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[describing how she became the French Lieutenant's mistress]
Sarah: Soon he no longer bothered to hide the nature of his intensions towards me. Nor could I pretend surprise. My innocence was false from the moment I chose to stay. I could tell you that he overpowered me, or that he drugged me. But it is not so. I gave myself to him. I did it - so that I should never be the same again.
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Dr. Grogan: [quoting Dr. Hartmann's treatise on melancholia] "It was as if her torture had become her delight."
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Charles Henry Smithson: [to Sarah] There is talk in the town of committing you to an institution.
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Charles Henry Smithson: [to Ernestina] I can assure you, the true charm of this world resides in this garden.
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Sarah: [describing how she became the French Lieutenant's mistress] He was all that a lover should be. I had not eaten that day, he took me to a private sitting room, ordered food. But, he had changed. He was full of smiles and caresses, but, I knew at once that he was insincere. I saw that I had been - an amusement for him. Nothing more. I saw all this within - five minutes of our meeting. Yet I stayed.
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Sarah: I knew it was ordained that I should never marry an equal; so, I married shame. It is my shame that has kept me alive - my knowing that I am truly not like other women. I - I shall never, like them, have - children and a husband, and the pleasures of a home. Sometimes I pity them. I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame, can touch me. I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing. I am hardly human any more. I am the French lieutenant's - whore!
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Anna: [reads from a book] In 1857, it's estimated there were 80,000 prostitutes in the county of London.
Mike: Yeah?
Anna: Out of every 60 houses, one was a brothel.
Mike: Hoo, hoo, hoo.
Anna: At a time when the male population of London of all ages was one and a quarter million, the prostitutes were receiving clients at a rate of two million per week.
Mike: Two million?
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Sarah: Do what you will. Or what you must. Now that I know there was truly a day upon which you loved me, I can bear anything.
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Sarah: I have long imagined a day such as this. I have longed for it. I was lost from the moment I saw you.
Charles Henry Smithson: I too.
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Sarah: Do what you will or what you must. Now that I know there was truly a day upon which you loved me, I can bear anything. You have given me the strength to live.
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Charles Henry Smithson: This isn't mistletoe, but it will do, will it not?
Ernestina: Oh, Charles. Oh! Oh! Oh!
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Ernestina: What dress shall I wear?
Mary: Oh, your pink. It's so lovely, Miss. You look pretty as a picture in your pink.
Ernestina: Yes. Yes, my pink!
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Anna: They know. They know that you're in my room.
Mike: In your bed. I want them to know.
Anna: Christ, look at the time. They'll fire me for immorality. They'll think I'm a whore.
Mike: You are.
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Charles Henry Smithson: He was very respectful of what he called - my position as a scientist and a gentleman. In fact, he asked me about my work. But as I didn't think that fossils were quite in his line, I gave him a brief discourse on the theory of evolution instead.
Ernestina: [laughs] How wicked of you!
Charles Henry Smithson: Yes, he didn't think very much of it, I admit. In fact, he ventured the opinion that Mr. Darwin should be exhibited in a cage in the zoological gardens. In the monkey house.
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Charles Henry Smithson: Shall we return? The wind is getting very strong.
Ernestina: I thought you might welcome a reason to hold my hand without impropriety.
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Charles Henry Smithson: Good Lord! What on earth is she doing?
Mrs. Tranter: Oh. It's poor "Tragedy".
Charles Henry Smithson: "Tragedy"?
Mrs. Tranter: The fishermen have a grosser name for her.
Charles Henry Smithson: What?
Mrs. Tranter: They call her "the French lieutenant's - woman".
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Charles Henry Smithson: Tell me, who is this - French lieutenant?
Ernestina: He is a man she's said to have...
Charles Henry Smithson: Fallen in love with?
Ernestina: Worse than that.
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Mrs. Poulteney: The post of companion requires a person of irreproachable moral character. I have my servants to consider.
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Mrs. Poulteney: You speak French, I believe?
Sarah: I do, ma'am.
Mrs. Poulteney: I do not like the French.
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Mrs. Poulteney: Mr Forsythe informs me that you - retain an attachment to a - foreign person. I have heard from the most impeccable witnesses that you're always to be seen at the same place when you're out. You stand on the Cobb and look to sea. I have been encouraged to believe that you're in a state of repentance; but, I must emphasize that such staring out to sea is provocative, intolerable, and sinful.
Sarah: If you consider me unsuitable for this position, Mrs. Poulteney, do you wish me to leave the house?
Mrs. Poulteney: I wish you to show - that this person - is expunged from your heart!
Sarah: How am I to show it?
Mrs. Poulteney: By not exhibiting your shame!
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Mike: The male population was one and a quarter million?
Anna: Yeah.
Mike: Well, if we take away a third for children and old men, that means that, outside of marriage your Victorian gentleman could look forward to 2.4 fucks a week!
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Anna: This man says that hundreds of the prostitutes were nice girls, like governesses, who'd lost their jobs. That's it. You offend your boss, you lose your job, you've got no choice, you're out on the streets. That's the reality.
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Charles Henry Smithson: Do you know that lady?
Dairyman: Aye.
Charles Henry Smithson: Does she come this way often?
Dairyman: Often enough. But she be no lady. She be the French lieutenant's whore.
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Ernestina: Where is Mr Charles?
Mary: Dunno, Miss. Didn't ask him.
Ernestina: Ask who?
Mary: His servin' man, Miss.
Ernestina: But I heard you speak with him.
Mary: Yes, Miss.
Ernestina: What about?
Mary: Oh, it was just the time of day, Miss.
Ernestina: You will kindly remember that he comes from *London*.
Mary: Yes, Miss.
Ernestina: If he makes advances, I wish to be told at once. Now bring me some barley water.
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Charles Henry Smithson: It's really not necessary to hide.
Sarah: No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme.
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Mrs. Poulteney: You are a cunning, wicked creature!
Sarah: May I know of what I am accused?
Mrs. Poulteney: You have been seen walking on the Undercliff! Not twice, but thrice!
Sarah: But what, pray, is the sin in that?
Mrs. Poulteney: The sin? You, a young woman alone, in such a place?
Sarah: It is nothing but a large wood.
Mrs. Poulteney: I know very well what it is. And what goes on there, the sort of person who frequents it.
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Ernestina: I must say, Mrs Poulteney, you look exceedingly well.
Mrs. Poulteney: At my age, Miss Freeman, spiritual health is all that counts.
Ernestina: Then I have no fears for you.
Mrs. Poulteney: With gross disorders on the streets, it becomes ever more necessary to protect the sacredness of one's beliefs.
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Mrs. Poulteney: Mr Smithson, even a disciple of Darwin, such as I understand you to be, could not fail to notice the rise of the animal about us. It no doubt pleases you, since it would accord with your view that we're all monkeys!
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Sarah: I have sinned. You cannot imagine my suffering. My only happiness is when I sleep. When I wake, the nightmare begins.
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Dr. Grogan: Do you approve of my telescope?
Charles Henry Smithson: It is most elegant.
Dr. Grogan: I use it to keep an eye out for mermaids.
[laughs]
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Charles Henry Smithson: Palaeontology is my interest. I gather it is not yours.
Dr. Grogan: When we know more of the living, it will be time to pursue the dead.
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Dr. Grogan: We know more about your fossils on the beach than we do about that girl's mind.
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Charles Henry Smithson: She has confided the true state of her mind to no one?
Dr. Grogan: She has not.
Charles Henry Smithson: But if she did? I mean, if she could bring herself - to speak?
Dr. Grogan: She would be cured. But she does not want to be cured.
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Sarah: He was handsome. No man had ever paid me the kind of attentions he did as he was - recovering. He told me I was beautiful - and that he could not understand why I was not married. Such things. He would mock me - lightly. I took *pleasure* in it.
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Dr. Grogan: I am a young woman of superior intelligence and some education. I am not in full command of my emotions. What is worse, I have fallen in love with being a victim of fate. Enter a young god. Intelligent, good-looking. Kind. My one weapon is the pity I inspire in him.
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Dr. Grogan: I have known many prostitutes. I hasten to add, in pursuance of my own profession, not theirs. And I wish I had a guinea for every one of them I have heard gloat over the fact that their victims were husbands and fathers.
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Dr. Grogan: Do you wish to hear her? Do you wish to see her? Do you wish to touch her?
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Charles Henry Smithson: Pray control yourself.
Sarah: I cannot! I cannot!
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Charles Henry Smithson: You are a remarkable person, Miss Woodruff.
Sarah: Yes, I am a remarkable person.
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Dr. Grogan: [placing his hand on Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of the Species"] Nothing that has been said in this room tonight, or that remains to be said, will go beyond these walls.
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Charles Henry Smithson: Ernestina, I know our private affections are the paramount consideration; but, there is also a - legal and contractual side to matrimony which is...
Ernestina: Fiddlesticks!
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Charles Henry Smithson: I shall be back in three days.
Ernestina: Kiss me, then - to seal your promise.
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Sir Tom: Bravo! Port is essential to wash down the claret.
Nathaniel: As claret was essential to wash down the punch.
Sir Tom: As punch was essential to sluice the champagne.
Nathaniel: What follows?
Sir Tom: What follows?
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Sarah: I did follow him to Weymouth, to the inn. As I drew near I saw him come out with a woman. The kind of woman one cannot mistake.
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Sarah: I have long imagined a day such as this. I have longed for it. I was lost from the moment I saw you.
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Charles Henry Smithson: I've come to tell you the truth.
Ernestina: The truth? What truth?
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Ernestina: I know I am spoilt. I know I am not unusual.
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Montague: My guess is we will be asked to make a 'confessio delicti'.
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Davide: Have they decided how they are going to end the movie?
Mike: End it?
Davide: I hear they keep changing the script.
Mike: No, not at all. Where did you hear that?
Davide: Well, there are two endings in the book. A happy ending and an unhappy ending, no?
Mike: We're going for the first ending. I mean the second ending.
Davide: Which one is that?
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Sonia: Good to meet you.
Anna: And you.
Sonia: Good luck with the last scene.
-
Sarah: There was madness in me at that time. A bitterness, an envy. I forced myself on you, knowing that you had other obligations. It was unworthy! I suddenly saw after you had gone that I had to destroy what had begun between us!
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Sarah: You misjudge me! It has taken me this time to find my own life! It has taken me this time to find - my freedom.
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Sarah: I called you here to ask your forgiveness. You loved me once. If you still love me, you can forgive me. I know - I know it is your perfect right to damn me.
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[last lines]
Mike: Sarah!
The French Lieutenant's Woman Quotes
Extended Reading
Director: Karel Reisz
Language: English Release date: October 16, 1981