How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Usual Suspects.
Quote #1
VERBAL: It was bulls***. The whole rap was a setup. Everything is the cops' fault. You don't put guys like that in a room together. Who knows what can happen?
Verbal puts the blame for everything that happened on the cops. This is ironic, considering that, in the end, we realize that Verbal's a master criminal who probably orchestrated everything himself.
Quote #2
VERBAL: What the cops never figured out, and what I know now, was that these men would never break, never lie down, never bend over for anybody. Anybody.
Verbal says he learned this hanging with the guys after they were all in the lineup together. He emphasizes the toughness of his fellow criminals, acting like they're a band of brothers—but he forgets to mention the old adage, "There's no honor among thieves.
Quote #3
KEATON: I'm a businessman now.
INTERROGATION COP: What's that? The restaurant business? Not anymore. From now on you're in the getting-f***ed-by-us business.
In Verbal's story, Keaton is a basically decent man trying to go straight—and here, Verbal demonstrates that by relating this incident to Kujan. It suggests that Keaton's criminality was a product of circumstance, not of any inner maliciousness on Keaton's part—the cops were persecuting him. But Kujan knows that Keaton was actually a monstrous and unrepentant murderer.