-
Maya: [referring to Ethiopian Bread] Will someone take this awful bread back to Africa where it belongs?
-
Leyla: [to her mother] I'm gay!
Sam: [enters] I'm home!
[pauses]
Sam: What did I miss?
Leyla: I'm gay.
Sam: But I've only been gone two hours!
-
[Yasmin comes downstairs in an "I Can't Think Straight" t-shirt]
Yasmin: [to her concerned father, regarding her mother] Don't worry, she won't get it.
Maya: Get what?
Yasmin: Nothing.
-
[last lines]
Woman at end of movie: [after being told Leyla is lesbian] She's what? But some of my best friends are Lebanese!
-
Leyla: Have you ever done this before?
Tala: Slept with a woman while my fiancé makes wedding preparations? Nope, never done that before.
Leyla: That's not what I meant.
-
Zina: You know, I think I found those weapons of mass destruction Bush was looking for. How clever of him to disguise them as two arab housewives.
-
Uncle Ramzi: Handsome is good. But ask your auntie why she married me. Looks and character come and go. Only large sums of money last forever.
-
Maya: Are you trying to kill me? Creeping into the house like a robber.
-
Yasmin: They're in love.
Ali: Who?
Yasmin: Sonny and Cher.
[pause]
Yasmin: Leyla and Tala.
-
Maya: You two are so worried about other cultures... London, Greece. What about your own heritage? Did you ever think about that? India has one of the richest cultures in the world.
Yasmin: Well I'm glad you said that Mom, cause I'm thinking of spending six months out there... backpacking.
Maya: You're not going backpacking. And in India of all places!
Yasmin: What about the culture? The heritage?
Maya: What about being raped and murdered? And clean underwear?
Leyla: Are you going to take underwear Yasmin?
-
Tala: [writing a letter to Leyla] Every night I empty my heart, but by morning it's full again. Slowly, droplets of you seep in through the night's soft caress. But don't I overflow with thoughts of us, an aching pressure that gives me no respite. Love cannot be contained; the neat packaging of desire splits asunder, spilling crimson through my days, long languishing days that are now bruised, tender with yearning, spent searching for a fingerprint, a scent, a breath you left behind.
-
Tala: Come here. Dance with me.
Leyla: I can't. I have absolutely no sense of rhythm.
-
Tala: When I was 18, I fell madly in love with a girl my first year at college in New York. She was an American. We spent three wonderful months together. I never knew I could feel so... complete. So alive.
Leyla: Til now, obviously.
Tala: Til now.
Leyla: So, what happened?
Tala: I broke it off. I ended it.
Leyla: Why?
Tala: I was in pieces. I told myself that it was for the best. I was away from home, I was lonely, and...
Leyla: And?
Tala: This is not a way to live, Leyla. It's not easy. It's not acceptable.
Leyla: We didn't break any rules last night, Tala.
Tala: But we did where I come from. People in the Middle East do not live like this. At least not openly.
Leyla: And now, you're in England. Now, you live in the west.
Tala: But I don't think that in any society of cheating on one's fiancee with someone else is acceptable.
-
[after Tala and Leyla had sex for the first time]
Tala: What are you thinking about?
Leyla: Why I didn't meet you years ago.
Tala: We would have been underage then.
I Can't Think Straight Quotes
Extended Reading
