This Is All We Are

The Knick 2×10

& Dr. Zinberg: Questions?
    Dr. Thackery: Yeah, just one modification. No anesthesia.
    Dr. Zinberg: You want to remain awake?
    Dr. Thackery: I want you to use my spinal block instead.

& Cleary: Got another batch of intestines for you. Jewed the butcher down. Saved us nearly a fin. He offered me some sausages, but I can’t really look at encased meats the same way anymore.

& Cleary: I have had feelings for you for a very long time and that hasn’t changed. I love you, Rose Dolan. I’d be honored if you’d be my wife...... Are you gonna say something?
    Harriet: You’re off your nut.

& Cornelia: Say something!
    Henry: .... It’s a shame you’re not a man. You’d have been named lead detective in the city by now.

& Cornelia: You’re a monster.
    Henry: And your one-woman crusade is over.

& Corky: What is wrong with your hands?
    Barrow: No idea. They’ve felt odd lately. I thought I’d have one of my doctors check me.
    Corky: Well, have an X-ray done. Get to the bottom of it. They’re miraculous.

---

& Dr. Phelps: This is a message that needs to be spread. And there are a lot of wealthy people who are willing to fund such an effort. .... You’d be the traveling prophet of eugenics. An evangelist for the preservation of the human race.
    Dr. Gallinger: When would we leave?
    Dr. Phelps: First of the month. We’d take the White Star and start in Germany.
    Dr. Gallinger: As good a place as any, I suppose.

& Dr. Thackery: Gentlemen. Please direct your attention to the center of the ring, where I will amaze you with a feat so extraordinary, it has never been seen before by you or anyone else in the history of mankind.

& Dr. Thackery: As you can see, I will only let the nurses assist me as I don’t want to be accused of not having performed the entire procedure myself. A high-wire walker is only thrilling to watch if there’s no net below to save him from disaster.

& Dr. Thackery: Thank you, doctors, but I will finish what I started. The show must go on. Clamp.

& Dr. Thackery: My peripheral vision seems to be dulling a bit. Almost... a vibration at the edges. Body temperature has begun to drop. This is it. This is all we are.

--
On the IMDb

Σ Looks like they have wrapped it all (almost).

Do You Remember Moon Flower?

The Knick 2×9

& Dr. Edwards: You need to be examined.
    Dr. Thackery: You mean opened up? Like hell.

& Dr. Zinberg: Have a look, doctors.
    Bertie: .... My Lord!
    Dr. Thackery: You do realize the patient is conscious, don’t you, Bertie?
    Bertie: I was marveling at the technology.

& Dr. Gallinger: I plead guilty, Dr. Phelps. Guilty to believing what I believe in doing what I have done. ... And I stand by it. Cripples, imbeciles, criminals, defectives... I spare the world from their line in order to benefit the greater good.

& Dr. Gallinger: What Edwards and other people of his kind cannot accept is there is great validity in the eugenics movement. States such as California and Indiana are already seeing the benefits of a purified society and are considering writing it into their legislation. This movement is growing faster than any other in modern medicine. But men like Edwards likely also buried their heads when other revolutions arose like germ theory, vaccinations, things that proved over time to be miracles.

& Dr. Phelps: Eugenics is, in my opinion, a very legitimate and necessary study. So much so I’ve added it to the curriculum at my own Columbia Medical College. You broke into his office and you accused him of doing something to which he apparently had every right.

---

& Dr. Gallinger: You realize you’re just proving my entire thesis? I just made a logical and scientific argument... and respected, learned men agreed with me because whether you like it or not, this field of study is legitimate and it’s not going away. It is fact. Of course, instead of being a man of science, you raise your fists like an animal, the animal we are proving your people to be. In the face of intellectual reason, you can’t help but resort to violence. Well, I won’t. ’Cause the fight is already... Now you just proved it again, stupid nigger.

& Cleary: There’s only one way to go here, fellas, and it’s right here in my hand. Don’t slip it in till you slip it on. It’s a dime a fuck. 10 in a pack. Only cost you a buck for 10 rolls in the sack. Get your money. What are you doing?
    Harriet: I’m out.
    Cleary: I barely finished my tout.
    Harriet: I didn’t have to say a word.

& Lucy: This world offers too much. And contrary to what you think, I’m too smart to let myself turn out that way. And if that means sinning to get what I want... well, then, so be it.

& Lucy: Eternal damnation is the fate of Pastor Elkins. But before you go to the flames... I think it’s only fair to confess the rest of my sins to you. ....

& Lucy: I just wanted you to know everything before you went... Bye, Daddy. Enjoy your trip.

--
On the IMDb

Not Well at All

The Knick 2×8

& Ping Wu: May I give you a piece of advice? Take to heart the words of the wise man who said... «Who, being loved, is poor?»
    Barrow: Confucius?
    Ping Wu: Oscar Wilde.

& Cleary: Make yourself useful so I can maintain myself here.
    Harriet: Useful how?
    Cleary: I don’t know. Sing me a song. Help put me in the proper mood. But nothing about God or saints or fucking baby Jesus.

& Abby: What is it made of?
    Dr. Thackery: It’s celluloid. It’s the material they use to make motion film. It’s strong. It’s malleable. I’ll use it to give support when I trim the excess flesh.

& — Please tell him the Kenney Vacuum Sweeping System has been installed as per his instructions.
    Effie Barrow: Vacuum Sweeping System?
    — It’s the newest thing. It allows you to vacuum carpets in any room in your house using a portable tube connected to a machine housed in the basement.

---

& Cleary: You’ve no more debt to pay. God set you free, didn’t He? At least His men did. Besides, you didn’t take a vow of misery. There’s no harm in a few smiles now and then. In 10 years or so, chances are we’ll be in the ground and I’d hate to think you spent the last of it slaving over a kitchen sink cleaning out sheep guts for other people’s good times. Let’s go.

& Cleary: Holy shit! He just walked up and ate the whole camera. I swear, ate the whole thing. Look.
    Harriet: How’d he do that?
    Cleary: Maybe it was a really small camera.
    Harriet: ... He just ate the cameraman, too!
    Cleary: This don’t make no sense.
    Harriet: Let’s watch it again.
    Cleary: All right, hold on.

& Mr. Dominczyk: I don’t understand why I cannot look at your girl. If I had a girl, I would let you look at her.
    Dr. Thackery: As I explained to you, the important things are her words and the sound of her voice. Looking at a beautiful woman would simply distract you and lessen the effect.
    Abby: Mr. Dominczyk... I’m unsure how to begin. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?

& Abby: ...But do you remember the first time you took a drink?

& Barrow: All right, then. To surprises. What are we supposed to do now? Smash our glasses in the fireplace like Russians?

--
On the IMDb

Williams and Walker

The Knick 2×7

& Carr: D.W. Garrison Carr. That’s two Rs in Garrison, two Rs in Carr. I’m under the care of Dr. Algernon Edwards. That’s one R.

& Dr. Thackery: I was hoping to capture this surgery with something more than just words.
    Bertie: Photographs?
    Dr. Thackery: No, I was thinking of one of those new motion picture cameras.
    Bertie: Has a surgery ever been captured that way before?
    Dr. Thackery: There’s always a first... Put the thing to some real use instead of capturing silly street scenes or whatever else he uses it for.

& Dr. Thackery: This is their last day as a sideshow attraction and you their last audience. This is no magic trick. No illusion. No sleight of hand. It is scientific knowledge and rigorous experimentation that will finally allow these two young ladies to live the humane life of which fate has so far robbed them... Nurse Elkins, surgical knife.

& Dr. Thackery: This surgery, gentlemen, proves once again how high we can soar on the wings of science and ingenuity.

& Dr. Thackery: What is this material?
    — Celluloid. Amazing substance. Thicker pieces can actually be molded into objects. I know one fellow who makes jewelry out of it and fools people into thinking it’s real ivory.

---

& Showalter: You. Should. Be. Pregnant!

& Harriet: I’m teaching them how to protect themselves from men.
    Cleary: Well, three swift boot heels to the scrotum, he’d rather be humping a beehive and never come near you again.

& Genevieve: Opal, you look like you were born to wear dresses like that.
    Opal: I was. But I’m really here for the entertainment. They have Williams and Walker performing tonight.

& Cleary: The ladies need it. The fellas do, too. If he’s gonna put it inside there anyways, we’d be doing a lot of good helping a bloke bag it up on the way in. And besides, we ain’t going back to the fix, so why not stop the trouble before it gets that far?
    Harriet: It wouldn’t be that difficult...
    Cleary: Mm-hmm.
    Harriet: You’d need lamb’s guts for the condoms.
    Cleary: Mm-hmm.
    Harriet: Vinegar and sponges for the ladies.
    Cleary: Yeah, could charge a fortune. This city is full of customers.
    Harriet: Lord knows that’s true... And the split, 50-50 this time or nothing.
    Cleary: Fair play.

& Phillip: See, we’ve always refined crude into kerosene and thrown away the waste that we strip down. It was flammable, so we piped it into rivers and lakes just to be safe.
    Henry: Well, that’s only responsible.
    Phillip: But we needed a new idea and I just thought we could find a use for that waste, too, so I hired some chemists and engineers. They’ve converted all the machines at the refinery to run on the stuff.
    Henry: Not steam?
    Phillip: Or electricity. It’s miraculous. We call it gasoline.

--
On the IMDb

There Are Rules

The Knick 2×6

& Bertie: Hand me the electrodes.
    Dr. Edwards: Make sure and contact the zinc and mercury that’s been injected into the tumor in order to ensure that ionization is complete and the cancer cells are killed. You did a nice job with these.
    Bertie: When this is over, I’m gonna have these melted down into a necklace for her to cover the scar.

& Dr. Thackery: ...Sleep is coming... Sleep... Did it work?
    Dr. Edwards: You’re Merlin the wizard. I can’t fathom how that works.
    Dr. Thackery: Neither can I.

& Dr. Thackery: If one could suggest to someone who was hypnotized to do all sorts of humorous feats, then why not use it for something more practical? Change people’s perception. Curb their addiction.
    Dr. Edwards: I’ve heard crazier ideas.

---

& Dr. Thackery: ... Which communities?
    Dr. Edwards: Little Africa. Harlem. Perhaps if the request to the board came from you.
    Dr. Thackery: I can try. It’ll be good if there’s a doctor in the room so I can revive them once they discover your proposed patient is a Negro.

& Dr. Thackery: Bertie the departed...

& Barrow: All the modern gadgets... electric toaster, gas stove. They’re even installing a dumbwaiter all the way from the service entrance for ice and food deliveries.

& Cleary: So, uh... don’t peg me as rude or nothing, but you two got me asking all kinds of questions in my head. Like for instance, how do you two take a shite? Is it together like or does it all just go through one of you?

& Cleary: You ain’t gonna find a better beef and Guinness pie around. Close your eyes and you’ll think you’re in Dublin.

--
On the IMDb

Whiplash

The Knick 2×5

& Dr. Thackery: In the last century, neurologists have revolutionized our understanding of the human brain. Using electric currents, they discovered that precise points of the brain can be stimulated to reveal their specific functions.....

& Dr. Thackery: Electricity can also affect our emotions. I will now demonstrate.....

& Dr. Thackery: Other than discharging electricity, this device, a rheoscope, can detect it. Using it, I hope to identify the region of Mr. Carton’s brain that is stimulated by the morphine.....

& Harriet: I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You beg 20 cents off one of the nuns, walk if you can to the pharmacy. Ask the man there to sell you a bottle of cannabis indica. Cannabis indica. I’ll write it down for you so you remember—
    Nun: Why not some hashish, too, while she’s at it?

& Harriet: At the very least, give the poor girl leave to fetch a couple aspirin.
    Nun: Aspirin will not cure God’s will. It’s the curse of Eve.
    Harriet: The curse of Eve is to bring forth children in pain, not to suffer menstrual cramps.
    Nun: Much the same thing.

& Bertie: Dr. Zinberg is the kind of man who wears both suspenders and a belt, if you take my meaning. He would never approve a procedure that hadn’t passed years of rigorous laboratory experimentation and peer review. I have to say I feel like it’s because he’s a Jew. I believe being a universally despised race has stiffened their resolve to never act rashly and risk being thought a failure in the eyes of a hostile world.

---

& Dr. Edwards: Some months ago, I read a paper coauthored by Pierre Curie on the treatment of malignant tumors using radium and other radioactive substances...

& Bertie: Dad, I’ve been studying a paper that was published this past year in Paris about radium and the treatment of cancer. It’s largely untested...
    Dr. Chickering Sr.: Do it.

& Henry: Now is not the time to be timid. We should sell at auction every last rusty bucket and put the money into new technologies. ... Let me remind you what Baron Rothschild said. The time to invest is when there’s blood running in the streets.

& Henry: I think the Corton Clos Du Roi ’93 with the meat... Then the Meursault-Perrieres ’87 with the fish and... Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label ’93 with dessert.

& Lucy: What is it?
    Henry: Oh. The latest thing. Something I brought back from San Francisco. Equal parts vermouth and Old Toms gin. It’s called a Martinez.
    Lucy: Well, it tastes like cherry-flavored kerosene.
    Henry: You possess a very discerning palate, Lucy.

& Henry: Do you know the history of this type of cocktail glass?.. Well, it’s modeled after the glass from which the Greek gods drank ambrosia, which is said to have been molded originally from the actual breast of Aphrodite, goddess of love. You see that little indentation between the bowl and the stem? The explanation for that is on account of the old girl’s nipple.

& Henry: You’re a practicing nurse. Are you by any chance acquainted with a phenomenon called whiplash? Because I believe I’m suffering from it right now.

& D. W. Garrison Carr: .... The story of the Negro in America... is the story of America.

& Mrs. Chickering: How did you come to learn Polish?
    Genevieve: It’s my parents’ native tongue. I spoke it growing up.
    Mrs. Chickering: Your parents are Polish?
    Genevieve: Mm, Galician Jews.
    Dr. Chickering Sr.: Oh.
    Genevieve: I hope that doesn’t present a problem. After all, your savior was also a Jew.
    Dr. Chickering Sr.: There’s some debate about that.
    Genevieve: No, he was a Jew, all right. You know how you can tell? His mother thought he was a god and he thought she was a virgin.

& Mrs. Chickering: You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite such a large handbag.
    Genevieve: Well, tool of the trade. «Allzeit bereit,» as the Germans say. «Always prepared.»

& Lucy: Whiplash. An injury caused by a sudden strain to the muscles of the neck.

& Dr. Thackery: Gentlemen... the source of addiction.

& Dr. Gallinger: Your name is Moishe? You’re a Yid?
    Moishe: Uh, yes, sir.
    Dr. Gallinger: Very good. Remove your trousers and hop up on the table.

--
On the IMDb

Wonderful Surprises

The Knick 2×4

& Dr. Edwards: It’s not a bad size. It’s a palace for a colored man in this city.

& Opal: A man... a man stops writing to his woman for two reasons. Either... he’s dead... or he’s moved on. You look very much alive to me. So?

& Dr. Thackery: ...So once the pig’s temperature reached 107 Fahrenheit, it killed off all the spirochete. Every last one in her system. I then gave her a large injection of quinine and very soon the malaria fever broke.

& Dr. Thackery: Syphilis has the same characteristics no matter who or what it lives in.
    Abby: So you want to cook me?
    Dr. Thackery: Essentially.

& Bertie: I don’t know if I would describe myself as worldly. I... I’ve... I’ve never... well, I’ve... I... I’ve just never.

& Dr. Edwards: Anything interesting so far?
    Dr. Thackery: Not yet. As far as I can tell, addicts have no difference in their organs or physical characteristics to non-addicts. There’s nothing that makes them more susceptible to addiction and nothing that can be removed or treated to cure it.

& Dr. Thackery: Something is making them do it. And if it’s not the body, it must be the brain.

---

& William M. Tweed: So, from now on, 15% of your construction costs before your skim comes to us.
    Barrow: That’s a bit high, don’t you think? My contractors will balk.
    William M. Tweed: No, they won’t. It’s the going rate for keeping things running along smoothly as they have been. And we’ll show you how to game it right. You give us our share, we’ll make sure you have no trouble with the city, politicians, cops, unions, theft, anything that might come your way. Building a hospital’s a noble cause and we here at Tammany want nothing more than to support you the best way we know how.

& Lottie: What are you reading?
    Lucy: Nothing.
    Lottie: You’re hiding everything from me these days. It’s just a book, Luce... «Transactions of the Association of American Obs...»
    Lucy: «Obstetricians and Gynecologists.» It’s about women’s bodies.

& Henry: Damn it, man, get off that thing. It’s lunchtime. You’d have one in your automobile if you could.
    Phillip: Oh, pfft. Give Edison some time. I’ll wager he’ll figure it out.

& Lucy: My whole life, these men who were supposed to show us how to live our lives, we are supposed to respect and trust and honor them. Well, they’ve all disappointed me and betrayed me and thrown me away. Why do I let them? Why do we let them? It doesn’t make any sense... And I’m sick of it.

& Dr. Edwards: There are new buildings going up everywhere. There are barely any farms left. But with the Knick moving uptown, this might not be a bad location for me. ...
    Opal: What’s this area called?
    Dr. Edwards: Harlem.

& Dr. Edwards: I haven’t told you, but I have a terrible disease... It’s called aging. Very slow, but eventually all my hair will turn gray, I’ll lose all my teeth, I’ll have to walk with a cane and inevitably die. There’s no cure.
    Opal: Maybe I shouldn’t be near you.
    Dr. Edwards: Mm, it’s too late. It’s highly contagious. And, sorry to say, you’ve caught it.

& Showalter: Edison’s killing us with his electric bonanza. Nobody’s lighting with kerosene anymore.

& Cleary: What’s better than being free, huh?

& Dr. Drexler: Eugenics is a new science. It’s up to us to sound the alarm and spread the word. However, it is not enough to get the people to see the problem. It’s getting them to have the will to do something about it.
    Dr. Gallinger: Closing the ports to all immigrants would be an excellent place to
start.
    Dr. Drexler: .... We know we need a more permanent approach, a medical solution to stop the growth of what has already passed through our doors.
    Dr. Gallinger: How? They breed like animals.
    Dr. Drexler: And how do you stop an animal from breeding?..
    Dr. Gallinger: You neuter it... Sterilization.
    Dr. Drexler: On a mass scale.

& Cleary: That’s 124 patients in total. A new milestone for the Knick. And myself personally, I don’t mind saying.

--
On the IMDb

The Best with the Best to Get the Best

The Knick 2×3

& Dr. Zinberg: Anything else?
    Dr. Chickering: I am not a Jew... But I worked on many of them at the Knick. Recent immigrants mostly, so I learned a little Yiddish.
    Dr. Zinberg: Azoy?
    Dr. Chickering: A bissel.
    Dr. Zinberg: It will be helpful.

& Dr. Zinberg: ...he’ll join Guggenheim in the lab to search for surgical applications for the new gland extract.
    Dr. Chickering: I... I wasn’t aware of any new gland extract.
    Dr. Zinberg: It’s an interesting substance that’s been taken from the glands of several animals by a Pole named Cybulski. I have no idea what he calls it, but we’re calling it adrenaline. You’ll help us learn if it has any practical uses...

& Dr. Drexler: You’ve seen the streets of this city. The dregs of the world are coming here. Every country emptying their slums into our ports. Italians, Jews, any Semite, really. Slavs with their darkness and filth, gypsies and homosexuals, the dim-witted, infirm, and defective everywhere we look. But among them, the Negro, the one we brought here ourselves, he could be the largest danger of all.
    Doctor: We were just discussing eugenics. Drexler and I are both teaching courses on the subject this year. Do you know much about it?
    Dr. Gallinger: Heard a few things. Breed the best with the best to get the best.
    Dr. Drexler: But it’s just as important that the laggards, the worst of our species, don’t get the chance to continue their line or contaminate a better one.
    Dr. Gallinger: And Negroes are the largest threat?
    Dr. Drexler: There’s a reason that as a people they’ve never succeeded. Science is proving their weak intellect and innate lack of character. If they continue to breed, if they, heaven forbid, begin to mix in with us, we’ll forfeit potential greatness for the mongrelization of our species.

& Dr. Drexler: Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, they’re all putting money towards teaching. Colleges and medical schools are adding eugenics courses in droves. It’s the future. And it’s coming just in time.

---

& A. D. Elkins: Stay on the path and His forgiving light will soon shine down upon you.

& Genevieve: Well, that’s why I’m writing about Zinberg. A positive story about medicine. And if it happens to show a Jew who isn’t a Lower East Side ghetto peasant, all the better.

& Dr. Chickering: You? Jewish?!
    Genevieve: Yeah, from head to toe. But don’t worry, it’s not catching.

& Genevieve: When you read Genevieve Everidge, she’s anything you want her to be. And I doubt people would feel the same way about Esther Kohn, a shirtmaker’s daughter from Pittsfield.

& Dr. Chickering: We might consider trying on larger animals or even humans.
    Guggenheim: Dr. Zinberg is very specific about his protocols. Start on mice. Present our findings. Then on to rats, guinea pigs. Then cats, dogs, pigs, and only then to humans.

& Dr. Thackery: Syphilis can be killed by temperature.
    Dr. Edwards: How high?
    Dr. Thackery: 106, 107 degrees Fahrenheit. If I can induce a fever in a syphilis patient and get it high enough, I can bake the disease to death.
    Dr. Edwards: Yes, and the patient in the process.

& Dr. Edwards: Where do we start?
    Dr. Thackery: Where we usually do... with a pig.

& Cleary: All right, Otto, let’s get you delira and excira.

& Cleary: You’ve got a visitor.
    Dr. Thackery: Excellent. Thank you, gentlemen. I need to begin a full dissection of this girl’s body.
    Dr. Edwards: And I’ll return in an hour and take the pig’s temperature.
    Cleary: You know, if people actually knew what you did in here, they wouldn’t trust you to give them a fucking aspirin.

& Opal Edwards: What did I miss?

--
On the IMDb

You're No Rose

The Knick 2×2

& Dr. Thackery: I’m here because I’m well again. I haven’t taken any cocaine for some time and the heroin drug that they treated me with is completely gone from my system.

& Henry: The donors want to see you performing magic in the surgical theater, not you hunched over some microscope.
    Habershorn: That’s a waste of your time at that. I don’t see how excessive use of narcotics is worthy of scientific study.
    Dr. Thackery: Because it needs to be cured and it should be treated like any other disease.
    Habershorn: Addiction a disease? I’ve never heard of anything so absurd. Addiction is a failure of personal morality.
    Dr. Thackery: I’d like to test that theory. I’d happily inject you with cocaine and heroin for a week and see if your morals and character is still intact.

& Dr. Mays: What are those?
    Lucy: So she can put her legs up.
    Dr. Mays: Oh, ridiculous. She can just rest them over my shoulders.
    Lucy: I’ll get some swabs for you.
    Dr. Mays: That’s not necessary.
    Lucy: Then how will you culture them?
    Dr. Mays: A good nose and a pair of eyes are all a doctor needs to know what he’s dealing with. Now, let’s get that coat off, shall we?

& Dr. Thackery: If you can see beyond it... Don’t get confused by some puritanical notion of womanhood. You know, virginity is a man’s idea meant to shame. Regardless of what she’s done with me, she’s no less pure than she was the day she got here.

& Barrow: How do I make this plain enough for you? You bring us the most expensive wood, and then you get to bill us for more.
    Mr. Karwoski: Ah. Yes. Because this hospital will be here long time.
    Barrow: Ah, no. Because I only get the one chance to skim off the building of it.
    Mr. Karwoski: So I am still giving you back 20%?
    Barrow: Yes, yes, but you profit more in the end. And so do I. You see? ..... Oh, Polacks.

---

& Cleary: Full steam ahead.... Cold must have killed the battery.

& Cornelia: I had a medical question. Is it possible to detect alcohol in the body of a person, specifically a dead one?

& Phillip: People in California are Americans just like us, but may as well be on the moon for all they care about what’s going on in New York.
    Cornelia: It’s true. No one there has even heard of the Schermerhorns or the Robertsons or the Showalters.
    Mrs. Showalter: Then how does anyone know who’s important?
    Cornelia: It’s usually the man with the biggest gun.
    Mrs. Robertson: Sounds awful. No way to know if someone’s a person of quality. Who’d want to live in a place like that?

& Dr. Edwards: Did you read the article in the paper last week about the cyclist, Major Taylor?.. The man goes over to Europe and is treated like the King of England. Stays in the best hotels. Breaks every possible record. He returns home, makes no difference. He’s just a nigger on a bike.

& Cornelia: What’s so funny?
    Cleary: Over the years I committed a petty crime here or there. It’s how a man survives in the city. But the two who drag me into serious malfeasance are a society lady and a fucking nun.

& A. D. Elkins: New York. Sure is a busy place. Can’t go a step without winding up shoulder to shoulder with white folks, Negro, Christian, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Siamese, Japanese, and everything in between. All the corners of the Earth thrown together with strange tongues from Babel. Strange clothes. Even stranger beliefs. Why, just today I met a man called himself a Sikh. Carried a sword on his hip longer than a cavalryman’s. I don’t know what he was seeking, but when he finds it, he’s gonna have a whopper of a weapon to handle it.

& Dr. Thackery: You inject both at the same time?
    Cate: Mm-hmm. The cocaine takes the bottom off the heroin and the heroin takes the top off the cocaine. Now they dance beautifully together.
    Dr. Thackery: Until the cocaine wears off.
    Cate: That’s when you find out if you got the amounts wrong.
    Dr. Thackery: And if you do, it’ll kill you.
    Cate: But get it right...

--
+ quotes on the IMDb

Ten Knots

The Knick 2×1

& Cleary: She’ll do 14 miles an hour and never need a drink of water or a bucket of oats. Just plug her in and she’ll do the miles.

& Barrow: And what if it runs out of electricity?
    Cleary: There’s places all over that’ll swap the battery off the bottom in a jiff. Bolt on a full one and I’m on my way. No more hooves to the head. No more tacking up. No more horse shit.
    Barrow: I doubt that.

& Barrow: I’ll give you $45 a month to cover the automobile, 10 of which comes back to me and you pay for all repairs to keep it running.
    Cleary: Mr. Barrow, you just got yourself the finest ambulance in all of New York City.

& Lucy: I always like to get my presents early. Makes your special day feel longer ’cause it starts the day before.

& Henry: The other board members have neither the progressive mind nor the courage to... make the sort of change that you and I want. The world may not be moving fast enough for us but it’s likely moving much too quickly for them.

---

& Showalter: I’ve just built some apartments at the bottom of Central Park. I’d like you both to have one. With 11 bedrooms, you can bear as many children as you want.

& Cleary: My name hasn’t come up at all, has it? No.
    Harriet: You thinking of turning yourself in?

& Dr. Gallinger: A gunner’s knot... is difficult to tie but impossible to undo.

& Dr. Gallinger: You only have two options... Get well... or jump off.

& Cornelia: What is that thing?
    Henry: A moving picture camera. Purchased it from Mr. Edison’s company.

& Dr. Thackery: That’s the goal anyway. If I treat my desire for drugs not as a craving, but as a sickness, that means there must be a cure. And if there is, I’m gonna find it.

& Dr. Thackery: Number 10. Let’s go home.

--
On the IMDb

Crutchfield

The Knick 1×10

& Cornelia: You?
    Cleary: You know, it would be nice if for just once in my life a lady wasn’t disappointed to see me.

& Cleary: Makes sense.
    Cornelia: In what way?
    Cleary: Well, matters of the flesh. Don’t really matter how fancy the table is you’re sitting at. Everyone gets hungry.

& Cleary: With the amount of time you rich ladies spend making yourself pretty, it’s no surprise someone wanted to put that to good use. Men, they want what they want when they want it. Then you all come to Cleary for the fix.

& Cornelia: You promised it wasn’t you who’d perform it.
    Cleary: You can relax. It ain’t me. It’s better.

& Cornelia: You’re the...
    Sister Harriet: Yes, I’m the one who does it. ...
    Cornelia: But you’re...
    Sister Harriet: And you’re a pretty, proper virgin on the cusp of her wedding day.

& Dr. Gallinger: What in the hell happened?
    Dr. Cotton: It’s all part of the treatment. We pulled all of her teeth.
    Dr. Gallinger: Why?!
    Dr. Cotton: My research has shown conclusively that all mental disorders stem from disease and infection polluting the brain. So, the teeth and gums are havens for bacteria and sepsis. Thus to cure the patient, we must rid the body of all sites of infection.

---

& Dr. Cotton: Her teeth had to go. I believe in this treatment so strongly that I have removed my own children’s teeth as a preventative measure.

& Dr. Cotton: We’ve only begun to attack the sites of infection. I think her tonsils and adenoids will have to come out. And if that fails to bring improvement, her colon will have to go as well.
Ω This’s where the real American Horror Story do happens.

& Dr. Zinberg: In front of you is a man, age 32, suffering from splenic anemia. .... Unfortunately, gentlemen, it is only too true that the entire subject of blood making and blood breaking is as yet very imperfectly understood. But I believe the answer lies right in the name of the disease itself... the spleen.

& Dr. Zinberg: We have a long road ahead of us in fully understanding this disease and how our blood behaves. However, we may not be as far off as we once believed. My distinguished colleague Dr. Karl Landsteiner of Vienna and I have been working together. And if our experiments continue to prove successful, we will soon propose to you, gentlemen, that we are not of all the same blood, but, in fact, of three distinct bloods.

& Dr. Thackery: Beginning today, Dr. Edwards, you will take the lead in all surgeries
while I concentrate on this.
    Dr. Edwards: Um, until when?
    Dr. Thackery: Until we win one of those new Nobel Prizes.

& Dr. Thackery: You’re talking about bargaining with the devil, Herman. You know, Wu is not a man to get involved with. He doesn’t believe he can die. And from the scars on him, he might be telling the truth.

& Cleary: Morning, Harry.
    Sister Harriet: Thomas.
    Cleary: Lot of good stuff in these Sears catalogues. Pianos, headstones, ovens. You looking for anything?
    Sister Harriet: What do you mean?
    Cleary: Something for yourself. Something nice like you always wanted. Like a fancy table clock or a repeating rifle.

& Cleary: Me, I’m thinking about getting one of these fancy new automobiles. Learning to drive it proper. Only $495. Says in here all you need is an electric plug and a... what was it?
    Pounce: Desire.
    Cleary: Desire for adventure.

& Sister Harriet: Enjoy your daydreaming.
    Cleary: Ah, dreaming is for blokes not smart enough to get what they want.

& Dr. Thackery: Blood is flowing...
    Nurse Elkins: Pulse is rapid. Pulse is erratic. Pulse is weakening. What’s happening?
    Dr. Thackery: It’s not working!

& Dr. Thackery: What have I done?

& Mr. Habershorn: Our chief surgeon is gone. His predecessor killed himself. And the only man left here with a scalpel is a Negro. But there is a solution. Same one we’ve had all along. Close the Knick and move uptown.

& Dr. Hackett: We here at Cromartie Hospital believe that the pain of detoxification is counterproductive to restoring your health. So we have developed a series of treatments designed to ease your suffering, including a miraculous medication that can virtually eliminate the misery of withdrawal. Don’t worry. It’s from Bayer, the aspirin company. Safe as can be... Rest assured, these treatments will only be for the first month or two. Time to start getting better.

--
+ quotes on the IMDb

The Golden Lotus

The Knick 1×9

& Robertson: Captain... if I can convince the owner of the pharmacy to drop his complaints against Dr. Thackery... will this sufficiently satisfy your understanding of the letter and the spirit of the law?..
    NYPD Captain: Breaking and entering carries with it a minimum sentence of five years at Sing Sing... And something for the roundsmen who apprehended him...

& Nurse Elkins: What can I do to help?.. Just tell me what I can do.
    Dr. Thackery: You can find me... an ocean of cocaine.

& Cornelia: Algie, do you want to keep the child?

& Wu: You have quite a dainty foot. In Chinese we say it is Jin ping Mei... A golden lotus. Here, I’ll write it down for you. During the act of passion, a man’s pleasure may be enhanced immeasurably by having his concubine place her foot in his mouth. Do this for me... and I shall trade you 10 grains of opium and... 100 Yankee dollars.

& Cornelia: ...you’d find comfort in your faith.
    Sister Harriet: Faith isn’t always a comfort.

---

& Dr. Thackery: As long as you didn’t have to put your golden lotus in his mouth to pay for it.

& Dr. Edwards: Mr. Oates. I want you to open your eyes for me. And, please, don’t be alarmed. I’m a colored man.

& Cleary: Well, that’s the Germans for you. Never been a race better at squeezing the life out of a dime.
    Barrow: I thought that was the Jews.

& Dr. Edwards: I can’t kill my own child.
    Cornelia: What are the alternatives?

& Nurse Elkins: Wait, let’s douse your sex with it.
    Dr. Thackery: No. Let’s douse yours.

--
On the IMDb

Working Late a Lot

The Knick 1×8

& Dr. Thackery: Sex, pleasure, immodesty... us here now...this is no sin.
    Nurse Elkins: Will you be there on Judgment Day to make my case, then?
    Dr. Thackery: God’s not watching. He’s too busy not saving sick children and letting people starve. But if He does exist, He’s the one that should be doing the atoning, not you.

& Dr. Thackery: We’re a hospital. We need cocaine to exist.

& Dr. Thackery: No supplies of any kind?
— Whatever there was has been exhausted. Nothing for the beverage makers, the elixir chemists, physicians or pharmacists. For the foreseeable future, all institutions are going to have to work without cocaine.

---

& Dr. Edwards: I’m sorry about that, Mr. Tuttle, and promise we will take excellent care of you. He... he’s brusque, but he’s a fine surgeon.
    Mr. Tuttle: As long as it isn’t you doing it, he can yell all he wants.

& Dr. Thackery: I want to go out and stay out. If I wake up, you shove this pipe in my mouth and you fire it up again and again and again.
    Lin-Lin: You do want to wake up sometime, right, Johnny?

--
On the IMDb

Get the Rope

The Knick 1×7

& Dr. Thackery: You didn’t have to do that.
    Dr. Christiansen: I meant every word of it. You’re a comet in the sky, young Thack. Embrace it.

& Dr. Christiansen: They’re ready.
    Dr. Thackery: Let’s give ’em a show.
    Dr. Christiansen: Dr. Thackery will make the first incision. In countless trials, Dr. Thackery has devised a way in which to accurately determine the location of the appendix, thus eliminating the estimation of where to make the initial incision. Dr. Thackery.
    Dr. Thackery: Surgical knife... By drawing a line and divining the midway point between the anterior-superior iliac spine and the umbilicus, parallel to the fibers of the external oblique, no matter what the size or sex of the patient... you will always find the appendix.
    Dr. Christiansen: And there it is. The Thackery Point never misses.

& Mrs. Sears: Who the hell are you?
    Dr. Edwards: I’m the deputy chief of surgery.
    Mrs. Sears: Nice to meet you. I’m the Queen of England.

& Police Officer A: You really got to take orders from him?
    Nurse Elkins: I take my orders from all the doctors here.
    Police Officer B: The day I let a nigger tell me what to do... is the day I dig my grave.

---

& Mrs. Sears: My boy is dead. He’s dead at the hand of one of them black bastards. Take down every one of them fucking darkies. Rip their throats and grind their eyes down to jelly. Make ’em pay for what they done to my Phinny!

& Dr. Edwards: You don’t have to stay with me if this is too offensive for you.
    Cornelia: I’ve seen a buttock before.
    Dr. Edwards: A black one?
    Cornelia: Yes, yours... When we’d play in the garden with the water pails and you’d run around without pants.
    Dr. Edwards: We were three!

& Cornelia: What sex?
    Dr. Edwards: What?!
    Cornelia: The babies you delivered.
    Dr. Edwards: Oh.

& Nurse Elkins: Will it hurt?
    Dr. Thackery: I can make it painless and perfect.

--
On the IMDb

Start Calling Me Dad

The Knick 1×6

& Dr. Thackery: You know what this is?
    Dr. Chickering: A Champetier DE Ribes balloon.
    Dr. Thackery: Correct. Used in the vaginal canal to speed dilation. But I don’t like it.
    Dr. Chickering: Why not?
    Dr. Thackery: Because it’s French and I didn’t invent it. And it’s also the wrong shape for our purposes. Good old American basketball. Much more preferable.

& Dr. Thackery: Well, I’ve been trying it on the girls and we need more study. That’s why we’re gonna spend the rest of the night in here inserting these into our lady friends and testing all variables.

& Dr. Chickering: Well, they’re not pregnant. So there’s gonna be a problem with the difference of the size of the uterus as well as the lack of Di...
    Dr. Thackery: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    Dr. Chickering: ...dilation of the cervix.
    Dr. Thackery: That’s all true. But, you know, our budget won’t allow for pregnant prostitutes. So we’re just gonna have to make do with what we see here.

& Inspector Speight: Where are you, Typhoid Mary?

& Barrow: And it works fine?
    Mr. Luff: Like it was new. My children were taking dozens of X-rays of themselves on it the other day. Had the thing running for hours. No trouble at all.

& Barrow: Never had an X-ray made.
    Mr. Luff: Well, what would you like to see? Your hand? Rib cage perhaps?..
    Barrow: My head.
    Mr. Luff: Why not? Step right over here.

& Mr. Luff: Now, the trick is to stay as still as possible for the best results. There... This should take about an hour.

& Abby: It’s a lovely day.
    Dr. Thackery: Well, it was looking like rain.
    Abby: It always looks like rain if you only look at the clouds. Don’t look at the clouds so much, John.

& Mr. Luff: People now believe passionately in the men who will bring them miracles... doctors, inventors, architects. These are the new American gods. Edison, Halsted, and Roebling. Technology and innovation will be the world’s salvation and the people know it. They crave what’s coming next. And their faith... ah, their faith is bottomless.

---

& Dr. Thackery: You want me to invent medicines for you? That’s not my field of expertise.
    Mr. Luff: No need. The medicine’s already been crafted. Dr. Thackery’s Rejuvenation Liniment. Rub it on your trouble spots thrice daily, your malady will disappear.

& Dr. Thackery: ’Dr. Thackery’s Rejuvenation Liniment treats rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, crippled back, lumbago, contracted muscles, toothaches, sprains, kidney pain, liver troubles, heart lameness, leg swellings, and cataracts.’ Is that all?

& Mr. Luff: Let’s not be coy with each other, Doctor. This is a booming market. We want our share of it. Last year Dr. Ayers’ Pectoral Plaster, Brown’s Bronchial Troches, Dr. Corbett’s Brain Food, and Dr. Wordsley’s Female Pills accounted for $5 million in sales. Dr. Pepper’s Brain Tonic is doing so well, they’re serving it at fountains all around the city. As much a beverage as it is a remedy.

& Dr. Thackery: Can you give me some time to think about it?
    Mr. Luff: Absolutely. How much time do you need?
    Dr. Thackery: Until hell freezes over. In the meantime, would you be so kind as to stick your head firmly up your ass? ’Away, you mouldy rogue. Away.’

& Dr. Chickering: Father wants me to join his practice at Columbia. But why would I do that when I could be watching the man invent the future right in front of me? To work so closely with a surgeon of his genius, it’s...
    Nurse Elkins: Intoxicating?
    Dr. Chickering: Yeah.

& Dr. Thackery: The baby is alive. The patient will live to mother it. Gentlemen, I give you the Christiansen-... Thackery-... Chickering Placental Repair.

& Dr. Thackery: You know, this is good. This is better than good.
    Dr. Edwards: So where do we go from here?

& Dr. Edwards: I don’t want you just to get me when you can’t find someone else.
    Dr. Thackery: And if I don’t allow you?
    Dr. Edwards: Then I’ll take my future discoveries elsewhere. And you will miss out on all the fun.

& Dr. Thackery: Dr. Edwards.
    Dr. Edwards: Hmm?
    Dr. Thackery: May I officially welcome you to the Knick?

--
On the IMDb

They Capture the Heat

The Knick 1×5

& Dr. Thackery: Whoever the hell this is... go to hell.

& Barber: You owe me two bits for the consultation. Treatment comes with a free shave and a haircut.

& Mr. Mendieta: And what happens to me if this surgery fails, too?
    Dr. Edwards: You probably won’t die, but it’s possible that you will suffer intensely for the rest of your life.
    Mr. Mendieta: Ah. They say... they say every cloud has a silver lining. And now Mendieta will have one, too.

& Dr. Thackery: See, the... funny thing about Darwin. You know, he wanted to be a doctor. Couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

---

& Cornelia: It’s incredible.
    Dr. Thackery: It’s the future.
    Habershorn: And what does the future cost these days?
    Dr. Thackery: $3,000.
    Habershorn: Are you insane?

& Dr. Thackery: In less than a year, I guarantee that the X-ray will be the new standard in diagnosis. For once, let us be ahead of the other hospitals.

& Mr. Cleary: I’ll have you know, I’m a man what makes his own fate. There’s nothing stopping Tom Cleary from following the smart money, as you call it, anywhere it may lead, and that includes uptown.
    Sister Harriet: You, my friend, aren’t following anything smart. Not until you acquire some fine manners. And learn to drive a motorized car. And dress presentably. And fucking shave.

& Nurse Elkins: It’s a beauty, isn’t it? It’s called a Rambler. First thing I did when I moved here, even before I found a place to stay, was to buy it. Comes in five colors.
    Dr. Thackery: And you chose blue.

--
On the IMDb

Where's the Dignity

The Knick 1×4

& Barrow: ...And out of respect for your grief, I’ve cut the cremation fee in half. So we’ll only be needing $5 before we release him to you.

& Dr. Thackery: Do you really have the courage to see this through? And only taking the scalpel will do?
    Dr. Edwards: ....
    Dr. Gallinger: He’ll break. He won’t want a death on his head.
    Dr. Thackery: Perhaps you’ll break first, Everett.
    Dr. Gallinger: We don’t have time for your nigger games.

& Dr. Thackery: If he dies because of your horseshit, I am going to stab you in the throat with my father’s Union Army sword.
    Dr. Edwards: Union? I would have thought Confederate.

& Majordomo: Miss Cornelia Robertson and Mr. Jacob Speight of the New York City Health Department.
    Inspector Speight: You’re a mister, mister. I’m Inspector Speight.

& Inspector Speight: If you don’t mind, I’ll not shake your hand owing to the disease and not knowing your hygiene habits.
    Cornelia: You owe Mrs. Hemming an apology!
    Inspector Speight: Miss Robertson, every human being has bowels and every one of them evacuates those bowels. It’s how God made all of us no matter who. What He didn’t guarantee is that everyone would wash their hands after doing so. It’s how the fever found its way into this house just like any other. No offense meant.

& Cornelia: Inspector!
    Inspector Speight: You want the truffles, you need the pig to get his nose a little dirty.
    Cornelia: Perhaps the pig can at least try to be less of a swine.
    Inspector Speight: I’ll do my best.

---

& Showalter: The captain speaks very highly of you. Says you’re a gifted surgeon.
    Dr. Edwards: That is very generous.
    Robertson: There’s no need for modesty, Algernon. You will never meet a Negro with as much ability and ingenuity as this one.

& Dr. Edwards: I hear the jungles down there can be quite treacherous...
    Showalter: Don’t believe it. The natives are like children... docile, obedient, and they work for wages so small that even August here couldn’t quarrel with it.
    Dr. Edwards: Yeah, free labor can certainly change the equation. History has shown us that.
    Showalter: It built the pyramids.
    Dr. Edwards: Among other things.

& Mrs. Robertson: Last fall Gloria Ellis and several others took a walking tour of the poor neighborhoods. The Jewish quarter. The Tenderloin. They had to toss their shoes before getting back in their carriages because they were covered in the most disgusting sludge.
    Dr. Edwards: And in my neighborhood, we call that sludge the poor man’s shoe polish.

& Phillip: Well, San Francisco is a great city. In many ways, more progressive than New York... I shouldn’t say that too loudly in here.

& Edison: Captain, if you will, when I point to you, please speak into the horn.
    Robertson: With pleasure, Mr. Edison.

& Cornelia: San Francisco? Might as well be Neptune.

& Dr. Chickering: Atmen. I’m starting to pick some of it up. You always said Latin and Greek were the most important languages for a physician to learn. Turns out it’s actually something called Yiddish. Atmen.

& Dr. Gallinger: The orderlies have a nickname for Edwards. They’ve taken to calling him Dr. Darkie.
    Eleanor: That’s terrible.
    Dr. Gallinger: But funny.

& Cleary: This whole place is full of shames like her. All coming here hoping to Christ the stories they heard is true. Thinking that every fucking plonker who steps off the dock trips dead into a bucket of money. But then you get here and it ain’t that. And if you ain’t strong enough, this city will bugger you 18 different ways and leave you to rot. Where’s the fucking dignity?

& Cleary: Hey, you boys want to fuck away off? The sister wants to say a prayer. Give her some smart words to go on her way.

--
On the IMDb

The Busy Flea

The Knick 1×3

& Nurse Elkins: She says she’s a friend.
    Dr. Thackery: I assure you that my social circle is sufficiently small that I would know anyone foolish enough to call themselves any such thing.

& Dr. Thackery: It’s good to see you.
    Abby: No one handles the unexpected like John Thackery.
    Dr. Thackery: It’s where I live.

& Dr. Edwards: Congratulations, Miss Odom. You’ve just been promoted from laundress to surgical nurse.

& Miss Odom: Blood’s gonna get all over the thread.
    Dr. Edwards: That is to be expected. Just sew. Make sure it holds fast to guard against any re-herniation.
    Miss Odom: Are you sure it’s okay for me to be doing this?
    Dr. Edwards: There’s no one here to stop you.

& Captain Robertson: Rockefeller just pledged $100,000 to Wellesley College. «Students indulged in cheers for the college and Mr. Rockefeller before recitation.» Seems there’s no love letter to John D. too sweet that the «Times» won’t print one weekly. They delight in reminding us just how easily he can give his fortune away, even though he is a bit of a prick.

& Cornelia: It’s a slaughterhouse in here.
    Dr. Thackery: Now you see why we have no Jewish doctors.

& Cornelia: You’ll investigate?
    Inspector Speight: Something giving rich folks a poor folks’ disease? It needs a look.

---

& Cornelia: I’ll come with you.
    Inspector Speight: I’ve been above 14th Street before, miss. I don’t need a guide.
    Cornelia: But you’ll need an ambassador to get in the door.
    Inspector Speight: Miss Robertson, I have the full power of the health department and the city of New York. I have the authority to get into any door I want.

& Cornelia: But a chance she could live is better than doing nothing.
    Dr. Thackery: If little Cora knew the details, even in her delirious state, I am certain that she would elect to have her own will determine if she can beat this illness rather than die at my hands in an operating room.

& Dr. Gallinger: Thus far we have fried the heart, crisped the aorta, and left behind a terrible puncture wound.
    Dr. Chickering: Yes, but it does smell pleasantly like breakfast.

& Dr. Chickering: It says here to «couper en dessous du ventricule.»
    Dr. Gallinger: We know that ventricule is ventricle and couper means to cut.
    Dr. Chickering: Right but it also means «to nick, to slice, to disconnect, or to break.»
    Dr. Gallinger: So we don’t know whether we’re supposed to make a small nick or cut the whole thing off.
    Dr. Chickering: Even the simplest words mean five things in French.
    Dr. Gallinger: They are the worst.

& Dr. Thackery: Nurse Baker, another word from you about anything other than the job at hand, and I will sew your mouth and nostrils shut and happily watch you asphyxiate.

& Dr. Edwards: His pulse, Mrs. Gamble?
    Mrs. Gamble: He’s still got one.
    Dr. Edwards: Close enough.

& Nurse Elkins: She’ll look better.
    Dr. Thackery: She’ll always be alone. Ruined and diseased. What kind of a future does she have?
    Nurse Elkins: Maybe more than she did.
    Dr. Thackery: «No medicine in the world can do thee good.»
    Nurse Elkins: In the blackest darkness, even a dim light is better than no light at all.
    Dr. Thackery: Who said that?
    Nurse Elkins: I just did.

--
On the IMDb

Mr. Paris Shoes

The Knick 1×2

& Dr. Christiansen: The answers to disease and the body do not lie in house calls. They’re here in a lab where we can experiment and calibrate. Cancer, syphilis, tuberculosis, all their mysteries waiting to be unlocked and take us soaring into the next century.

& Dr. Christiansen: You do realize if you choose to join us, the work will be hard and the hours long, the results slow and agonizing, and we will see no shortage of death at our own hands.
    Dr. Thackery: But the rewards...
    Dr. Christiansen: The rewards will be the achievement of it all.
    Dr. Thackery: «When the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger...»
    Dr. Christiansen: Hmm?
    Dr. Thackery: Shakespeare.
    Dr. Christiansen: .... Never read him.

& Dr. Thackery: Blame is easy. Truth is harder.

---

& Dr. Thackery: Once a man shifts his mind from the surgical field to the patient under the drape, it’s only a matter of time.
    Catherine: How will it not take hold of you the way it did Jules?
    Dr. Thackery: I have ways of getting through...

& Dr. Edwards: Have you had cocaine before?
    Ida: No.
    Dr. Edwards: You’re going to feel nothing in your arm and wonderful everywhere else... It’s truly a miracle.

& Lin-Lin: You come back soon? Tonight maybe?
    Dr. Thackery: Where else would I go?

--
+ quotes on the IMDb

Method and Madness

The Knick 1×1

Pilot

& Dr. Thackery: I don’t want faster. I enjoy waiting.

& Dr. Thackery: We’ll solve it.
    Dr. Christiansen: How many more, Thack?
    Dr. Thackery: «And many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak...»
    Dr. Christiansen: Thus spake Thack the Wise.

& Dr. Thackery: Those windmills ... were created by men to turn grindstones that transformed the Earth’s bounty into flour. From such humble beginnings grew the astonishing modern world in which we now live. We cannot conquer the mountains, but our railroads now run through them with ease. We cannot defeat the river, but we can bend it to our will and dam it for our own purposes. We now live in a time of endless possibility. More has been learned about the treatment of the human body in the last five years than was learned in the previous 500. 20 years ago, 39 was the number of years a man could expect from his life. Today, it is more than 47... Eventually the train tunnels will crumble. The dams will be overrun. Our patients’ hearts will all stop their beating. But we humans can get in a few good licks in battle before we surrender.

& Dr. Thackery: Mr. Gentile, don’t you know never to quarrel with a streetcar? I’ve never known a man to beat one yet... Next time, take on one of those horseless carriages. Much better odds.

---

& Health Inspector Speight: No windows, no ventilation, no sunlight inside, no running water. A breeding ground for disease. That’s why the new laws were passed. I can compel you to make any and all structural changes to your property I deem necessary to protect the public.
    Houseowner: That will cost a fortune. I’m a businessman.
    Speight: Blame Lister’s microscope and Riis’ camera. The New York City Health Department is just doing its job.

& Dr. Thackery: I am certainly not interested in an integrated hospital staff.
    Dr. Edwards: My skin color shouldn’t matter.
    Dr. Thackery: Well, if it doesn’t matter, then why was that information held back from me?.. It’s also nowhere to be found on your credentials.
    Dr. Edwards: Is your race listed on yours?
    Dr. Thackery: There’s no need for it to be.

& Dr. Edwards: In London and in Paris, I was treated as an equal. And I have no doubt...
    Dr. Thackery: This is New York. This is not London or Paris. You can only run away and join the circus if the circus wants you. I don’t want you in my circus.

& Dr. Thackery: I’m not interested in leading the charge in mixing the races... Just as a shopkeeper would never stock an item on his shelves no customer would buy, I would not employ a surgeon no patient will agree to have operate them.

& Dr. Thackery: Are you going to stand there and honestly tell me that the way out of our financial troubles is to hire a Negro surgeon?

& Dr. Chickering: Welcome to the Knick.

& Nurse Elkins: Cocaine? How much? I don’t want to kill you.
    Dr. Thackery: A touch more than 22.

& Dr. Thackery: Gentlemen, atomizers on. Everyone scrubbed, washed, cleansed, deloused, purified by God?

& Dr. Edwards: He’s a madman.
    Dr. Thackery: «Though this is madness, yet there is method in it.»

--
+ quotes on the IMDb

Σ A doctor with addiction? Is this something new? Or we already were there? Another time, same drill.