L'Avventura Quotes

Patrizia: Do you like spearfishing?

Raimondo: I hate it, but I must adapt. What can you do?

Sandro: [Admiring the buildings of a small town from a rooftop] Such imagination. Such movement. They were concerned with the architectural aesthetics. Such extraordinary freedom. I must go ahead and leave Ettore. I'd like to work on design again. I used to have ideas of my own, you know.

Claudia: Why did you stop?

Sandro: Why, why, why? Because it isn't easy to admit that a red floor suits a room when you are thinking exactly the opposite. But the lady wants it red. Because there is always a lady... or a man... and so... Once I was asked to make the estimate for the construction of a school. It took me a day and a half. I earned four million lira. So I went on giving estimates of other people's projects. Why are you looking at me this way?

Claudia: Because I am convinced you could make really beautiful things.

Sandro: I don't know. I really don't know about that. Who needs beautiful things nowadays, Claudia? How long will they last? All of this was built to last centuries. Today, 10, 20 years at the most, and then? Well...

Il padre di Anna: How long will you be away?

Anna: Four or five days.

Il padre di Anna: Well, I suppose I'll spend the weekend alone. I'll rest. I should have grown used to it by now.

Anna: Used to what, father?

Il padre di Anna: To rest, not only from my diplomatic duties but as a father.

Anna: Why do you say such things?

Il padre di Anna: It's the truth. Allow me at least this much: after 30 years of never telling the truth, I might as well speak truthfully to my own daughter now.

Sandro: [Anna starts to undress] Your friend is downstairs, waiting.

Anna: Let her wait.

Sandro: How are you?

Anna: Awful.

Sandro: Why?

Anna: Huh, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Eh? Why? Why? Why?

Claudia: Did you sleep well?

Anna: So-so. Last night I went to bed intending to think about lots of things--and then I fell asleep.

Sandro: Shall we swim?

Claudia: Not here! It's frightening.

Anna: You know, the whole shark thing was a lie.

Claudia: A lie?

Anna: Yes.

Claudia: Why?

Anna: Because. But don't think about it now. It's over.

Claudia: I don't want to know why you do these things. It's Sandro, I suppose. Did you get what you wanted, at least?

Patrizia: What do you want, Raimondo? You want me? At this time of day?

Claudia: Bye.

Patrizia: No, Claudia, stay. There's no spark.

Patrizia: [Raimondo feels Patrizia's breast] You're a little disappointed. Tell the truth.

Raimondo: Not at all. Quite the opposite.

Patrizia: What kind of face do you think Raimondo has?

Claudia: A rather corrupt one, I'd say.

Patrizia: What? He's a child.

Raimondo: Don't start, Patrizia. I'd rather be corrupt. Unless you happen to love children.

Patrizia: I don't love anyone. You know it.

Raimondo: To think that if there ever was a woman deliberately created, actually custom-made for every kind of promiscuity and betrayal, of soridness and debauchery, it would be her. Oh, well. She's faithful, a faithfulness born from a sort of apathy.

Patrizia: [laughs] It amuses me. It's the only amusement I know, besides my dog.

Corrado: You say, "How beautiful," about everything: the sea, a child, a cat. Your sensitive little heart races at nothing.

Giulia: If something is beautiful, why shouldn't I say so?

Anna: I think we should talk about it. Or do you think we won't be able to understand each other either?

Sandro: We'll have time to talk. We're getting married. What's longer time than a lifetime?

Sandro: I care for you, Anna. Isn't that enough?

Anna: No, it isn't enough. I'd like to spend some time alone.

Anna: I know, it's absurd. I'm distraught. The idea of losing you makes me want to die. I don't feel you anymore.

Sandro: Even yesterday, at my place, you didn't feel me anymore?

Anna: You always have to dirty everything.

Giulia: The weather's changing.

Corrado: Please, Giulia. There's no need to be so didactic all the time. I can see for myself that the weather is changing.

Giulia: Once the Aeolian islands were all volcanoes.

Corrado: When we came here together 12 years ago, you said the exact same thing.

Mario - Yacht Captain: We should leave now.

Corrado: Why?

Mario - Yacht Captain: The sea is getting rough.

Claudia: And Anna?

Corrado: I don't know.

Mario - Yacht Captain: I thought I heard a boat.

Corrado: Yes.

Mario - Yacht Captain: You hear it?

Claudia: Sandro! Where's Anna?

Sandro: She was here.

Sandro: It's all my fault. Say it. It's what you're thinking.

Claudia: You're so concerned with what I'm thinking. You should have made more of an effort to understand what Anna was thinking.

Sandro: You love Anna very much.

Claudia: Yes, very much.

Sandro: Did she ever talk to you about me?

Claudia: Seldom, but always tenderly.

Sandro: And yet - and yet she acted as though our love, mine, yours, even her father's, in a way, weren't enough for her, meant nothing to her.

Claudia: I'd really like to know what you're going to say now. Go on, speak. I don't want you with me or to see you. How can I make you understand? Why did you come?

Sandro: I couldn't help it.

Claudia: Well, we'll have to help it, so you might as well make this sacrifice right now.

Claudia: I've never felt so shaken in my whole life. Sandro, why don't you help me?

Sandro: I think the only way we can help each other is by staying together.

Claudia: No. I'm sure that's not it.

Zuria - il giornalista: How old are you?

Gloria Perkins: Nineteen. I'm married. My name is Gloria Perkins. For the past year, I've been a writer. I write while in a trance and almost always while in communication with the dead. With Tolstoy, for instance, or Shakespeare. But, I'm also interested in working in the movies.

Zuria - il giornalista: Please, don't take it badly, but why should I do you a favor?

Sandro: Let's say it's business, then. To help you round up your salary.

Giulia: [to Claudia] Goffredo is the princess's grandson. He's 17, lucky him. Just imagine, he paints.

Il principe Goffredo: Anyone can hold a brush. You just buy the paint and start. Even Titian started that way.

Ettore: Princess, why don't you sell this villa? I'd turn it into a lovely clinic for nervous disorders.

La principessa: It's already a little like that.

Giulia: [admiring Goffredo's paintings] Claudia, come see. A nude.

Claudia: They're all nudes, if I'm not mistaken.

Giulia: You're good. But why only women?

Il principe Goffredo: No landscape is as lovely as a woman.

Il principe Goffredo: It's strange how women enjoy showing themselves. It almost seems like part of their nature.

Giulia: [laughs, looks at a nude portrait] How can they pose that way? I couldn't.

Il principe Goffredo: Why don't you try?

Sandro: Was she blonde or brunette?

Pharmacist: Brunette.

Pharmacist's jealous wife: Blonde.

Sandro: What was she wearing?

Pharmacist: I don't remember. Some pale color, I believe.

Pharmacist's jealous wife: He doesn't notice the clothing. He notices what's underneath.

Sandro: Claudia, what's the matter?

Claudia: Sandro, I'm so ashamed, so ashamed. Did you see that? I was trying to hide. I feel miserable. I hate myself.

Sandro: Do you enjoy saying these things?

Claudia: No, not at all.

Sandro: So why do you say them?

Claudia: Because what I'm doing is ugly.

Claudia: It's absurd.

Sandro: Good. All the better if it is absurd. It means we can't do anything about it. Understand?

Claudia: To think that you must have told Anna these same things--I don't know, how many times.

Sandro: Let's say I did. I was as earnest with her as I am now with you.

Claudia: [Sandro throws Claudia on a hotel room bed] No, Sandro, please.

Sandro: Why?

Claudia: No reason. What's gotten into you? Eh? No. Wait a moment, please. Just a moment. I feel as though I don't know you.

Sandro: Aren't you happy? You're having a new fling.

Claudia: What are you saying?

Sandro: I was joking. I can never joke with you.

Claudia: Oh, Sandro. I want all the things you want, but...

Sandro: But?

Sandro: Did you get good rooms?

Sandro: Not really, apparently.

Patrizia: You should have told Ettore. He always manages to get what he wants.

Claudia: How do you manage with all this chaos? You've always said people irritate you.

Patrizia: You shouldn't always take me literally.

Patrizia: My childhood was like a merry-go-round, now here, now there.

Claudia: Mine was a very sensible one.

Patrizia: What do you mean by "sensible"?

Claudia: I mean without any money.