The Greatest Irish Quote of All Damnation
Where silence becomes inheritance, and a movie line becomes revelation
Colin Sullivan turns to his lover, Madolyn, in Scorsese's film, The Departed.
They are naked in bed.
He's in very big trouble, and the trouble is closing in. She's the only decent thing in his life— yet they know very little of each other.
"If we're not gonna make it," Colin says to her, "it's gotta be you that gets out, 'cause I'm not capable.
"I'm fuckin' Irish, so I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life."
That's the line where I fell off the couch.
I scrambled for the remote control in the dark. I made the lovers go backward, and then I listened to the man say it again:
I'm Irish. I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life.
What did this screenwriter know, that no one in my family had ever told me?