Hour of the Wolf Quotes

Baron von Merkens: Now you are yourself, but not yourself; an ideal state for a meeting between lovers.

Baron von Merkens: You see what you want to see!

Baron von Merkens: [alternate translation] You are yourself and yet, not yourself - the ideal state for an amorous encounter.

Alma Borg: We were usually completely alone. He never wanted to meet anyone. He was afraid.

Alma Borg: I said very little and he liked that. He liked me.

Johan Borg: In an hour or so it will be daylight - and then I can sleep.

Johan Borg: A minute can seem like an eternity. It's beginning now... ten seconds... Oh, those seconds... how long they last... the minute isn't up yet... Now it has gone.

Veronica Vogler: I must talk to you about something. I've had a letter. I must show you. I got it yesterday. This is what it says: "You can't see us, but we see you. Awful things can happen. Some dreams can be made known. The end is near. The springs will go dry and then the fluids will dampen your hot white thighs. So it has been decided." I felt sick when I read it. How hot your hands are. Do you have a fever? I always get worked up when I'm going to see you. Isn't that funny? I go about in a dream all afternoon. Everything I do is unreal and meaningless. Help me with my zipper.

Gamla Fru von Merkens: I'm an old crone.

Baron von Merkens: "The Magic Flute" is the great example and I shall prove it to you at once. Tamino's guides have just left him in the dark courtyard outside the temple of wisdom and the youth calls out in the deepest despair, "O endless night, when will you be gone? When will the daylight greet my sight?" Seriously ill, Mozart feels these words with a secret intensity. And the chorus and orchestra answer with "Soon, fair youth or never." The loveliest and perhaps the most disturbing music that has ever been written. Tamino asks, "Does Pamina still live?" The invisible chorus replies, "Pamina still lives." Listen to the strange, illogical but brilliant division: Pami-na. Pami-na. It's no longer the name of a young woman. It's a formula, an incantation, a naive text. In short, a work composed to order and yet the high manifestation of art.

Alma Borg: We never kiss each other. Can you tell me why? I can count our kisses.

Johan Borg: There was a time when the nights were for sleeping. Deep, dreamless sleep. To sleep and wake unafraid.

Alma Borg: That's not what it says in your diary. "My obsession with Veronica became a torment for us both. I shadowed her on the road and spied on her jealously. I think my passion stimulated her, but she was always passive and undecided. Once or twice it came to frightening scenes utterly devoid of reason. We moved from town to town in an effort to escape her relatives and lawyers. We carried out the word of the Bible, that man and woman 'shall be of one flesh.' Then her husband came and took her away."

Alma Borg: Do you think I like to watch you running after that woman, talking to your ridiculous ghosts, having to guard myself the whole time?

Gamla Fru von Merkens: This is my supper, you see. Lindhorst, who knows the world, says that old harlots have a morbid desire to satisfy their mouths and stomachs.

Gamla Fru von Merkens: No, no. Don't go. Please help me take off my stockings. You like touching me. I feel that plainly.

Gamla Fru von Merkens: Look at my feet, dear artist. Have you ever seen younger and firmer arches? Take a good look. Look at the heel. So nice and smooth. Such strong toes and such pretty nails. Kiss my foot. That's the way.

Johan Borg: I thank you. The limit has at last been reached. The glass is shattered, but what do the splinters reflect? Can you tell me that?

Alma Borg: There's one thing I've been puzzling over. Are you in a big hurry? I'd like to ask you something. It's this. Is it true that a woman who lives a long time with a man, eventually winds up being like that man? I mean, she loves him and tries to think like him and see like him. They say that it can change a person.

Alma Borg: I thought I was so close to him. Sometimes he said he felt close to me. One time he told me definitely.