Person of Interest (TV Series)

The Day the World Went Away (2016)

Michael Emerson: Harold Finch

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Quotes 

• Harold Finch : I have played by the rules for so long.

  FBI SAIC Roberts : Not from where I'm sitting.

  Harold Finch : No. Not your rules. You work at the behest of a system so broken that you didn't even notice when it became corrupted at its core. When I first broke your rules, a sitting president had authorized assassination squads in Laos, and the head of the FBI had ordered his men... you... to conduct illegal surveillance on his political rivals. Your rules have changed every time it was convenient for you. I was talking about my rules. I have lived by those rules for so long. Believed in them for so long. Believed that if you played by the right rules, eventually you would win. But I was wrong, wasn't I? And now all the people I cared about are dead. Or will be dead soon enough. And we will be gone without a trace. So now I have to decide. Decide whether to let my friends die, to let hope die, to let the world be ground under your heel all because I played by my rules. I'm trying to decide. I'm going to kill you. But I need to decide how far I'm willing to go... how many of my own rules I'm willing to break to get it done.

  FBI SAIC Roberts : Look, you want to add threatening the life of a federal agent to your file, I will draw up those charges right now. No waiting is required.

  Harold Finch : I wasn't talking to you.

  [looks up at the camera, talking to Samaritan] 

• Harold Finch : This place... can you get me out of it?

  The Machine : You created me. I can do anything you want me to.

• The Machine : [phone rings. Harold hesitates, then answers it. The voice of Root comes out of it]  Can you hear me?

  Harold Finch : Root?

  The Machine : No, Harold. I chose a voice.

• Harold Finch : [Panicked]  Are you hit?

  Root : I'm fine, Harry.

  Root : I'm just fine.

• Root : These guys are really pissing me off. Can you get me the 338?

  Harold Finch : The 338?

  Root : The really big gun, and a hair scrunchie.

• Harold Finch : I wish you wouldn't do this on my account.

  John Reese : I'm just protecting a number, Harold. It's what you hired me to do.

• Harold Finch : We're fighting a war that's already over. All this mayhem? It isn't some plucky underground resistance movement. It's an extinction burst.

• [to Elias] 

  Harold Finch : You've thought a few moves ahead, but our opponent has thought a thousand.