-
Robert de la Cheyniest: [to Schumacher] I have no choice but to dismiss you. It breaks my heart, but I can't expose my guests to your firearms. It may be wrong of them, but they value their lives.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Corneille! Put an end to this farce!
Corneille, le majordome: Which one, your lordship?
-
Octave: The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.
-
Octave: You know what? I feel like skedaddling. I want to disappear down a hole.
Robert de la Cheyniest: What for?
Octave: So as not to have to figure out what's right and what's wrong.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Excuse me you know you're no fool, you're a poet, a dangerous poet.
-
Octave: You have to understand, its the plight of all heroes today. In the air, they're terrific. But when they come back to earth, they're weak, poor, and helpless.
-
André Jurieux: Thats also part of the times, today everyone lies.
-
Lisette, sa camériste: Friendship with a man? That's asking for moonlight at midday.
-
Marceau, le braconnier: A laughing woman is disarmed, you can do what you like.
-
Octave: It's just unpleasant to be reminded what a failure I am.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Tell me, Lisette, how long have you been married?
Lisette, sa camériste: Almost two years, Madame.
Christine de la Cheyniest: That's true. How time flies! Are you happy?
Lisette, sa camériste: My husband's no trouble. He's in service at the château and I'm in Paris. With you, Madame, I'm very happy.
Christine de la Cheyniest: Do you have lovers?
Lisette, sa camériste: That's a big word.
Christine de la Cheyniest: Of course, you do.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Give me my evening lipstick.
Lisette, sa camériste: I don't know where it is.
Christine de la Cheyniest: Oh, yes, you do.
Lisette, sa camériste: I don't like it. Too purple. It doesn't look natural.
Christine de la Cheyniest: What's natural nowadays?
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: And your lovers... what do they say to you?
Lisette, sa camériste: Not much.
Christine de la Cheyniest: Do they kiss you?
Lisette, sa camériste: If I let them.
Christine de la Cheyniest: Do they hold your hand?
Lisette, sa camériste: It depends.
Christine de la Cheyniest: And then what?
Lisette, sa camériste: Then what? Same old story: The more you give, the more they want.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Telling lies is such a heavy weight to bear.
-
Un invité: What's on your mind?
Geneviève de Marras: A maxim by Chamfort. It could almost be a precept.
Un invité: What does he say?
Geneviève de Marras: "Love as it exists in society is merely the mingling of two whims and the contact of two skins."
-
Geneviève de Marras: Let's say we do split up. What would change with Christine?
Robert de la Cheyniest: Why, everything.
Geneviève de Marras: Nothing! She's remained so Austrian. A Parisian woman would understand. Not her. If she found out, it's not our affair she'd hold against you, but the fact that you lied from the start. She'd never forgive you.
Robert de la Cheyniest: I know.
Geneviève de Marras: Believe it or not, you mean a lot to me. I don't know if it's love or force of habit, but if you leave me, I'll be very unhappy, and I don't want to be.
-
Octave: I can and will look after her. She needs looking after. She's a foreigner among people who don't speak her language.
-
André Jurieux: If you want to make her happy, let her come with me. Because I love her. Seeing her with that idiot La Chesnaye! Him and his hunts, château and mechanical birds! Two-timing snob!
Octave: He may be a snob, but he's got his feet on the ground. Your head's in the clouds.
-
Octave: She's a society woman and society has strict rules!
-
Lisette, sa camériste: So, Mr. Octave! No hello?
Octave: Hello, Lisette.
[kiss on the neck]
Octave: Fresh as a rose.
Lisette, sa camériste: But you look awful.
-
Octave: Listen, my dear. You throw yourself around people's necks like a 12-year-old. You can do it with me. You'll always be my little Salzburg girl. But with others it can be - awkward.
Christine de la Cheyniest: So, in Paris, you can't show a man affection without...
Octave: No.
Christine de la Cheyniest: No?
-
Octave: So you'll invite him?
Christine de la Cheyniest: I'll invite him. I don't want to be the woman who drove to despair the great hero, the idol of the masses. If his plane crashes, they'll blame it on me. They'll call me a vamp, public enemy, obstacle to progress. They'll talk about "the foreigner." And I hate martyrs.
-
Octave: Christine, du bist ein Engel!
Christine de la Cheyniest: An angel?
Octave: A dangerous angel, but an angel nonetheless.
-
Octave: Lisette, cook me up two fried eggs, a big slice of ham and a glass of white wine. I'm starved!
-
Geneviève de Marras: Hello, Jackie. How you've grown!
Jackie, nièce de Christine: Think so?
Geneviève de Marras: You're studying Chinese, right?
Jackie, nièce de Christine: No, pre-Colombian art.
Geneviève de Marras: Sounds thrilling!
-
Le général: My dear Jurieu, I'm proud to shake your hand. Very proud. You're a man, a real man. It's a vanishing breed.
-
Geneviève de Marras: [to Andre] You didn't fly in? I must kiss you. Glad to see you here.
[kiss]
Jackie, nièce de Christine: May I kiss you too?
[kiss]
Madame Charlotte de la Plante: And me? And me?
[kiss]
Christine de la Cheyniest: And me. I'm entitled to.
[kiss]
-
Le général: We're here to hunt, not to write our memoirs.
-
Un invité: So, did they or didn't they?
Madame Charlotte de la Plante: They did.
Un invité: A pity. He's so elegant.
-
La servante: I'm all for doing as I like, but etiquette is etiquette.
-
Célestin, l'aide cuisinier: Did you get sea salt for La Bruyere?
Le cuisinier: She can eat like everybody else. Diets I can accept, but not obsessions.
-
L'invité sud-américain: The count wasn't a yid.
Marceau, le braconnier: Meaning what?
L'invité sud-américain: Only that La Chesnaye's grandfather was a Rosenthal from Frankfurt.
-
Monsieur La Bruyère: Speaking of Jews, I used to work for the Baron d'Epinay. There were no Jews there, but I can tell you they ate like pigs. That's why I quit.
-
Monsieur La Bruyère: La Chesnaye, yid as he may be, chewed me out recently over a potato salad. You know - or maybe you don't - that for it to be any good, you pour white wine over the potatoes when they're boiling hot. But Celestin was afraid of getting burned. Well, the boss sensed right off he hadn't done it. Say what you like, but that's what I call a real gentleman.
-
Le général: What's this pre-Colombian art? What are you studying?
Madame Charlotte de la Plante: American civilization before Columbus's arrival.
Le général: Oh, negroes!
Madame Charlotte de la Plante: No. There weren't any negroes yet.
Le général: Who was there?
Madame Charlotte de la Plante: The Indians.
Le général: What a goose I am! Buffalo Bill!
-
André Jurieux: You're the most deliciously clumsy of women.
[kiss]
Jackie, nièce de Christine: Am I?
André Jurieux: You are.
Jackie, nièce de Christine: I wish I were even clumsier.
André Jurieux: Why?
Jackie, nièce de Christine: So you'd kiss me more often.
André Jurieux: Easy enough.
[kiss]
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Fine. So you'll tell Christine everything. To what end?
Geneviève de Marras: To hurt you.
Robert de la Cheyniest: Charming of you!
Geneviève de Marras: I hate suffering alone. Misery loves company.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: I'm like the shepherd Paris without the apple. It's grotesque.
-
Geneviève de Marras: Please give me an answer.
Robert de la Cheyniest: No, I don't love you anymore. I'm fond of you, but...
Geneviève de Marras: But I bore you.
Robert de la Cheyniest: The words you come up with, my dear.
Geneviève de Marras: The right ones. I give up. You can fight hatred, but not boredom. Well, the whole thing's getting to me, too. Seeing you play shepherd to your Viennese shepherdess, makes me want to yawn.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Women should help each other out once in a while.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Andre's very kind and very decent, but too sincere. Sincere people are such bores.
Geneviève de Marras: It depends what for.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: I drank too much. I don't know what I'm doing.
Monsieur de St. Aubin: That's good.
-
Geneviève de Marras: Come here. I'll take your bearskin off.
Octave: About time!
-
Marceau, le braconnier: Women are charming. I like them a lot. Too much, in fact. But they spell trouble.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Ever wish you were an Arab?
Marceau, le braconnier: No. What for?
Robert de la Cheyniest: For the harem. Only Muslims show a little logic in matters of male-female relations. They're made like us.
Marceau, le braconnier: If you say so.
Robert de la Cheyniest: They always have a favorite. But they don't kick the others out and hurt their feelings.
Marceau, le braconnier: If you say so.
Robert de la Cheyniest: I don't want to hurt anyone, especially a woman. It's the story of my life.
-
Marceau, le braconnier: Whether it's to have a woman, leave her or hold on to her, first I make her laugh. That way, her guard's down and you have your way with her. Why don't give it a try?
Robert de la Cheyniest: Because it takes talent.
Marceau, le braconnier: Naturally.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Christine, I can't run off with the wife of a host who calls me friend and shakes my hand without an explanation.
André Jurieux: But since we're in love, what difference can it make?
Christine de la Cheyniest: Even so, Christine, there are still rules.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Where are you going?
Geneviève de Marras: To dance!
Robert de la Cheyniest: You can dance in bed.
Geneviève de Marras: Yes, my love. I'm going to bed.
-
Madame de la Bruyère: If Christine has the flu, try a footpath with mustard flour.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: My good man, I have to ask you to leave too. I can't dismiss Schumacher and leave you here with his wife. It'd be immoral, you understand?
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: Know what our little athletic display reminded me of? I sometimes read articles in the papers about some Italian roadwork trying to seduce a Polish laborer's wife. It ends in a stabbing. I never believed such things happened. But they do!
-
Lisette, sa camériste: You're not mad at me?
Christine de la Cheyniest: Not at all. It's not our fault if men are all mad.
-
Octave: That's also part of the times. Today everyone lies. Pharmaceutical fliers, governments, the radio, the movies, the newspapers. So why shouldn't simple people like us lie as well?
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: What's the matter?
Octave: Nothing. It's just unpleasant to be reminded what a failure I am. A leech! If I didn't have a few tolerant friends, I'd starve to death. But you know how when I was young, I also thought my day would come. The contact with an audience, that's what I wanted to have. It must be an overwhelming feeling. To think that I missed out on it! So I feed myself a lot of nonsense, imagine that it did happen. But it takes a drink.
-
Christine de la Cheyniest: Kiss me. On the mouth, like a lover.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: I believe in little, but I may start believing in friendship.
-
Lisette, sa camériste: For living together, the young are for the young and the old for the old.
-
Robert de la Cheyniest: I'm suffering and I just hate it.
-
Jackie, nièce de Christine: I can't bear it!
Lisette, sa camériste: Be strong, Miss Jackie. An educated young lady like you has to put on a brave face.
Christine de la Cheyniest: People are watching.
-
[last lines]
Monsieur de St. Aubin: A new definition of the word "accident."
Le général: No, no, no, no, no, no. This La Chesnaye has class. And that's become rare, my dear Saint-Aubin. That's become rare!
The Rules of the Game Quotes
Extended Reading
Director: Jean Renoir
Language: French,German,English Release date: April 8, 1950