- Sgt O'Neil: Reminds me of a dog that I once had. It was a mangy old thing. And I am a cruel bastard, so I would whip it every which way. I'd beat on him just for looking at me. So, I figure if you hate on something for long enough, well, he just comes to love you anyway, just for those few moments when you don't.
- [first lines]
- Red Kelly: [narrating a written letter] My dear child, I know what it is to be raised on lies and silences. That is why I write to you now. So you do not grow to confuse fiction for fact, and view your father in an unsavory light, as I did mine.
- Red Kelly: You see, your grandfather were a Son of Ireland, a Son of Sieve. Ripped from his home by his English oppressors, and transported to the prisons of Van Dieman's Land, Australia. I do not know what was done to him there, as he never spoke of it, for he were a man who chose to keep secrets from his kin. But I've come to learn secrets shackle one tighter than any chain, and lies fester long after their invention.
- Red Kelly: So as you read this history, my history, know that it is for you, and will contain no single lie. May I burn in hell if I speak false.
- Ned Kelly: [narrating] I were too guilty to admit that life without dad had become in many ways more pleasant. But my mother were not long without suitors. Worthless men who closed around her like yellow dingoes on a chained-up bitch. But Ma sought one to protect us. Ma sought one to make me a man.