Joan Clarke Quotes in The Imitation Game (2014)

Joan Clarke: I know it's not ordinary. But who ever loved ordinary?

Joan Clarke: Alan, what's happened?

Alan Turing: [pause] We can't be engaged anymore. Your parents need to take you back. Find you a husband elsewhere.

Joan Clarke: What's wrong with you?

Alan Turing: I have something to tell you. I'm... I'm a homosexual.

Joan Clarke: Alright.

Alan Turing: No, no, men, Joan. Not women.

Joan Clarke: So what?

Alan Turing: I just told you...

Joan Clarke: So what? I had my suspicions. I always did. But we're not like other people. We love each other in our own way, and we can have the life together that we want. You won't be the perfect husband? I can promise you I harboured no intention of being the perfect wife. I'll not be fixing your lamb all day, while you come home from the office, will I? I'll work. You'll work. And we'll have each other's company. We'll have each other's minds. Sounds like a better marriage than most. Because I care for you. And you care for me. And we understand one another more than anyone else ever has.

Alan Turing: I don't.

Joan Clarke: What?

Alan Turing: Care for you. I never did. I just needed you to break Enigma. I've done that now, so you can go.

Joan Clarke: [slaps him] I am not going anywhere. I have spent entirely too much of my life worried about what you think of me, or what my parents think of me, or what the boys in Hut 8 or the girls in Hut 3 think, and you know I am done. This work is the most important thing I will ever do. And no one will stop me. Least of all you.

[pause]

Joan Clarke: You know what? They were right. Peter. Hugh. John. You really are a monster.

[last lines]

Alan Turing: You got what you wanted. A husband, a job... a normal life.

Joan Clarke: No one normal could have done that. Do you know, this morning... I was on a train that went through a city that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you. I bought a ticket from a man who would likely be dead if it wasn't for you. I read up on my work... a whole field of scientific inquiry that only exists because of you. And while you wish you could have been normal... I can promise you I do not. The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren't.

Alan Turing: You really think that?

Joan Clarke: I think, that sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one... can imagine.

Hugh Alexander: If you run the wires across the plugboard matrix diagonally, you'll eliminate rotor positions 500 times faster.

Alan Turing: This is actually not an entirely terrible idea.

Joan Clarke: That's Alan for "thank you."

Stewart Menzies: [candidates are taking a timed test] Six minutes... is that even possible?

Alan Turing: No, it takes me eight.

Joan Clarke: [raises her hand]

Alan Turing: You're finished?... Five minutes thirty four seconds.

Joan Clarke: You said to finish under six minutes.

Joan Clarke: So what? I had my suspicions. I always did. But we're not like other people. We love each other in our own way, and we can still live the life together that we want. You won't be the perfect husband? I can promise you I harboured no intention of being the perfect wife. I'll not be fixing your lamb all day awaiting your return from the office, will I? I'll work. You'll work. We'll have each other's company. We'll have each other's minds. Sounds like a better marriage than most. Because I care for you. And you care for me. And we understand one another more than anyone else ever has.

Alan Turing: He likes you.

Joan Clarke: Yes.

Alan Turing: You - you got him to like you.

Joan Clarke: Yes.

Alan Turing: Why?

Joan Clarke: Because I'm a woman in a man's job, and I don't have the luxury of being an ass.

Stewart Menzies: Why are you telling me this ?

Alan Turing: We need your help, to keep this a secret from Admiralty, Army, RAF. Ah... as no one can know, that we've broken enigma, not even

[Commander]

Alan Turing: Dennison

Stewart Menzies: Who's in the process of having you fired ?

Joan Clarke: You can take care of that.

Alan Turing: While we develop a system to help you determine how much intelligence to act on. Which ahh attacks to stop, which to let through. Statistical analysis, the minimum number of actions it will take, for us to win the war - but the maximum number we can take, before the Germans get suspicious

Stewart Menzies: And you're going to trust of this all to statistics ? To maths ?

Alan Turing: Correct.

Joan Clarke: And then MI6 can come up with the lies we will tell everyone else

Alan Turing: You'll need a believable alternative source for all the pieces of information that you use

Joan Clarke: A false story, so that we can explain how we got our information, that has nothing to do with Enigma, and then you can leak those stories to the Germans

Alan Turing: And then to our own military

Stewart Menzies: Maintain a conspiracy of lies at the very highest levels of govt ?... Sounds right up my alley.

Alan Turing: You can't leave, I won't let you.

Joan Clarke: I'll miss you. That's what a normal person would say in this situation.

Alan Turing: I-I don't care what is normal!

Joan Clarke: What am I supposed to do, Alan? I will not give up my parents.

Alan Turing: You have an opportunity here to make some actual use of your life!

Joan Clarke: [offended] And end up like you? No thanks. I'm sorry you're lonely. But Enigma will not save you. Can you decipher that, you fragile narcissist? Or would you like me to fetch your beloved Christopher to help?

Joan Clarke: [to a convalescing Alan] Why don't we do a crossword puzzle? It'll only take us five minutes. Or in your case, six.

Joan Clarke: Are you trying to build your universal machine?

[Alan looks puzzled]

Joan Clarke: I read your paper at university.

Alan Turing: Is it already being taught?

Joan Clarke: Oh no! I was precocious.