Babette's Feast Quotes

Narrator: At this very moment, he had a mighty vision of a higher and purer life, without creditors' letters or parental lectures... and with a gentle angel at his side.

General Lorens Löwenhielm: Can the sum of a row of victories over many years be defeat?

General Lorens Löwenhielm: [looking at himself in a mirror] Vanity. Vanity. All is vanity.

General Lorens Löwenhielm: Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. Man, in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in this life. He trembles at the risks he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened and we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we rejected has also been granted. Yes, we even get back what we rejected. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another.

Achille Papin: The Emperor will come to hear you, and so will the modest seamstress. You have enough talent to distract the rich and to comfort the poor.

Babette: Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best.

Narrator: As young girls, the beauty of Martine and Filippa had been extraordinary, like that of flowering fruit trees. They were never seen at balls or parties, and the young men went to church in hope of seeing them.

Narrator: In the pastor's flock, earthly love and marriage were considered of scant worth and merely empty illusion.

Pastor: In this calling of mine, my two daughters are my right and left hands. Would you deprive me of them?

Young Lt. Lorens Löwenhielm: I am going away forever - and I shall never, never see you again. For I have learned here that life is hard and cruel and that in this world there are things that are - impossible.

Martine: We meant no harm. Filippa and I merely wanted to grant Babette's wish. We had no idea where it might lead. And now we've exposed ourselves to dangerous forces that may bring evil upon us. I can't even tell you what you may be given to eat and drink.

Martine: Oh, how often I think of my father now. I feel he's looking down and watching his daughters use his home for a witches' sabbath!

General Lorens Löwenhielm: Amazing! An amontillado! And the finest amontillado I've ever tasted!

General Lorens Löwenhielm: This is quite definitely real turtle soup. And what a turtle soup!

General Lorens Löwenhielm: This is Blinis Demidoff! And this most certainly is Veuve Clicquot 1860!

General Lorens Löwenhielm: One day in Paris, after I'd won a riding competition, some French officers invited me out to dine at one of the city's finest restaurants, the Café Anglais. The chef, surprisingly enough, was a woman. We were served cailles en sarcophage, a dish of her own creation. General Galliffet, our host for the evening, explained that this woman, this head chef, had the ability to transform a dinner into a kind of love affair, a love affair that made no distinction between bodily appetite and spiritual appetite.

Filippa: [singing] Oh, watch the day hurry off once again, As the sun sinks into the western sea, The time for us to rest approaches, Oh God, you who dwell, In heavenly light, Who reign on high in heaven's hall, Be our infinite light in the valley of night, The sand in our hourglass will soon run out, The day is conquered by the night, The glories of the world are ending, So brief their day, So swift their flight, God, my your brightness never dim, Nor mercy's door be closed to man.