Charlie Kohler: Remember: "When I'll hate you, I'll wear a cap.
Momo: My old man used to say: "when you hear someone at your door, think it might be an assassin, this way, if it's a thief, you'll be glad!"
Passerby: When we met... I met her at a dance... I had a real hard time getting acquainted with her. She was very naive. And you know how things are in Paris. Yet I'd swear you can find more virgins there than... than any place else. At least, proportionally. But, don't get me wrong, that's not why I married her.
Passerby: I don't know you; I'll probably never see you again. I might as well be frank. It does one good to make a clean breast of it sometimes... to a total stranger.
Female Dancer: Say, is it my breasts you find so exciting?

Male Dancer: You bet! I'm a doctor.
Le chanteur: [singing] Her measurements were meager, No wonder she was eager, To be adding extra padding..."
Le chanteur: [singing] Seeing her new measurements, Added to my torments, Ogling her plunging neckline, I gave her the old line: Permit me to keep abreast, Of what's on your chest..."
Charlie Kohler: Don't let women scare you. They are not poison.
Charlie Kohler: Just call me Charlie.

Charlie Kohler: Okay, if you call me Léna.

Charlie Kohler: Why Léna?

Léna: Well, Helén became Heléna, then Léna.
Charlie Kohler: [Talking to himself] Come on, come on, get your mind on something else. Think of Art Tatum. Has he got talent? And Erroll Garner? Yes, Erroll Garner *has* talent.
Clarisse: You still sleep in the raw?

Charlie Kohler: Yes. It's healthier.
Clarisse: With this dress on, business is good. You know me, I don't go out of my way to get customers. "How much? - Three thousand!" It's take it or leave it! I never bargain with them.
Clarisse: I'd rather have pretty underwear than those exciting skirts some of the girls wear.
Clarisse: The girls always ask me where I buy my things. Aren't they cute? I pay four hundred francs apiece. Dirt cheap!

Charlie Kohler: I'm not an authority on girls' panties.
Clarisse: I did go to the movies this afternoon. I saw "Torpedoes in Alaska".

Charlie Kohler: How was it?

Clarisse: It's a picture with John Wayne, to show that the Americans want peace.

Charlie Kohler: No kidding? Then they're just like me, the Yankees.

Clarisse: You're always making fun of me.

Charlie Kohler: No, I'm not making fun of you, my little chickadee.
Momo: All I'm trying to say is: instead of eyeing the dolls... look at the road ahead. Some day, you'll be out of luck. You'll run over some poor slob!
Ernest: I know just when to look... when the wind blows up their skirts... or they lift a gam to climb on the bus. Am I shocking you?

Léna: Not at all. You're not the first skunk I've met.
Charlie Kohler: If I may quote him, my father used to say about women: When you've had one, you've had them all!
Ernest: You've got to admit you females do everything to excite us males. Why the lipstick? Why the nail polish? Why the tight-fitting sweaters? And the short skirts? Why the high heels? And the stockings? Why do you wear stockings? Why don't you wear socks like we men do?
Momo: Once, when all my shorts were at the laundry, I put on silk panties that belonged to my sister. Ah! Some funny sensation it gave me! From that day on I understood why they all crave it, why they never have enough. Because we men, we have pants on. But girls, with their short dresses, it's skin rubbing on skin all day long!
Thérèse Saroyan: What's the matter? You're moody.

Charlie Kohler: Nothing, nothing.

Thérèse Saroyan: Yes, there is. In the car, you were very gay. Then you suddenly stopped talking, as if I had said something you didn't like.

Charlie Kohler: No, it's not anything you said. I just stopped talking when I realized you were not listening.
Charlie Kohler: I'm fed up, do you hear, fed up! This is not life for an artist! Of course, I'm not a real great artist, but people must believe in me in order that I may become one. Good God, is it asking too much?

Thérèse Saroyan: If you think it doesn't try one's patience to live with you, you're mistaken! Ah, your conversation has really improved in a year! If people ask you what you think of Hemingway: "I hear he is a great collector of my recordings."
Thérèse Saroyan: When you're lost in the night, you can't stop the shadows from closing in. It gets darker and darker. You feel trapped, you don't know what to do.
Thérèse Saroyan: You know how a spider works on her prey? It is as if he were cutting me in two. As if the heart were one thing and the body another.
Léna: If you want to be an angel, go and buy me a pair of stockings. Afterwards, we'll go and tell that dirty pig Plyne a thing or two. Get me "Scandal" stockings. Light tangerine, that's my shade.
Momo: Fido! It sounds like a dog's name!

Fido Saroyan: Fido means "faithful".
Richard Saroyan: If the loons could fly, he'd be a squadron leader!
Mammy: [Closing lines] Charlie, meet the new barmaid. Charlie! The piano player!

Shoot the Piano Player Quotes

Extended Reading

Shoot the Piano Player short comments

Fredrick 2022-03-27 09:01:21

Truffaut himself has an inferiority complex, so in the film, the pianist bought many books to overcome inferiority complex in the bookstore, which is actually a psychological portrayal of the director himself. Personally, I think the structure of this film is not very obvious, but there is one section that I think is more characteristic, that is, the montage used by the hero and heroine lying on the bed is very good.
Trycia 2022-04-24 07:01:25

It's a good movie, but if I didn't read the director's column, I might not have guessed it was Truffaut at all. It's too Hollywood. If it was Four Hundred Strikes Zu and Zhan, I wouldn't have such a feeling, except for the strangeness of some shots. Sihe did not really feel the "authority" in the previous paragraph of "not telling stories".