with the rest of your life?

Russian # 1: Her game is almost all attack. So she doesn't always watch her back.
Russian # 2: When she blunders, she gets angry, and can be dangerous.
Russian # 1: Like all women.
Borgov: She's an orphan. A survivor. She's like us... Losing is not an option for her. Otherwise, what would her life be?

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Doubled Pawns

The Queen's Gambit 1×3

Alma Wheatley: I asked for a pleasant room, and I believe they gave me one.

Beth Harmon: What about Russia?
Matt: The Soviets are murder. They eat Americans for breakfast there. I don't think there's been an American with a prayer against them in 20 years.
Mike: It's like ballet. They pay people to play chess.

Alma Wheatley: Beth… I was thinking… Perhaps you could give me 10%, as an agent's commission?
Beth Harmon: ... Let's make it 15%. Which would be 49 dollars and 54 cents.
Alma Wheatley: They told me at Methuen you were marvelous at math...

Miss Jean Blake: So, can you tell the readers of Life how it feels? I mean, to be a girl among all those men?
Beth Harmon: I don't mind it.
Miss Jean Blake: Isn't it intimidating? I mean, when I was a girl, I wasn't allowed to be competitive. I played with dolls.
Beth Harmon: Chess isn't always competitive.
Miss Jean Blake: No, but you play to win.
Beth Harmon: Yes, but chess can also be...
Miss Jean Blake: What?
Beth Harmon: Beautiful.

Miss Jean Blake: Do you imagine that you saw the king as a father, and the queen as a mother? I mean, one to attack, one to protect?
Beth Harmon: They're just pieces. And it was the board I noticed first.
Miss Jean Blake: The board?
Beth Harmon: Yes. It's an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel… Safe in it. I can control it, I can dominate it. And it's predictable. So, if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame.

Benny Watts: Your problem is your queen knight.

Beth Harmon: It was brutal. It's the kind of thing I did to other people.

Beth Harmon: I'd been thinking about doubled pawns.
Alma Wheatley: You were thinking about winning. What did you do?
Beth Harmon: I needed a counterthreat. A move that would stop him in his tracks, but there wasn't any. I spent half an hour studying the board, and decided that Benny's move was even sounder than I thought. I thought maybe I could trade my way out of it if he attacked too fast, but… He was careful. I had to retreat, but he kept coming. I wanted to scream.

Alma Wheatley: You can't finesse everything all the time. Nobody can.
Beth Harmon: You don't know anything about chess.
Alma Wheatley: I know what it feels like to lose.
Beth Harmon: Yeah, I bet you do.
Alma Wheatley: And now you do, too...

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Exchanges

The Queen's Gambit 1×2

Beth Harmon: I'm gonna stay awake as long as I can, reading my book, learning the Sicilian Defense. There's 57 pages about it in the book, with 170 lines stemming from P to QB4. I'm gonna memorize them and play through them all in my mind.
Jolene: Poor mind...

Beth Harmon: You didn't see it, did you?
Jolene: Watch who you go accusing. I got no use for no book like that. Anyway, you don't need no book. Just say, "Yes, sir," and "Yes, ma'am," and you'll do all right. Tell them you're grateful to be in a Christian home like theirs. Maybe they'll put a TV in your room.

Matt: What's your rating?
Beth Harmon: I don't have a rating.

Beth Harmon: I want to play the best.
Matt: You have to get a rating before that happens.
Beth Harmon: How do I get a rating?
Matt: You play 30 games in USCF tournaments, then wait four months. That's how you get a rating.
Beth Harmon: That's too long.

Alma Wheatley: Be a good girl and get that little bottle of green pills by my bedside. My tranquility needs to be refurbished.

Alma Wheatley: I just didn't have the faintest idea that people made money playing chess.
Beth Harmon: There's tournaments with bigger prizes than that.
Alma Wheatley: How much bigger?
Beth Harmon: Thousands of dollars.
Alma Wheatley: Goodness.

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Openings

The Queen's Gambit 1×1

Helen Deardorff: I know that, at this moment, all you're feeling is loss. But after grief brings you low, prayer and faith will lift you high. High enough for you to see a new path for yourself... I think, Elizabeth, you're going to find a much different life here. A better one than you might have had. And I'm sure that you and I are going to be good friends.

Jolene: The green ones are the best.
Beth Harmon: What are they?
Mr. Fergussen: Vitamins. Magic vitamins.

Jolene: What's the last thing they said to you before they died?.. I ask everybody that. We get some really fun answers.
Alice Harmon: "Close your eyes."
Beth Harmon: I don't remember.

Mr. Fergussen: Green's to even your disposition. Orange and brown is for building a strong body. Take 'em both.

Mr. Shaibel: Girls do not play chess.

Mr. Shaibel: Let's play a game...

Mr. Shaibel: Those things are called openings.
Beth Harmon: Is that one of them?
Mr. Shaibel: Yes. The Queen's Gambit.

Beth Harmon: The squares have names?
Mr. Shaibel: If you play well, they have names.

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