'True Detective': Our Top 10 Rust Cohle Quotes

Detective Rustin Cohle, played by Matthew Mcconaughey in Season 1 of True Detective, has become something of a cult icon. Brimming with intense existential theories and suffering with chronic nihilism, Rust Cohle has provided us with more thought provoking quotes than any character on television for quite a long time. Here’s ten of our favourite Rust Cohle quotes.

Marty Hart and Rust Cohle, played by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey respectively, both of whom were highly praised for their performances

Rust Cohle on the human race: "I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

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Rust Cohle on his visions: "Back then, the visions...most of the time I was convinced that I'd lost it. But there were other times, I thought I was main-lining the secret truth of the universe.”

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Rust Cohle, talking about the town in Louisiana: "This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading. It's like there was never anything here but jungle." 

His partner, Marty Hart: "Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional." 

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Rust Cohle on morality: "If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of s***. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?”

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Rust Cohle, to a woman who has just admitted murdering her child: "The newspapers are gonna be tough on you. And prison is very, very hard on people who hurt kids. If you get the opportunity, you should kill yourself.”

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Marty Hart: "Do you wonder ever if you're a bad man?"


Detective Rustin Cohle: "No. I don't wonder, Marty. World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." 

There's enough cryptic Rust Cohle quotes to create a philosophy degree dedicated to the character

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Rust Cohle: "What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh?"

Marty Hart: "Can you see Texas up there on your high horse? What do you know about these people?"

Rust Cohle: "Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity, poverty, a yen for fairy tales, folks putting what few bucks they do have into little, wicker baskets being passed around. I think it's safe to say that nobody here is gonna be splitting the atom, Marty." 

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Lucy: "What's your deal?" 


Rust Cohle: "I don't have "a deal""


Lucy: "I mean what do you do? Nevermind, I thought you were gonna bust me." 


Rust Cohle: "I told you, I'm not interested." 


Lucy: "Yeah, I know. You're kinda strange, like you might be dangerous."

Rust Cohle: "Of course I'm dangerous. I'm police. I can do terrible things to people with impunity."

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Rust Cohle: "I'm the person least in the need of counseling in this entire f*cking state. 

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Rust Cohle: "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at."

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