Black Sails Quotes
Billy: How long ago was it that the two of us agreed that Flint threatened to be the end of us all? That he would find ways of driving us over and over into that storm ‘til there was none of us left? We survived him — you and I. And now, you want to follow him into what? A massive slave revolt? A war against the British Empire? How is this not just the next storm in a very long line of them? You told me once, that the people he holds closest are most at risk of being consumed by him.
Silver: That, he and I have discussed it at length. So I thank you for your concern. But I’m going to be just fine.
Billy: I’m not talkin’ about you. I understand that you’ve come to care for a...Madi.
Silver: Be very, very careful, Billy.
Billy: If anyone is at risk of being consumed by his need for this war, it’s her.
Silver: Billy told me I should worry...that you will be Madi’s end. That’s all he wanted in exchange for Max. For me to sit still while he warned me that your commitment to the greatest possible victory in this war of ours...would consume her and eventually lead to her death.
Flint: That’s a smart thing for him to say, if his intent is to split us apart. I suppose we should’ve expected nothing less. Do I need to be concerned that you took nearly two hours to tell me about it?
Silver: We are at our least rational...when we’re at our most vulnerable. If nothing else, this is a good reminder that, without a doubt, she is the point at which I’m at my most vulnerable.
The closer we get to the end of this journey, the more contradictions we’ll accumulate — confusing issues we once thought were clear. I suppose the good news is, that’s how we’ll know we’re finally getting somewhere interesting.
Flint
Eleanor: Some time ago, you asked me to leave Nassau with you, to avoid ruin. If I’d said yes, where would we have gone?
Max: I have no idea.
Eleanor: I was so close to saying yes. There were good reasons to say yes and I heard it in my mind, trying to speak it over and over again. When the moment finally came, I spilt so much of myself into this place, in that moment I honestly didn’t know where I ended and it began. There may be ways of severing oneself in that way — sacrificing one part to save the other. In that moment, I honestly couldn’t find something sharp enough to make the cut.
Max: What would have been enough?
Eleanor: I truly am sorry — for all of it. If there was a way I could make things right here, I’d do it.
Eleanor: ...I’m asking you to cancel the theater around them. You intend to lure Silver in. Force him to appear in the square to save his men, so that you might defeat him in full view of all of Nassau, demonstrate your fearsomeness to them. Don’t.
Berringer: Why not?
Eleanor: Because you don’t need to. They know it already. And because at a certain point there is only a certain amount of fear a man can endure. And what you are doing is antagonizing them.
Flint: The threats have been made, the story’s been told, everybody in Nassau knows what Long John Silver’s return means, what’s expected of them when he does return...all that remains to do is for him to return.
Silver: It would help if Nassau knew I was coming.
If the story of the pirate Jack Rackham is to end with him standing alongside Blackbeard as an equal, together defeating the governor, who hanged Charles Vane and in so doing, restoring pirate rule over Nassau...that is an ending I can live with.
Capt. Jack Rackham
The Empire survives in part because we believe its survival to be inevitable. It isn’t. And they know that. That’s why they’re so terrified of you and I. If we are able to take Nassau, if we are able to expose the illusion that England is not inevitable. If we are able to incite a revolt that spreads across the New World...then yeah, I imagine people are going to notice.
Flint
Berringer: When the dread moment arrives, your true nature will assert itself. The confusion will lift and all will appear as it should be.
Rogers: You’ve given me good men to lead. I’ll do my best by them.
Berringer: There isn’t a good man among them. Not anymore...right now, good men is not what the moment requires. Right now, the time calls for dark men to do dark things. Do not be afraid to lead them to it.
Thousands of men in Nassau are living in fear of my return because I decreed it. Hundreds of dead Redcoats in a forest far from here because I made it so. I’m the reason grown men lie awake at night. I am a new beginning for Nassau.
Long John Silver
[Bones] is the one keeping this place together. His men look up to him, rely on him, trust him. Many of your men trust him as well. He’s going to be relevant to what happens next here. That much is painfully obvious. And your first instinct is to dismiss him.
Madi
You and I both know that there are men on both sides of this war whose identities are so enmeshed in this conflict that they are more afraid of ending it than they are of losing it.
Max
