-
[Marguerite & Armand flirt by way of long glances]
Marguerite: His eyes have made love to me all evening.
-
Olympe: If you don't stop being so easy-going with your money, you'll land in the gutter before you're through or back on that farm where you came from, milking cows and cleaning out hen houses.
Marguerite: Cows and chickens make better friends than I've ever met in Paris.
-
Armand: Yes, you, well you did smile at me a moment ago, didn't you?
Marguerite: Well, you tell me first whether you smiled at me or my friend.
Armand: What friend?
Marguerite: You didn't even see her?
Armand: No.
-
Olympe: She's not easy to get along with, I can tell you, ask anybody... and she has the reputation of being one of the most extravagant girls in Paris as well as one of the most insincere... She's the kind who says one thing and thinks another.
-
Marguerite: Now what shall I give you to remember me by?
Baron de Varville: You can't give me anything I'd like.
Marguerite: What's that?
Baron de Varville: A tear. You're not sorry enough I'm going.
Marguerite: Oh, but I *am* sorry.
-
Nichette: Marguerite, it's ideal to love, and to marry the one you love.
Marguerite: I have no faith in ideals.
-
Armand: I know I don't mean anything to you. I don't count. But someone ought to look after you. And I could if you'd let me.
Marguerite: Too much wine has made you sentimental.
-
Marguerite: The sort of company you're in tonight doesn't suit you at all.
Armand: Nor you.
Marguerite: No. These are the only friends I have and I'm no better than they are.
-
Armand: Don't you believe in love, Marguerite?
Marguerite: I don't think I know what it is.
Armand: Oh, thank you.
Marguerite: For what?
Armand: For never having been in love.
-
Marguerite: When one may not have long to live, why shouldn't one have fancies?
-
Marguerite: It's hard to believe that there's such happiness in this world.
Armand: Marguerite. Now you've put tears on my hand. Why?
Marguerite: You will never love me thirty years. No one will.
Armand: I'll love you all my life. I know that now. All my life.
[They kiss]
-
Baron de Varville: Here's the forty thousand francs you need. And this is my last act of consideration. If ever we meet again, it will be on a different basis. I never make the same mistake twice.
-
Marguerite: Let me love you. Let me live for you. But don't let me ask any more from Heaven than that - God might get angry.
-
Marguerite: I shall love Armand always. And I believe he shall love me always too.
-
Monsieur Duval: Please, give him up.
Marguerite: What shall I do?
Monsieur Duval: Talk to him. Tell him he must leave you.
Marguerite: I have talked.
Monsieur Duval: Leave him.
Marguerite: He'd follow me.
Monsieur Duval: Tell him you don't love him.
Marguerite: He wouldn't believe me.
-
Armand: ...I warn you, lucky in love, unlucky at cards.
Baron de Varville: That also means lucky at cards, unlucky in love.
Armand: We shall see.
-
Armand: Then you do love him. Dare to tell me that you love him. You're free of me forever.
Marguerite: [Armand grabs her] I love him.
-
Armand: I accepted her favors because I thought she loved me. I had her make sacrifices for me when there were others who had more to give. But bear witness, I owe her nothing. Take it, come on, take it! Buy camellias, buy diamonds, horses and carriages, buy moonlight, buy a grave!
-
Marguerite: It's you. It's not a dream.
Armand: No, it's not a dream. I'm here with you in my arms, at last.
Marguerite: At last.
Armand: You're weak.
Marguerite: No, no. Strong. It's my heart. It's not used to being happy.
-
Marguerite: I always look well when I'm near death.
-
Olympe: I knew I was too happy!
-
Madame Barjon, the Florist: [First lines] For the lady of the camellias. And they're almost twice as large as usual.
Marguerite: I shall have twice as many tomorrow.
Prudence Duvernoy: Twice as many! Oh, don't listen to her, Barjon. I know what those things cost.
Madame Barjon, the Florist: Doesn't she listen when she orders her hats and dresses from you?
Prudence Duvernoy: They're an investment!
Marguerite: Of course I order too many hats and too many dresses and too many everything, but I want them.
-
Monsieur Duval: How can I ever repay you for all you're doing for me?
Marguerite: Make no mistake, monsieur - whatever I do, it's nothing for you; it's all for Armand.
-
Title Card: 1847: In the gay half-world of Paris, the gentlemen of the day met the girls of the moment at certain theatres, balls and gambling clubs, where the code was discretion - - but the game was romance.
-
Armand: Fate must have had something to do with this. I've hoped for it so long. You don't believe me?
Marguerite: No.
Armand: First time I saw you was a year and a half ago. You were in an open carriage, dressed in white. I saw you get out and go into a shop in the Place de la Bourse.
Marguerite: Yes, that might have happened. I used to go to a dressmaker at Place de la Bourse.
Armand: You were wearing thin dress with miles of ruffles, a large straw hat, an embroidered shawl, a single bracelet in heavy gold chain, and, of course, the camellias at your waist.
-
Marguerite: I'm not always sincere, one can't be in this world, you know.
-
Baron de Varville: [to Marguerite] So much heart and so little sense.
-
Prudence Duvernoy: It's a great mistake for any woman to have a heart bigger than her purse.
-
Marguerite: Time changes our minds as well as our hearts.
-
Armand: I'm glad of this opportunity of returning something belonging to you.
[Presents a white ladies handkerchief found six months earlier]
Armand: I found it on the floor when I came back.
Marguerite: And you kept it with you all this time? Always with you?
Armand: Yes. Always with me. Like an old friend - to remind me that I'm not the Baron de Varville.
Marguerite: Hmm. Rather very romantic reasons.
Armand: No. I kept it as a warning against romance.
Marguerite: How sensible.
-
Armand: I'll bring this little book as a birthday present. Have you read it?
Marguerite: I never read anything. What is it?
Armand: Manon Lescaut
Marguerite: Who was she?
Armand: A beautiful girl who lived for love and pleasure.
Marguerite: [Examines the book cover] It's a beautiful color, it should be a very good story.
Armand: Yes it is. But, it's rather sad. She dies in the end.
Marguerite: Well, then I'll keep it, but, I won't read it. I don't like sad thoughts. However, we all die.
-
Marguerite: Now, why don't you go back and dance with one of those pretty girls.
[laughs]
Marguerite: Come, I'll go with you.
[Armand kisses Marguerite's hand]
Marguerite: What a child you are.
Armand: You're hand's so hot.
Marguerite: Is that why you put tears on it? To cool it?
-
Marguerite: Why should you care for a woman like me? I'm always nervous or sick or sad or too gay.
-
Armand: No one has ever loved as I have loved you.
Marguerite: That may be true; but, what can I do about it?
-
Marguerite: You should go away and not see me any more. But, don't go in anger. Why don't you laugh at yourself a little, as I laugh at myself and come and talk to me once in awhile in - a friendly way.
Armand: That's too much - and not enough.
-
Baron de Varville: Who is it?
Marguerite: I might say that there is someone at the wrong door - or the great romance of my life.
Baron de Varville: The great romance of your life!
[laughs]
Baron de Varville: Charming!
Marguerite: That might have been.
[laughs]
-
Prudence Duvernoy: Why on earth does anyone live four flights up?
-
Prudence Duvernoy: Oh, what a girl! What a tease!
-
Marguerite: You know, once I had a little dog and he always looked sad when I was sad and I loved him so. And when your tears fell on my hand and I loved you too all at once.
-
Marguerite: It costs money to go to the country.
Armand: I have money.
Marguerite: Yes, how much?
Armand: Seven thousand francs a year.
Marguerite: I spend more than that in a month and I've never been too particular.
-
Marguerite: How can one change one's entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that's what you make me want me to close my eyes and do.
Armand: Then close your eyes and say yes. I command it!
Marguerite: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
-
Marguerite: Why can't anything ever be perfect once?
-
Prudence Duvernoy: What is the matter with you anyway, Marguerite? Have you suddenly become a sentimental schoolgirl?
-
Baron de Varville: No one has to tell me, you found a playmate for this rustic holiday of yours. It's in your face.
-
Armand: Tired?
Marguerite: Only nicely tired. Let's go as far as the top of the hill and see what's beyond.
Armand: Yes. I don't care what's behind, do you?
Marguerite: No.
-
Marguerite: How good the earth smells. Never need any perfume. Look, look I found a four leaf clover! My first good luck! You know, when I was little I used to hunt for them everywhere, thinking they would change everything.
-
Marguerite: Are you going to spoil a day like this by being jealous?
Armand: No, of course not. I always know he's there.
Marguerite: But, I'm always here.
-
Marguerite: A man can go back. He can always go back.
-
Marguerite: Monsieur, suppose I told you I have a feeling I shan't live very long.
Monsieur Duval: Well, then I scold you for being fanciful and a little foolish. What you probably feel is the melancholy of happiness, that mood that comes over all of us when we realize that even *love* can't remain a flood tide forever.
Marguerite: Oh, Armand. I'm doomed.
Monsieur Duval: With him, you're both doomed.
-
Monsieur Duval: No one knows the man he might become if he losses his self respect.
-
Monsieur Duval: I want Armand to enjoy life, not be sacrificed to it!
-
Nanine: Your hands are like ice, child. Tell Nanine what you're going to do.
Marguerite: Oh, make my love hate me. Make him hate me. Oh, God help me!
[Sobs uncontrollably]
-
Marguerite: People say things they don't mean sometime at night. Well, life is something besides kisses and promises in the moonlight.
-
Armand: I could kill you for this!
Marguerite: I'm not worth killing, Armand. I've loved you as much as I could love. If that wasn't enough, I'm not to blame. We don't make our own hearts.
-
Armand: The past is dead. Heaven rests its soul - if it had one.
-
Marguerite: We went to the theater, Prudence.
Prudence Duvernoy: What was the play?
Baron de Varville: Manon Lescaut.
Armand: Oh, yes. The story of a man who loved a woman more than his honor. A woman who wanted luxury more than his love. You should have found that very entertaining.
-
Armand: I came back to Paris to tell you I despise you and I do! But, I love you too.
-
Marguerite: How kind. You know, I used to think you were such a gay fellow - with no other thought, but for pleasure.
-
Armand: Nanine. Nanine. Nanine! Get the doctor quickly.
Marguerite: The doctor? If you can't make me live, how can he?
Armand: No-no. Don't say such things, Marguerite. You'll live. You must live!
Marguerite: Perhaps its better if I live in your heart where the world can't see me. If I'm dead, there'll be no stain on our love.
-
Marguerite: You were the only one that took the trouble to ring my bell.
-
Prudence Duvernoy: It must be such a pleasure to lose money in such a charming place.
Camille Quotes
Extended Reading
