The best Teresa Mendoza quotes from ‘Queen of the South’
Queen of the South has captivated viewers for the past four seasons. With a five-season incoming, fans are curious to see where the story of Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga) will go. If you want to know how it will possibly go, then checking out La Reina del Sur (the telenovela of which the series is based off) is a good start.
If you need some sort of Queen of the South content to hold you over until the series comes back, then here is a list of some badass quotes from Teresa Mendoza to keep you going until season five comes.
Season One
“You’re not ordering me around anymore. I don’t work for you. I’m not your hostage. These will be my terms.”
“It’s okay to be scared. The way things have been going, you should be.”
“We stay, we die. We go, we still have a chance.”
“Sometimes we need lies to survive.”
“If I know too much, I’m dispensable. If I know too little, I’m disposable.”
“If I’m already dead, I’d rather do the job myself.”
“I said welcome to America, I never said it was going to be easy.”
“The trick is to stay alive long enough to enjoy the fruits of this labor.”
Season Two
“But not everyone survives them [mistakes]. We will.”
“You can’t depend on anyone, okay, not even me. You need to do whatever it takes to survive.”
“Every time I run, people die. That won’t change if I go with you. The only way to stop it is to fight.”
“Life doesn’t care about what you want. We don’t get to choose.”
“You let us bet with fake money. No matter what the truth is the bosses will blame you. Do you understand what’s happening? You’re going to die today. Either the bosses do it, or he does. Your only chance to live is to come with us.”
“Snakes eat rats. Only you can save yourself. Get in the truck, Teresa.”
“I’ll fight ’till I die but I’m not running anymore.”
“Nothing wrong with beauty when there’s brains beneath it.”
“If you want to succeed in this business, someday you will have to choose between survival and your heart.”
“I didn’t make these rules, I was taught them. You would think it would get easier, and the scary part, it does.”
“There’s an old saying about success, that it’s lonely at the top. I’m here to tell you that that’s bullshit. I run an international drug empire and I have everyone and everything that I need. On the way up, even your worst enemies can become your best friends, and your best friends? Collateral damage.”
Season Three
“You’re going to live the rest of your life as a fugitive in your own country. I’m sending you into exile.”
“Your ego is blind to all the pain you have caused. Even with a gun in my hand, with every reason to kill you, your arrogance still makes you believe that you matter.”
“I trusted you. I don’t trust anyone.”
“As long as you’re alive you can recreate yourself.”
“Your life is painful and ugly but it’s yours and you only get one.”
“What Devon did to you at the winery was terrible. I’m in this business to stop people like him from deciding how I live, or if I live.”
“We’re family. We live and die with each other.”
“I don’t want to run anymore. Camila can kill me but I’m not leaving.”
“There are dirty cops everywhere. I have to stop running at some point. We’ll make it work.”
“You saved your soul today. Was it worth it?”
“That girl was me when you met me. I know what it’s like to be a slave to people who don’t give a shit whether you live or die.”
“You once told me I was better than Camila because I had a heart. This is what that looks like.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying the ends justify the means. Most people think that’s cruel. In my case, it’s another day at the office. Lucky for me, I have people who handle the means.”
Season Four
“There’s only one way to be safe in this business, to become powerful enough that no one can touch you.”
“It didn’t have to be like this. If you’d trusted me I could have protected you but now I can’t.”
“There’s only one way to be safe in this business, to become powerful enough that no one can touch you.”
“I will destroy your family to save mine.”
“People die every day trying to come to this country hoping for a better life. You have options. You can be whoever you want to be. People have died for you to have that chance.”
“What your father had to do, what everyone in this life is forced to do…look at me…you can never come back from. Whoever you thought you were, that dies. You don’t want this.”
“The only way for people like him to stay in power is to keep people like us at each other’s throats.”
“We killed an innocent man because of you. There’s no way to make that right. You put everything we’ve built here at risk. Do you understand that?”
“You run Sinaloa but you represent me there. I need to know that I can rely on my people. I need to know that I can rely on you.”
“No one gives you a manual on how to be the boss, so every difficult decision falls on you, and when your people fail you, as hard as it is, you have no choice but to let them go.”
“Running a cartel is like driving a motorcycle a hundred miles an hour in traffic, any miscalculation, any mistake can have fatal consequences.”
“Many great American family fortunes started with crime. Why not ours?”
“I wanted to remind you guys of something. No unnecessary violence, keep a low profile. . . In this city, we are legitimate business owners.”
