Father Brown

Station sergeant:
Your name?

Father Brown:
Brown.

Station sergeant:
You sure it isn't Smith, or Jones?

Father Brown:
I've never been in a cell before. Except a monastery cell, of course.

Parkinson:
Father! You in trouble, Father?

Father Brown:
I'm disappointed in you, Bert.

Parkinson:
I'm sorry, Father, it was just...

Father Brown:
Firstly, because you did wrong. Secondly, because you did wrong in the wrong way. Frankly, you are an incompetent thief.

Parkinson:
Well, I wouldn't go that far.

Father Brown:
I would. You are clearly incapable of earning a dishonest living. Why not experiment with an honest one?

Father Brown:
Perhaps you think a crime horrible because you cannot imagine yourselves committing it. That isn't true, you know. What really horrifies you is the secret and shameful knowledge that you are capable of committing it. We all are, I no less than you. We were not made good people or bad people. We were made people.

Father Brown:
Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In a forest. Where would a wise man hide a cross? In a forest of crosses. We have a forest of crosses ready-made for us. A forest of priests; a black forest, you might say.

Father Brown:
My lord, this is lunacy.

The Bishop:
Father Brown, you will be good enough to leave matters in the lunatic hands of the inspector and myself. Scotland Yard will continue to inform you of our further insane decisions. Meanwhile, good morning.

Father Brown:
A simple but effective ruse, taught me by one of the lambs in my flock.

Flambeau:
A strange flock.

Father Brown:
Oh, not strange, just human. Albert was a dear fellow. Where do you think he is now?

Flambeau:
In prison.

Father Brown:
In a monastery. Life is full of surprises, isn't it?

Flambeau:
One never dreams how full.

Lady Warren:
What progress have you made?

Father Brown:
Looking for a black cat in a coal hole during an eclipse of the sun would be a child's task compared with mine.

Lady Warren:
You put me in mind of the child's poem: "As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that he would go away."

Father Brown:
I wish that he would come to stay.

Inspector Valentine:
You'd've made things much easier for us both if you'd told us what you know of Flambeau.

Father Brown:
I cannot tell you what I do not know. All I know is that he walks upon two legs and his head grows above his shoulders.

Auctioneer:
Now, who will open the bidding for me at ten thousand pounds?

Texan Millionaire:
Fifty thousand dollars.

Auctioneer:
I am bid... seventeen thousand, eight hundred and fifty-seven pounds, two shillings and ten pence. I think it would be easier, sir, if we were to conduct the bidding in pounds sterling.

Parkinson:
Pardon, me lady, but the awful people are coming up the drive!

Lady Warren:
What awful people? It is not my "at home" day.

Father Brown:
I think he means the police.

Father Brown:
My son...

Flambeau:
Please do not call me your son.

Father Brown:
My son, you think that you are a man of the world and that I am not. But I assure you, my "innocent" ears encounter every day stories of a horror that would make your sophisticated hair stand on end. Although I wear funny clothes, and have taken certain vows, I live far more in the world than you do.

Flambeau:
What are you really after, your cross or my soul?

Father Brown:
Both, of course.

Flambeau:
Well, come and find us. I'll make you a bargain: whatever you can find you shall have.

Father Brown:
I accept your bargain.

Flambeau:
It would have been an interesting encounter. Pity it will never take place.

Father Brown:
Excuse me. Do you speak English?

Father Brown:
Have you noticed the river has started flowing backwards?

Father Brown:
And that the sun is moving from west to east. And that those trees, instead of growing, are shrinking down into the ground. All of which suggests to me that the course of history has started to unwind, and that we are approaching the end of the world.

Inspector Valentine:
Well?

Inspector Dubois:
He is going to the wine harvest, and the grape waits for no man.

Inspector Valentine:
Nor does Father Brown.

Father Brown:
It's all so nonsensical, it must make sense.

Father Brown:
Appalling.

Flambeau:
An odd word to apply to the finest private collection in the world.

Father Brown:
What is appalling is that it is private.

Flambeau:
You are the first person to have the privilege of seeing it. Look at my El Greco.

Father Brown:
Yours?

Flambeau:
Mine.

Father Brown:
This, I believe, is yours.

Flambeau:
Oh. So that's how you traced me. Thank you. I wondered where I'd lost it.

Father Brown:
You didn't lose it. I stole it.

Flambeau:
We have something in common then.

Father Brown:
All men do.

Flambeau:
The police have an unfortunate habit of interrupting our conversations just when they begin to be interesting. I must beg your leave to leave you.