Max Payne

[Opening narration] They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was over. To make any kind of sense of it, I need to go back three years. Back to the night the pain started.

— Max Payne art

Life was good. The Sun was setting on a sweet Summer's day. A house on theside across the river. The smell of freshly cut lawns. The sounds of children playing. A beautiful wife and a baby girl. Thecome true. But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking.

— Max Payne dreams

[Max walks in the baby's room] No, no, please, God, no!

— Max Payne god

The table was scattered with notes of demented arcande nonsense written in rusty blood, a mishmash list of demons, devils and dark gods evoked.

— Max Payne god

My cover had been blown. The doors slammed shut behind me, and then I was dodging bullets like raindrops.

— Max Payne rain

[After finding a telephone switchboard] It wasn't hard to picture a fat pimp sweating with headphones on, listening to his hookers talk dirty and fake orgasms over the web of party lines; the blood veins of New York.

— Max Payne art

The sun went down with practiced bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding.

— Max Payne light

I went undercover, infiltrated the worst mafia family in New York.

— Max Payne family

The NYPD was closing in. I could hear the sirens. Their wail was a crescendo.

— Max Payne sin

I didn't like the way the show started, but they had given me the best seat in the house, front row center.

— Max Payne art

When the darkness fell, New York City became something else, any oldsong notwithstanding. Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City.

— Max Payne darkness

Turn around, walk away, blow town. That would have been the smart thing to do. I guess I wasn't that smart.

— Max Payne art

There were enough corpses to put a mass murderer to shame.

— Max Payne murder

Vladimir was one of those old-time bad guys with honor and morals, which made him almost one of the good guys. None of us was a saint.

— Max Payne time

The night groaned with cold. The garden lights flickered nervously. In their light the falling snow was dead white before the darkness ate it up.

— Max Payne light

A bomb went off, turning snow into liquid gold. A pillar of fire lifted the remains of a car straight up into the air.

— Max Payne fire

The headlines were screaming bloody murder. the storm was a screaming duet with the approaching prowl of car sirens. It was all a scream, when you were down for the count and wanted for murder.

— Max Payne murder

The cops arrived, sirens singing in the off-key harmony of a manic-depressive choir.

— Max Payne man

[After firing at Vinnie Gognitti] He could run, but with a bullet in his stomach like a broken bottle of Tabasco, he was quickly running out of time.

— Max Payne time

This was my second train ride of the night. The way it started didn't promise anything better than the last one. Freezing wind tearing at my face like sandpaper and razors. Ice hard and slick under my hands and feet, and somewhere in the background the wail of sirens, the city howling after me.

— Max Payne art

New York sped by on fast forward, dark rooftop water towers and a dead forest of antennas and chimneys, all a blur.

— Max Payne war

Ragna Rock was as inviting as a headache, flickering and flashing to a machine gun beat. The belly of the nightclub was a gothic theme park that began with bondage games, and led to the nasty stuff from there.

— Max Payne age

The hor air inside was like an invisible wall, thick with incense and something else, a sickly sweet smell that made you gag. This was the rotten core of the big apple. Lupino lurked somewhere ahread, like a spider at the center of his web waiting.

— Max Payne sweet

Lupino thought he could get to us by taking out Alex and leaving me to take the fall for it. All he had gotten was my attention.

— Max Payne thought

It was a lucky break. The goons inside were spooked, but luck always came with a price tag.

— Max Payne luck

[After listening to a radio report accusing him of murdering his colleague] I had just gotten my .

— Max Payne sin

One thing you could count on: you push a man too far, and sooner or later he'd start pushing back.

— Max Payne art

You play, you pay, you bastard.

— Max Payne you

My Beretta stirred nervously under my coat, but the train doors had already shut behind me, and I was in for the ride. NEXT STOP: Roscoe Street Station, and Alex.

— Max Payne rain

Collecting evidence had gotten old a few hundred bullets back. I was already so far past the point-of-no-return I couldn't remember what it had looked like when I had passed it.

— Max Payne past

I might have laughed, if I had remembered how.

— Max Payne laugh

The word was out. A deadly virus released into the City's corrupt circulatory system. Something wicked this way comes. Max Payne at large.

— Max Payne dead

Snow fell like ash from post-apocalyptic skies, but that was outside. Things would soon get hot in the Don's restaurant.

— Max Payne snow

Gognitti bailed. I made like .

— Max Payne

I had known there'd have to be a catch in it somewhere, and this one was the Empire State Building of catches. Lupino was pumped up and dying to go 15 rounds with a mutant alligator. And then he started this spooky monkey talk. Straight from a bad dream... mine.

— Max Payne art

V was a bad monster, turned them into freaking zombie demons from outer space.

— Max Payne space

In stepped this knockout femme fatale, holding a gun to my face. I returned the favor.

— Max Payne

The nightmare was always the same. Violent shapes moving in darkness, old and ugly. The killer's mad laughter was a riddle filled with wicked innuendo.

— Max Payne darkness

No such luck. No luck at all.

— Max Payne luck

Fear was rusty needles poking at my brain. Cold and scaly, it slithered down my chest.

— Max Payne rain

He had a baseball bat, and I was tied to a chair. Pissing him off was the smart thing to do.

— Max Payne art

I couldn't bring myself to be pissed at Mona. Guess I had a soft spot for a pretty face, but when sombody decides to play baseball with your head, you tend to get sore.

— Max Payne self

I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.

— Max Payne fear

Gognitti ran out of steam in a dead end valley with steam boiling out of the sewer grates, like all the fires of hell were burning high beneath us … it was shakedown time.

— Max Payne time

There was no glory in this. I hadn't asked for this crap. Trouble had come to me, in big dark swarms. The good and the just, they were like gold dust in this city. I had no illusions. I was not one of them. I was no hero. Just me and the gun, and the crook. My options had decreased to a singular course.

— Max Payne war

[Examining books dealing with the occult and witchcraft in Ragna Rock nightclub] The room was stacked with light reading such as "Necronomicon," "Witchcraft," and "Paradise Lost"...Old exotic titles like 'Malleus Maleficarum' and 'De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis'...

— Max Payne books

[After examining some of Jack Lupino'sliterature and videos] The only thing I could take seriously was the thought of Lupino taking it seriously. He had been spending a lot of time getting intimate with the guy downstairs.

— Max Payne time

After , the end of the world had become a clich

— Max Payne world

Alex and I had a few moments of glory between us. Crime fighting comrades, the best in NYPD-DEA collaborative team … good-heartedbullshit like that. I would have given anything to have him here as my back up. No such luck. No luck at all.

— Max Payne art

[Getting up from a broken chair he was tied to a moment ago] I felt like the chair I had broken to get free.

— Max Payne men

All I had was Niagara's bat, sticky with my own blood.

— Max Payne blood

Without a gun, I'd be no match for Frankie's men, I would have to play hide and seek with them.

— Max Payne men

Vlad was one of those old time bad guys with honor and morals, which almost made him one of the good guys. None of us was a saint.

— Max Payne time

Theriverfront was a maze of rusty containers, sharp-boned cranes looking up from the snowstorm. On a night like this you couldn't help but think of the dark army of dead men, sleeping with the fishes, cement shoes in line. Nolurked in this labyrinth, but somewhere out there, on the clanking deck of his cargo freighter, the skipper of thewas waiting, like the ferryman of the river .

— Max Payne men

Punchinello was burning to get me. The feeling was mutual. He was trying to put out my flames with gasoline.

— Max Payne feeling

It was colder than the devil's heart, raining ice pitchforks as if the heavens were ready to fall.

— Max Payne art

You'd find that Lady Luck was really a hooker, and you were fresh out of cash.

— Max Payne you

Staggering on the mill roof in ice and snow and wild wind, I was a Ninja. My Kung Fu was strong. I wasn't kidding anyone. At best, I was Superman on Kryptonite, about to fall through a skylight, down to where it was all going down.

— Max Payne light

He was trying to buy more sand for his hour glass. I wasn't selling any.

— Max Payne

The shadows rushed me, bruised mug-shot faces hungry for revenge. They knew my weak points and closed in for the kill. The floor turned into a vortex of green blood. I fell.

— Max Payne revenge

[In a dream, when it is revealed to him that he's in a ] The truth split my skull open, a glaring green light washing the lies away. All of my past was just fragmented still shots, words hanging in the air like balloons. I was in a graphic novel. Funny as Hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.

— Max Payne truth

[In a dream, when it is revealed to him that he's in a computer game] The truth was a burning green crack through my brain. Weapon statistics hanging in the air, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Endless repetition of the act of shooting, time slowing down to show off my moves. The paranoid feel of someone controlling my every step. I was in a computer game. Funny as Hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.

— Max Payne truth

The bullet holes were rubies on her chest, blood glowing on her ivory skin. She was so beautiful. The killer was smiling.

— Max Payne beautiful

I knew the appetites of ghosts intimately. They hungered for revenge.

— Max Payne revenge

You piece together a jigsaw and the final picture is you finishing that same puzzle, a mad green-eyed killer standing behind you. An urban legend come true.

— Max Payne true

Just when you thought you had reached the deepest depths of horror, it suddenly got worse. How to turn off that small voice inside your head that started to whisper that you should be glad … that now, if not before, your revenge was justifiable on any conceivable moral scale. That small voice proved, beyond any doubt, that I was damned.

— Max Payne art

was meant to be a white-winged maiden that would lift you up to a . Instead, it had turned out to be a one-way demon ride to hell. The devil was in the drug. I knew. I had met him.

— Max Payne evil

So what does B.B. stand for? Backstabbing Bastard?

— Max Payne

B.B. turned out to be another cardboard cut-out bad guy. A bad cop on the take. A cowardly right-hand man fleeing from the scene, leaving his paid thugs to do his dirty work.

— Max Payne war

It was an impressive floor show, but I decided to leave early anyway. It was only a one story fall. Lucky me.

— Max Payne story

[About Alfred Woden] In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

— Max Payne man

I had taken on the role of the mythic detective:as , or asgoing after . To unravel all the mysteries, following a path of clues to that final revelation, even if it would take me down to the cold, cavernous depths of a grave.

— Max Payne path

Mine wasn't the most original approach to the problem: An , the first principle of revenge. Old as dirt, still going strong. The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was not to make it personal – which it almost always ended up being anyway. It did with me.

— Max Payne revenge

I had a bullet with Nicole Horne's name on it. I had ten thousand bullets with the hag's name on them.

— Max Payne wit

A gunshot boomed and she [Mona Sax] fell down in slow-motion. She was a nice girl, not really a stone-cold killer, and now she was stone-cold dead.

— Max Payne dead

Hacking through Horne's computer would have unearthed files of criminal plans, strategies for world domination, spy helicopter reports, illegal wire tap recordings, Internet porno, all of the above. Take your pick, I really didn't care anymore. [Shoots the computer, breaking it] I had seen too much of it already.

— Max Payne art

[After killing Nicole Horne] They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was all over. The storm seemed to lose its frenzy. The ragged clouds gave way to the stars above. A bit closer to Heaven.

— Max Payne stars

So much for being subtle.

— Max Payne being

[At the begining of the final level of the game, chasing Nicole Horne] And now I was going to kill her – the queen of the underworld who had tried to lift herself a bit closer to heaven with her drug money. No begging, no bribes. She knew better. Honor among killers, "we who are about to die". Both of us knew how this would end: in pain and suffering.

— Max Payne pain

Somewhere in the distance, a baby was crying.

— Max Payne crying

Vinnie Gognitti, just the man I'm killing to see.

— Max Payne man

Colder than a walk-in fridge. Cold as a gun.

— Max Payne

In the quiet air of the night, the club stood firm, like father like son, all thanks to Jack Lupino.

— Max Payne night

Lupino ran his racket of sex, drugs and contact killings from a sleazy hotel and a slum block of tenements.

— Max Payne sex

I walked straight in, playing it Bogart, like I'd done a hundred times before.

— Max Payne time

The trick in my situation was that there was no trick, no matter what the movies tell you. No rules, no secret mantra, no road map. It wasn't about how smart or how good you were. It was chaos and luck, and anyone who thought different was a fool. All you could do was to hang on madly, as long and hard as you could.

— Max Payne art

[Closing narration] Woden was there in the crowd, standing by the sidelines. It wouldn't be over till the man with the patch would say so. He'd say the right words. I knew he would. He'd better. Woden grinned smugly. It was the grin of a winner. [Max is pushed into the police car] That made two of us.

— Max Payne words

I had taken on the role of the mythic detective: Bogart as Marlowe, or as Sam Spade going after the Maltese Falcon-- To unravel all the mysteries-- Following a path of clues to that final revelation, even if it would take me down to the cold, cavernous depths of a grave.

— Max Payne art

Life was good. The sun setting on a sweet summers day, the smell of freshly mowed lawns, the sounds of children playing-- A house across the river, on the Jersey-side. A beautiful wife and a baby girl. The American Dream come true.

— Max Payne life

Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Baphomet, Lucifer, Loki, Cthulhu, Lilith, Hela Blood given to you all He was after that old faustian deal - your soul for power and fortune, just sign on the dotted line with your blood.

— Max Payne power

After Y2K the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil, out to right a grave injustice. Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when its happening to you.

— Max Payne world

The feeling hit me like a point-blank shot straight in the face-- Something was not right about this. My Beretta stirred nervously under my coat But the train doors had already shut behind me, and I was in for the ride.

— Max Payne rain

Mine wasnt the most original approach to the problem, it wasnt as if it hadnt all been done before-- An eye for an eye, the first principle of revenge, old as dirt, still going strong. The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was not to make it personal-- Which it almost always ended up being anyway.

— Max Payne revenge

Alfred Woden: Mr. Payne, I would like to introduce you to my colleagues in what we call the Inner Circle.

— Max Payne you

Alfred Woden: Mr. Payne, I would like to introduce you to my colleagues in what we call The Inner Circle.

— Max Payne you

I have tasted the flesh of fallen angels Ive tasted the Devils green blood. It runs in my veins

— Max Payne evil

Max Payne: Sure thing, Jim. Me and the boys have been talking, and everyones real sorry. Theyll never do it again.

— Max Payne real

Project Valhalla. V for Valkyr, V for Valhalla. All of a sudden it read like a crackpot conspiracy theory.

— Max Payne read

Ragnarok, the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the Earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost. I could see how someone impressionable might get it into their head that we were at the end of time.

— Max Payne time

The numbing cold of the broken night had followed me in. Upstairs the trio tangoed down the manor halls to the silent rhythm of their murderous hearts, the blood of their victims rust on their lips.

— Max Payne art

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