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Valentine: I'm an important person you see. I have a tower, a wonderful tower it was, tall and grand.
Helena: Are you?
Valentine: Of course.
Helena: Where is your tower then?
Valentine: We aren't talking... We had an argument, you see.
-
Sphinx: Hungry.
-
Helena: Riddle? Riddle. So have you thought of an answer yet?
Gryphon: You can't pass. I give up, I think, no wait, wait... Fine. What's the answer?
Helena: Okay. It's a herring.
Gryphon: But a herring isn't green.
Helena: You can paint it green.
Gryphon: But a herring doesn't hang on a wall.
Helena: You can nail it to a wall.
Gryphon: But a herring doesn't whistle!
Helena: Oh, come on. I just put that in to stop it from being too obvious.
-
Helena: [Trying to summon Valentine's tower to stop from being consumed by shadow swarm] You know, sometimes it helps to apologize to others, even if it isn't your fault.
Valentine: I'M SORRY.
-
[repeated line]
Valentine: I am a very important man. I've got a tower.
-
Helena: If I tell you something weird... will you think I'm crazy?
Valentine: Yes. I expect so.
-
Valentine: We often confuse what we wish for with what is.
-
Valentine: That's not my future... NO! I don't want to be a waiter!
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Valentine: [unable to directly say "I'm sorry"] If I were to say something apologetic it would reflect my feelings in this matter.
-
Valentine: Right... this is where I stop.
Helena: Giants Orbiting?
Valentine: Sounds a bit iffy, doesn't it? I'll be here when you get back. If you get back.
-
Joanne: All those kids in there want to run away and join the circus.
Helena: Great, they can have my life. I want to run away and join real life.
-
Helena: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Valentine: Absolutely. If we put little wheels on the bottoms of our shoes, we could just roll around everywhere...
-
Monkeybirds: Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob...
Monkeybird: Malcolm.
Monkeybirds: Bob, Bob, Bob.
-
Valentine: You're hurt. Wait here.
Helena: What about you?
Valentine: Oh, I'm a panther. I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness... like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing.
-
Gryphon: [playing at riddles - if you've got it you can't share it, if you've shared it you haven't got it - with Valentine] What's the answer?
Valentine: It's a secret.
Gryphon: Yes, I know that, but what's the answer?
Valentine: It's a secret!
[points in a different direction]
Valentine: Look! An idiot!
Gryphon: Where?
-
Prime Minister: It's like trying to find a need... no, not a needle. Something SMALLER than a needle, in a haystack, when you don't even know if you're in the right field!
-
Helena: You pathetic creep!
Valentine: Rocks and logs can bite like dogs, but words will never hurt me!
-
Black Queen: You need a pretty frock and a happy smile.
Helena: A smile?
Black Queen: With a smile on your face everything will seem brighter because from now on we are... what?
Helena: I don't know.
Black Queen: Tell her.
Black Queen's Guard: Uh, not at home to Mr. Grumpy, your majesty.
Black Queen: Exactly.
-
Helena: [during opening credits, playing with sock puppets] Ha! You may think I'm a hardhearted black sock, but underneath this dark woolly exterior is a naked pink foot.
-
Pingo: [makes hand gestures]
Joanne: I know I shouldn't let her get under my skin, but she is so very, very good at it.
-
Nurse: Listen, I don't want you tiring her out.
Helena: What do you think I'm going to do? Take her dancing?
-
Helena: Where's your fruit? I brought you fruit yesterday.
[looks over at other patient; leans in close to Joanne]
Helena: She didn't take it, did she? Did she?
Joanne: [looks over; chuckles] No.
-
Helena: She lost her teeth yesterday. I said: "If Mum were here, she'd find them. She's amazing at finding things." She said: "If your Mum could find them, she must be a miracle worker."
Joanne: They'll be staring her in the face. They always are.
Helena: They were in the fridge.
-
Helena: You useless, cake-hogging coward!
Valentine: I did not hog that cake!
-
White Queen: Never put off 'til tomorrow what you can do the day after.
-
Citizen: The charm.
Prime Minister: No, that's actually a chicken.
Citizen: The charm.
Prime Minister: I understand this must be quite painful for you but really it is a chicken.
Chicken: I keep trying to tell him, he just doesn't listen.
-
Valentine: My mum always said: "It's a dog-eat-dog world, son. You get them before they get you. Eat your greens. Stop embarrassing me in front of the neighbors. Maybe it would best if you leave home and never come back!"
[pause]
Valentine: She wasn't even my real mum. She bought me from a man.
-
Valentine: Run. Faster. Don't let anything distract you. FOOD.
-
Valentine: The answer to my riddle's still a secret.
-
Prime Minister: Right, and you reckon that's the charm, hmm?
Citizen: Yes.
Prime Minister: I'd have to say, to me, it looks rather like half a brick.
Citizen: Not really. Well... a bit...
Prime Minister: it's half a brick isn't it?
Citizen: Ermmmmm...
Prime Minister: Good try, thanks for coming. Next.
-
Valentine: What the hell have you got on your feet? Is that some kind of sick joke? Going around on little rabbit-like animals with every step? That's just... nasty.
-
Valentine: This place is ready to collapse into a heap of rubble. It can't be safe.
Helena: You're such a coward. It's perfectly- WAAAAHH!
[she falls through a hole in the floor]
Valentine: [looking down the hole] Coward, eh? I prefer to think of myself as... Prudent. Cautious. And unlike some people I could mention, STILL UP HERE!
-
Mrs. Bagwell: I remember I said to him: "Mr Bagwell, how can a mask know what you need?" And he said: "Cynthia, remember I don't know what I'm talking about."
-
Helena: I want to run away and join real life.
Joanne: Real life? You couldn't handle real life.
-
Helena: [of the Shadow Princess, her double in the real world, who's probably having a good time] Yeah, eating chips and snogging boys and smoking and everything!
-
Helena: I'm not anyone
[pause]
Helena: I'm... me!
-
Anti-Helena: Of course, if I use the Mirrormask it may upset things a bit. But you can't run away from home without destroying somone's world.
-
Valentine: What did you say your name was?
Helena: Helena.
Valentine: Helena. Helen. Helen-nun-nuh... it's a bit drab, isn't it? You know, you should think about changing that. Go for something with a bit of dignity and style, mixed with a bit of romance. Something like... 'Valentine'.
Helena: Why? What's your name?
Valentine: Valentine.
-
Prime Minister: We had days and nights with suns and moons and all those little twinkly things.
-
Chicken: [referring to Helena] Look at that face, gives you the willies.
-
Helena: [talking about the charm] What does it look like?
Prime Minister: I don't know.
Helena: Well... how big is it?
Prime Minister: I don't know.
Helena: Well... what kind of places could it be in?
Prime Minister: I don't know.
Helena: What do you know?
Prime Minister: I think I'd know it if I saw it.
Helena: Would you?
Prime Minister: I don't know... What if I have seen it and I didn't know it. What if it was the chicken!
-
Valentine: No no no, it's really gotta feel like it's being rejected. Grr, horrible, offensive, badly constructed book.
[flies away on book]
Helena: Right, umm... Nasty... Poorly paced book, with a soppy ending that I didn't believe in FOR ONE MINUTE!
[flies after Valentine]
-
Helena: It's not your dream, mom, it's mine.
Joanne: [giggles] That's the kind of thing people say in dreams.
-
[last lines]
Valentine: You know, I've always wanted to work in the circus.
Helena: Um, good. You'd have made a lousy waiter.
[laughing]
Valentine: [laughing] Yeah... What?
-
Mrs. Bagwell: And remember: Don't let them see you're afraid.
-
Helena: You are not my boyfriend, you know, even if this is my mom's dream.
-
Mimbre: We are the rats leaving the sinking ship.
Mirrormask Quotes
Extended Reading