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Frederick: Jealousy belongs to all if a woman belongs to none.
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Director: Act! Act! You have the wrong place. We are not allowed to act here. We walk on our hands! And you know why? They bully us. If we put on plays, they'd have to close their great, noble theaters! Their public is bored to death by museum pieces, dusty tragedies and declaiming mummies who never move! But the Funambules is full of life, movement! Extravaganzas! Appearances, disappearances, like in real life! And then-boom-the kick in the pants!
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Baptiste: Your heart beating against my hand.
Garance: Baptiste.
Baptiste: You were right, Garance. Love is so simple.
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Man in the audience: Shut up! We can't hear the pantomime!
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Anselme Debureau: A kick in the ass, if well delivered, is a sure laugh. It's true. There's an entire order, a science, a style of kicks in the ass.
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Anselme Debureau: Novelty is as old as the hills.
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Frederick: I'm dying of silence, like others die of hunger and thirst.
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Édouard, Count de Montray: You're much too lovely to be truly loved.
Garance: Truth, but only from the neck up, it frustrated them.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: I don't love you, but you are the only woman for whom I have no contempt.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: The mere thought of them killing each other, over a woman, because of me, comforts me.
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Garance: Not only are you rich, but you want to be loved as if you are poor.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: His Lawyer says, "Above all, don't talk." The Priest: "Confession is half-remission." He confesses. The Judge: "You Killed and confessed. Perfect. Off with your head." The fellow, disappointed protests: "But confession is half-remission!" The Judge: "True but justice must be done. So we'll just cut off half your head."
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Carnival Barker: [First lines] Step right in! The Truth is here! Step right in and see! She will fill your thoughts, invade your dreams! See Naked Truth with your own eyes!
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Frederick: [Repeated pick-up line] You smiled! Don't deny it! You smiled! Marvelous! Life is beautiful! And you're just as beautiful!
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: What a splendid destiny! To love no one, to be alone. To be loved by no one. To be free.
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Garance: Still writing plays?
Pierre-François Lacenaire: Yes, in my idle moments.
Garance: "Misconduct" A tragedy?
Pierre-François Lacenaire: No, a slightly ribald farce. I loathe tragedy. Such an inferior genre. Characters who kill one another, yet never get hurt. How depressing.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: Here comes Judgment Day.
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Jéricho: Remember, they call me the Tightwad, the Niggard, the Rat, 'cause I scavenge like a rat.
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Anselme Debureau: Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! A franc for the boxes if you're well-to-do, four centimes in the Gods if you're badly off. Come in and see "Perils of the Virgin Forest" and "Crime and Virtue". A pantomime that's magic, exotic, pyrotechnic! Come in and see a girl of 15 pursued by a mountain lion! A forest fire! An abduction by balloon! And you shall see me, the one and only, the intimitable Anselme Debureau, who performed in the harem before the Grand Turk and his 82 Turkesses!
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Jéricho: They also call me The Spark, The Stoker, The Dove-keeper, because I like to keep turtledoves together.
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Nathalie: Oh, Baptiste, if only you wanted to, we could be so happy together. But you don't love me. Oh, I know. You like me. I don't want to be liked, I want your love! Loving is so easy.
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Frederick: This mulled wine is splendid! It goes down like a seraph in red velvet tights.
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Frederick: To your health, Baptiste. And to yours, friends. Tonight you drank with Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar or another. Charles the Bold, Attila, Henri IV, Ravaillac! Yes, I know it! It's my destiny to revive the giants of this earth. They played their parts. It's my turn now. Let me have my chance. Rise, Julius Caesar! Frederick is before you. I'll dust him off and cast his shadow across the boards. He'll live again to astonish the world once more! Thanks to me!
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Frederick: Words and phrases leave you cold. You tell your story without speaking. And you do it so well. You really astonished me. Your legs speak, your hands answer. A glance, a shrug, a step forward, back and they understand up in the Gods.
Baptiste: They understand, though they are poor. I'm like them. I love them, I know them. Their lives are small, but their dreams are vast.
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Garance: You're shaking. Are you cold?
Baptiste: I'm shaking because I'm happy. Happy because you're here, near me. I love you. Garance, do you love me?
Garance: You talk like a child. People love that way in books, in dreams. Not in real life.
Baptiste: Dreams, life - they're the same. Else life's not worth living.
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Garance: It's not bad here, though it's a bit sad.
Baptiste: Why sad?
Garance: It's always sad when you sleep alone.
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Baptiste: You're so beautiful. But I must let you sleep.
Garance: I'm not very sleepy.
[Sits on her bed]
Baptiste: Remember: You could work at the Funambules.
Garance: But I can't do anything.
Baptiste: I'll help you. You need work.
Garance: Why not? I could show my legs.
[Lifts her leg out from under her wrap]
Garance: The audience doesn't ask for much.
[Wiggles her toes]
Baptiste: But I love you, Garance.
Garance: Please don't be so solemn. It chills me. Don't be angry, but I'm not the way you dreamed. You must understand me. I'm simple, so simple. I am what I am. I want to please those I like. And when I want to say yes, I can't say no.
[Gets up and blows out the lantern]
Garance: I prefer moonlight, don't you?
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Frederick: First, my name, Frederick. Now tell me yours.
Garance: They call me Garance.
Frederick: Garance. How lovely!
Garance: It' a flower.
Frederick: A red flower, like your lips.
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Frederick: You can't abandon me all alone on the Boulevard of Crime! When will I see you again?
Garance: Soon, perhaps. Chance will tell.
Frederick: Oh, Paris is so big.
Garance: Paris is small for those who share so great a passion as ours.
[Walks away]
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: Here's my guardian angel!
[In walks Garance]
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: [Reading a book in bed] "Yet I'll not shed her blood nor scar that whiter skin than snow and smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then - " Yes, let's put out the light. Good night, Desdemona. Good night, Othello.
Garance: [singing in the next room] I am as I am, I'm made as you see. When I feel like laughing, I laugh heartily. I love those who love me. Am I really to blame? If a man that I love, is never the same?
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Frederick: Is your door locked, my love?
Garance: I'm not afraid of thieves. What's there to steal?
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Baptiste: If all couples living together were in love, the earth would glow like the sun.
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Baptiste: Baptiste? Who's this Baptiste? Since the one he loves doesn't love him, he's a zero, a will-o'-the-wisp, an automaton, a bogeyman. No more Baptiste!
[Draws an X over his face in the mirror and points at it]
Baptiste: Here lies Baptiste. Life gave him a red flower, a good beating, a pinewood overcoat.
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L'inspecteur de police: Your trade?
Garance: I'm an artiste. I'm surprised Madame didn't tell you.
L'inspecteur de police: Put down "artiste".
L'inspecteur de police assistant: Artiste - in the boudoir.
Garance: Why so rude?
L'inspecteur de police: We're not rude. We're just joking. Where do you perform? And since when?
Garance: The Funambules. About three weeks.
L'inspecteur de police: Just passing through town. And before that?
Garance: I posed for painters.
L'inspecteur de police: Sure. Who?
Garance: Mr. Ingres, for one.
L'inspecteur de police: Don't know him.
Garance: He's a bit like you. He fiddles around.
L'inspecteur de police: None of your jokes, my girl.
Garance: You joke, too.
L'inspecteur de police: I imagine I needn't ask the lady what outfit she poses in.
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Frederick: It's all nonsense, fantasy, air! What I like is reality.
[Grabs an actress on her behind]
Frederick: Only two acts, but well made. Compliments to the authors.
-
Frederick: Where did you go? Where did he take you? That nabob. To India?
Garance: I did go to India. But not for long. I lived in England most of the time. And Scotland.
Frederick: Is Scotland beautiful?
Garance: Yes... but it's so far away. I love only Paris.
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Garance: Listen to the Gods! I used to laugh like that once. I'd burst out laughing, just like that, without thinking. But nowadays -...
Frederick: You're sad.
Garance: No, but I'm not cheerful either. A spring broke in the music box. The tune is the same but it's in a different key.
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Frederick: This can't be happening to me. This is absurd.
Garance: What is it?
Frederick: I think I'm jealous. I don't know. I've never felt anything like this. It's insidious, unpleasant. It infects your heart. You reason, but your reason fails you.
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Jéricho: I may be drunk, but I've still got principles.
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Jéricho: What's Baptiste got against me?
Nathalie: Nothing. Only that you don't mind your own business.
Jéricho: Is it his business what is or isn't mine? I've always lived all alone. So I take an interest in others. Always alone. That's not living. No one to love me. Nothing, zero, naught. If I were a widower, at least I'd have memories. But no woman would have me. They preferred petty fly-by-nights and libertines.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: I am well informed. For example, I knew about your return at once. I learned where you were living and with whom.
Garance: Nothing escapes you.
Pierre-François Lacenaire: And I know they've put my angel in a gilded cage.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: Never look back at the past, my angel. It leaps at your throat like a mad dog.
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Garance: Time has nothing to do with happiness.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: And the man in white? Do you think your friend, the mime, is happy? To think I had the absurd notion of killing him. Comical, no? One might as well stab at a breeze or a moonbeam.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: People! Actors aren't people. They're every man and no man.
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Pierre-François Lacenaire: Is it not absurd to ask people who they are?
Édouard, Count de Montray: Excuse me?
Pierre-François Lacenaire: That's why they're so evasive. They give you the easy reply: a name, a title. But who they are really, who they are deep down, they conceal with great care.
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Mme Hermine: You're being unreasonable.
Baptiste: True, I'm unreasonable.
Mme Hermine: Shutting yourself up like a monk!
Baptiste: No, monks pray. I sleep, I dream.
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Mme Hermine: Oh, tonight's the premiere of "Othello" with Mr. Frederick. You should go. It will cheer you up.
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Baptiste: "Othello" would make a nice pantomime. A man kills his beloved and it kills him, poor man! A sad, absurd tale, like so many others. Like mine and yours, Madame Hermine. You spend your empty days in your empty rooms with your poor empty heart.
-
Baptiste: It's all so sad and absurd. Like me. Years ago, I stood here by this bed, in this very room. And she stood there, smiling, happy, so lovely in the fresh night air. And she said, "Love is so simple." And I didn't listen! I didn't take her in my arms! I set conditions: "Love me as I love you." And I shut the door, forever, between my love and me.
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Édouard, Count de Montray: Such savagery and lack of decorum. I can't say I like this Monsieur Shakespeare.
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Édouard, Count de Montray: Monsieur, you play the bloodthirsty brute so naturally.
Frederick: You're too kind. I merely played him as Shakespeare wrote him, as naturally as possible.
Édouard, Count de Montray: A peculiar fellow, this Monsieur Shakespeare. I hear he made his literary debut as a butcher's apprentice.
Frederick: Why not?
Édouard, Count de Montray: Which would explain the bestial nature of his plays and his popularity among dockers and carters.
Frederick: And kings!
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Garance: I've never forgotten you. You were even in my dreams. You saved me from growing old, dull and used up. My life was so empty. I felt so alone. But I kept thinking: I've no right to be sad. I'm happy. Someone loved me.
-
Baptiste: I still love you. I always have. And you, Garance? No, don't answer. I won't ask for anything. You're here. That's all that matters. Here, alive in my arms, like the first time. No, I ask for nothing. Only - the warmth of your body against my body, this mouth of yours. These eyes of yours.
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Édouard, Count de Montray: How do you ply your talents these days?
Pierre-François Lacenaire: Since you ask, I'm putting the finishing touches on something that will cause a sensation.
Édouard, Count de Montray: A tragedy, no doubt.
Pierre-François Lacenaire: No, a comedy, a farce. Or a tragedy, if you prefer. It's all the same. There's no difference. Or very little. For example, if a king is deceived, it's a tragedy of infidelity. He's deceived not by his wife...
Frederick: But by Fate.
Pierre-François Lacenaire: Yes, Fate. But if it's a poor devil like you or me, Monsieur de Montray - and I use "me" as a figure of speech - it's no longer a tragedy, but mere buffoonery, a sorry tale of cuckolds.
-
Nathalie: How easy it must be.
Garance: How easy what must be?
Nathalie: Easy to go, then come back. You go. You're missed. Time works for you. Then you come back, embellished by memory. Yes, that must be easy.
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Jéricho: It's Jupiter. Alias Jericho, because of my horn. Alias Medusa, because of my gaze. Greetings, Lacenaire. My respects to Beauty.
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Jéricho: Here's Jericho, alias the Trumpet, alias the Flask, for my drinking, alias Woe-Is-Me, for my hard lot. Greetings, stage manager.
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Jéricho: Do you dream about cats? Do you dream about dogs? Have you seen troubled waters? Here's the key to your dreams, bound and illustrated.
[Holds up a set of books]
Jéricho: Greetings, boss.
-
Jéricho: Greetings, all! This is Jericho, alias Wild Boar, Lone Sleeper.
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Jéricho: Here you are, bandit, body snatcher!
Anselme Debureau: Don't start!
Jéricho: Shame on you! You stole my looks, my identity!
Anselme Debureau: You're not the only ragman in Paris.
-
Jéricho: The game's up! Time to go home.
Baptiste: Let me go!
Jéricho: For shame! As sure as I'm called Old Maid, Wise Counsel, Prim and Proper, for my sense of morality.
-
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: Hello, Madame. I have a message for you. I came to say we're happy together, Mama, Papa and me.
Garance: Did your father send you?
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: No, Mama did. But Mama, Papa or me - it's the same. Mama was right.
Garance: About what?
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: You're beautiful. When I grow up, I'll get married to someone like you. Or like Mama, if I can.
Garance: You're a darling boy.
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: Are you married?
Garance: No.
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: You don't have a little boy?
Garance: No, I don't have a little boy.
Le petit Baptiste Debureau: Then you're all alone?
Garance: Yes. I'm all alone.
-
Garance: Well, good-bye... Frédérick.
Frederick: You can't abandon me, all alone on the Boulevard of Crime. When will I see you again?
Garance: Soon, maybe. Chance will tell.
Frederick: Paris is so big.
Garance: Paris is so small for such great lovers as we...
-
Pierre-François Lacenaire: We could have done astounding things together. I'd spill torrents of blood to give you rivers of diamonds.
Garance: I'd settle for less.
-
Frédérick Lemaître: It's Nathalie. Oooh, you're a real beauty now.
Nathalie: I'm not beautiful, Frederick. Just happy.
Frédérick Lemaître: Beauty and happiness go together.
Children of Paradise Quotes
Extended Reading
