Succession has built a reputation for its extraordinary dialogue and fantastic one-liners and insults – and season four did not let up.
Given that it was the last season of the show, ever, the finale on Monday meant the end of the stinging, ultra-rude and outrageous dialogue that the characters throw at each other with practically every line. We’re really going to miss it.
To say goodbye, here’s our pick of the best one-liners, insults and jokes from Succession season one to four.
Tom Wambsgans
Shiv Roy’s husband, and head of one of Waystar Royco’s divisions, a bit of a melt
“Greg, this is not f**king Charles Dickens World, okay? You don’t go around talking about principles. Man the f**k up!”
“If I’m the king and you’re the queen, maybe it’s fine to f**k the odd peasant.”
“I give the customer what he wants. I don’t think it’s my place to offer dietary advice. If they want red meat and boiling tar… then buon appetito.”
“I’d castrate you and marry you in a heartbeat.” (To Greg)
“Are we talking to each other on the poop deck of a majestic schooner? Is the salty brine stinging my weather-beaten face?”
“You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the MySpace of STDs.”
“The man dying of thirst is suddenly a mineral water critic?” (To Greg)
“I’ve got a d**k the size of a red sequoia, and I f**k like a bullet train.”
“We’re like a sorority house. We’re in sync. I’m just vibing to your sexy window.”
“She’s brought a ludicrously capacious bag. What’s even in there, huh? Flat shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail? I mean, Greg, it’s monstrous. It’s gargantuan. You could take it camping. You could slide it across the floor after a bank job.”
“It’s like Israel/Palestine, except harder, and much more important.”
“Norway, Sweden, what’s the difference? It’s all descended from the same rapists.”
“Information, Greg, it’s like a bottle of fine wine. You store it, you hoard it, you’ve it for a special occasion and then you smash someone’s face with it.”
Kendall Roy
The second eldest Roy son, megalomaniac
“Do YOU want to call your dad?”
“You’ve got your hands on my throat, yeah? So don’t be all f***ing Joan of Waystar.” (To Shiv)
“I’m going to lock you in a golden cage, f*** you with a silver dildo, and pay you so much you sing whatever song I want.”
“You little Machiavellian f***.” (To Greg)
“You couldn’t get a job in a burger joint let alone a Fortune 500 without some nepotism.” (To Roman)
“C*** is as c*** does.”
“Congrats on losing your betrayal cherry.”
“We can get a funeral off the rack. We can do Reagan’s with tweaks.”
“Let’s bleed the Swede.”
“It’s enough to make you lose your faith in capitalism, like you could say anything.”
“I f***ing knew he was a bulls***ter. I’m telling you, new money. You’ve got to hold those fresh bills to the light.”
“We go reverse Viking, we pillage their village.”
“I wondered why you looked like a goose trying to shit a house brick, you piece of dirt.” (To Shiv)
“Because we ate so much chicken when we were kids, I have to like the fascists?”
Roman Roy
The youngest Roy child, insecure and bit of a wrong’un
“My mom’s getting remarried to a bowl of porridge.”
“I’m better than you. You’re, you know, I hate to say this because I love you, but you’re kind of evil.”
“What the f**k is this obsession with milk? You know who drinks milk? Kittens and perverts.”
“I didn’t keep track of the exact number of expletives he used, Siobhan, OK? I’m not a f***ometer.”
“I’m dumb, but I’m smart.”
“People like me, I look like a matador and everyone wants to f*** me.”
“The dance of the sugar-plum failure.” (About Shiv)
“What I think he meant to say was that he wished mom gave birth to a can opener because at least then it would be useful.” (To Kendall)
“Oooh nice vest, Wambsgans. It’s soooo puffy. What’s it stuffed with, your hopes and dreams?” (To Tom)
“You look like a dildo dipped in beard trimmings.” (To Stewy)
“Stop ganging up on me like your Lennon and McCartney and I’m f***ing George. I’m John, motherf***ers.”
“Lip balm Tom Wamb, lubing up his lips to kiss my butt.”
“If I cringe any harder I might become a fossil.”
“If a deal collapses in a wood and no one hears it, is it an SEC violation?”
Shiv Roy
Logan Roy’s only daughter, vain and cunning, but, somehow, an actual relatable human being
“Oh, a chapel. Do you think dad will be able to cross the threshold, or will he spontaneously combust?”
“Uh … Oh, hello? Is this the replicant department? Yeah, my meat puppet has stopped working.” (To Tom)
“So, send out the two cover stars for toxic male monthly, and, uh, why don’t we get Ted Bundy up there? Make it a three-way?”
“Cold and inhospitable. That seems to check out.” (Standing inside a rendering of her mother’s vagina)
“Oh, what is that? Date Rape by Calvin Klein?” (Smelling Roman)
“I thought that would’ve kinda been your dream, Rome. Me f**king Gerri with your d**k.”
“This is why you don’t hatch a plan with Connor, the first f***ing pancake.”
“Oh, you love showing your pee pee to everyone, but someday, you know, you’re actually gonna have to f**k something.”
“For some of us it’s a sad day, but for others it’s coronation demolition derby.”
“Which way to Chairman Matsson’s reeducation camp?”
“Deniability is difficult given she has so much of your blood.”
“Eggplant eggplant flag reeks of the misogynistic bravado that has so repelled the median voter.”
“Goodbye my dear, dear, world of a father.”
“She’s one of the hard b**ches, right? She’s going to do 36 hours of maternity leave, emailing through her vanity caesarean.”
Logan Roy
Chief executive of Waystar Royco, likes to say f**k off, cut-throat doesn’t cover it
“Romulus. When you’re laughing, please do it at the same volume as everyone else. We didn’t get you from a hyena farm.” (To Roman)
“She can’t hack the hate. Well, she can f**k off and enjoy her lily-white chicken flesh conscience working for a f**king phone company.” (To Shiv about business go-between Rhea)
“You’re a f**king creep. I mean you — you went for three jobs, you didn’t get any of them. Your vineyard was a write-off. And now your trophy girlfriend is sucking some waiter’s d**k in Palermo, so now you’ve come crawling back, like a f**king worm.” (To Frank)
“It was supposed to be choreographed. That was about as choreographed as a dog getting f***ed on roller skates.”
“People come to us because we don’t sell them on anything. No packet of f***ing bleeding heart, United Nations, Volvo, gender-bender horses***.”
“Karl, if your hands are clean it’s only because your whorehouse also does manicures.” (To Karl)
“He ate my f***ing chicken. What’s next? Stick his cock in my potato salad?”
“Oh, go on, go on. F**k off, you nosy f***ing pedestrians.”
“So sue me—my lawyer used to work for the justice department, who’s your lawyer? Mr F***ing Magoo?”
Ewan Roy
Logan’s brother, has a seat on the board, hundreds of millions of dollars and somehow a conscience too
“The ‘Logan Roy School of Journalism’? What’s next, the ‘Jack The Ripper Women’s Health Clinic’?”
Lukas Matsson
Boss of GoJo, a rather strange dude
“I thought you were the backwash at the bottom of the gene pool, but this is something else.” (To Greg)
“Privacy, p***y, pasta.”
Gil Eavis
Democratic presidential candidate, principled to the hilt
“You can’t make a Tomelette without breaking some Gregs.”
“Have you ever used another human being as a footstool, Mr Wambsgans?”
Connor Roy
The eldest Roy child, though everyone forgets it, embarrassing presidential candidate
“I’m not saying I’d make a better CEO. That’s unsaid.”
“Sometimes I think I’ll never truly understand dad until I sh*t outside.”
“I’m the eldest son. And I must be considered, and I need to be taken into account.”
“A real bar – with chicks, and guys who work with their hands and grease, and sweat from their hands, and have blood in their hair.”
“I happen to be a billionaire… sorry! But honestly America you f***ed it. The corrupt bipartisan system zombie marches on…”
Greg Hirsch
Logan’s great-nephew, known as Cousin Greg, bit of a wet blanket
“I was wondering, just, in your view do you think it’s possible to sue a person, a grandparent for example, in a way which is like… like in an affectionate way? That might convey, like, ‘I love you and I’m glad you’re a part of my life, but I am taking legal action against you’?”
“What am I going to do with a soul, anyway? Souls are boring. Boo, souls!”
“I’m the the centre of the f***ing universe with knowledge to take down solar systems.”
“Yes, if it is to be said, so it be, so it is.” (To Gil Eavis)
“I don’t know. Like, I’m against racism.”
“Someone could fit through that window. A small person. An attack child.”
“It’s like Jaws. If everyone in Jaws worked for Jaws.”
“I don’t know, he’s just moseying. Terrifyingly moseying.”
Hugo Baker
One of Logan’s unscrupulous lackeys
“What’s it like being married to a man with two a**holes?” (To Shiv)
“They call Gil ‘Meth Head Santa,’ because he so rarely delivers.”
“I metabolise fast because I’m dynamic.”
“We’re snakes on a plane.” (While sitting on a plane)
Willa Ferreyra
Connor’s fiancée, an escort turned unskilled playwright
“At least I’m only getting f***ed by one member of this family.”
“F**k it! How bad can it be?”
“Well look at us both, right?” (Willa’s retort to Marcia’s “Look how far you’ve come.”)
Gerri Kellman
Shiv’s godmother, General Counsel and ex-interim CEO of Waystar Royco
“You little slime puppy” (To Roman)
“You might want to put down that fish taco. You’re getting your melancholy everywhere.”
“They’re young and they’re fit, but they’re European. They’re soft; hammocked in their social security safety net, sick on vacation mania and free healthcare. They may think they’re Vikings but we’ve been raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen that goes by the name of Logan Roy, and they have no idea what’s coming to them.”
“You are a weak monarch in a dangerous interregnum.”
Stewy Hosseini
Kendall’s old college pal, a venture capitalist and major thorn in Kendall’s side
“I feel like I’m taking a sh*t in the Guggenheim, y’all.” (Watching a meeting through its glass windows)
“I guess if you did have something deal-wise, it’s kinda like, dead in the water now, right? Kinda like the women who went on those cruises.” (To Kendall)
Frank Vernon
One of Logan’s oldest colleagues, vice-chairman of Waystar Royco
“Sometimes when you were absent they used to refer to you as the calamari c*ck ring.” (To Kendall)
Karl Muller
Another of Logan’s oldest colleagues, Waystar Royco’s chief financial officer
“You’re a clumsy interloper and no one trusts you. The only guy pulling for you is dead, and now, you’re just married to the ex-boss’ daughter, and she doesn’t even like you. And you are fair and squarely f***ed.” (To Tom)
“Poor bastards. Hanging in the window like Peking duck.”
“You have my dick in your hand, Ken. But I’ve got yours in mine. So let’s get real.”
Rhea Jarrell
A former CEO of Waystar Royco and former CEO OF PGM
“Shiv thinks she’s smarter than she is. Roman could actually be good, but not right now. Kendall is … I don’t know. It’s like you put him in a big diaper and now he can s**t himself whenever he likes.”
