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Joseph Balsamo: I am here to inform these Modern Times of the Grammatical Era's end and the beginning of Flamboyance, especially in cinema.
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Corinne: Didn't you heard what he said? Marx says we're all brothers!
Roland: Marx didn't said that. Some other communist said that. Jesus said that.
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Roland: What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people.
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Saint-Just: [in the midst of a bourgeois' car collision] From French Revolutions to Gaullist weekends, freedom is violence.
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Corinne: This isn't a novel, this is a film. A film is life.
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Corinne: It's rotten of us, isn't it? We've no right to burn even a philosopher.
Roland: Can't you see they're only imaginary characters?
Corinne: Why is she crying, then?
Roland: No idea. Let's go.
Corinne: We're little more than that ourselves.
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Woman in Car: Are you in a film or in reality?
Roland: In a film.
Man in Car: In a film? You lie too much.
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Corinne's Lover: Is Roland getting suspicious? He gives me funny looks at times.
Corinne: No, I let him screw me sometimes, so he thinks I love him.
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Roland: Sure I love you. You're my splendid bitch, you know that.
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Corinne: It wasn't like a women's magazine romance. I don't know... his eyes were so hard... his mouth, his words. He started in the Mercedes. I told him I went for him. I wanted more than a quick screw. We ought to meet again somewhere. Cuddling in cars is dreary. I said to take me home and I'd call him in the afternoon. I wanted to screw, but I'd rather wait.
Roland: What did he say?
Corinne: He talked about my body, and how I turned him on and how it was vulgar and unkind.
Roland: Did you think of me, too?
Corinne: Of course I did.
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Corinne: I was tired and very cold. I realize now I wasn't drunk at all. I wanted him to screw me then - anywhere, even in the lift. But I didn't say anything. His shoulder touched one of my breasts when he shut the lift door.
Roland: Why?
Corinne: It just did.
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Corinne: I went with Monique to her room. Not bad. There was a fire. I took off my raincoat. Monique looked at me. She asked why I seemed to be shivering, if I was cold I could undress. No need to feel embarrassed. Then she helped me.
Roland: To do what?
Corinne: Take off my skirt and pullover.
Roland: I see.
Corinne: I was in my bra and panties. I went to the fire. My back was to her, but I knew she was watching me. I asked why and she said nothing. She didn't reply, so I turned around. She was by the window, her back to me. She sensed my gaze. She took off her dressing gown. She was naked. She asked if I thought her bottom was too big. I said no. She turned around, parted her legs and asked me to describe them. I said she had white thighs and her bush was a black smudge above them. She called Paul. She came up behind me.
Roland: Why?
Corinne: To unhook my bra. Then Paul came in. Wearing pajamas, the coat open. He had a bottle of whiskey. He made me drink. Then he told Monique to go on.
Roland: What was she doing?
Corinne: Fondling my breasts.
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Corinne: Paul stripped off too, and flaunted his penis for me. He told Monique to take off my panties. He made me kneel and put my head between Monique's legs. Now my back was turned to Paul. I remember she was describing my buttocks and he gazed at them all the time then came closer and fingered them. The rest of the bottle was poured over my back. I felt the liquid run between my buttock. Paul knelt down and began to lick my ass. It wasn't unpleasant. It was quite wonderful. I felt Monique's bush against my neck, her hair mingling with my hair. While her husband caressed my buttocks, she put my hands on her buttocks and she fondled my breasts again. I felt her buttocks open to receive my fingers, then close upon them.
Roland: And you?
Corinne: They wanted me to talk about it, so that my sensations excited them.
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Corinne: Only Gitanes? No American cigarettes?
Roland: In my jacket.
Corinne: None left.
Roland: Take a Gitane.
Corinne: I can't bear them.
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Corinne: After a while, Paul asked Monique to change places with me. She kissed my bush while I helped Paul screw her from behind.
Roland: And that was all?
Corinne: Then we watched each other masturbate. Then Paul cried: "To the kitchen, pussies!"
Roland: What for?
Corinne: I'm telling you. On the fridge there was a dish of milk for the cat. Monique said: "What will you bet me to sit in the dish?" "I bet you wouldn't dare, " said Paul. She climbed on the sink, level with the fridge, and sat in the dish. Never taking her eyes off us, she ordered us to masturbate.
Roland: Is that all?
Corinne: Paul told me to stop just as I was coming and to climb up on the sink, too, and kneel in front of Monique. Then he took an egg from the fridge. I licked Monique's pussy, in the milk and he put an egg between my buttocks. When I came the egg broke and ran down my legs.
Roland: Is this true or a nightmare?
Corinne: I don't know.
Roland: I adore you, Corinne.
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Roland: Toffee-nosed little bitch!
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Joseph Balsamo: Silence! Even God has His police.
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Roland: We're married. We screw legally.
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Joseph Balsamo: Tell me your name, Madame.
Corinne: Me? I'm Corinne Durand.
Joseph Balsamo: Durand's your husband's name. What is yours?
Corinne: My maiden name? Corinne Dupont.
Joseph Balsamo: Dupont is your father's name. What's yours?
Corinne: I don't know.
Joseph Balsamo: You see, you don't even know who you are.
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Joseph Balsamo: Christianity is the refusal of self-knowledge, the death of language.
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Joseph Balsamo: Anything you wish, if you'll take me to London.
Roland: A big Mercedes sports car?
Joseph Balsamo: Yes.
Corinne: An Yves St Laurent evening dress?
Joseph Balsamo: Yes.
Roland: A Miami Beach hotel.
Corinne: Make me a blonde, a natural blonde.
Roland: A squadron of Mirage IVs, like the yids used to trash the wogs.
Corinne: A weekend with James Bond.
Joseph Balsamo: Is that all you want? You creeps, I'll give you nothing.
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Emily Bronte: Poor pebble. Ignored by architecture, sculpture, mosaic and jewelry. It dates from the beginning of the planet, perhaps from another star. Warped by space, like the stigmata of its terrible fall. It predates man. And man has not embodied it in his art or industry. He did not manufacture it and thus decide its place. The pebble perpetuates nothing more than its own memory.
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Emily Bronte: Cover the flowers in flame, stroke their hair, teach them to read!
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Roland: We know nothing.
Corinne: Yes. We're totally ignorant of ourselves.
Roland: We're totally ignorant of what this worm is.
Corinne: We're both enigmas.
Roland: Anyone who denies it is the most ignorant of all. Anyone who denies it is the most ignorant of all.
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Roland: A little torture will change her mind. I remember a few tricks from when I was a lieutenant in Algeria.
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Corinne: Isn't that a truck coming?
Roland: Quick, off with those trousers and lie down in the road! Raise your knees! Open them wide, you fool!
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Le pianiste: There's two sorts of music: music you listen to and music you don't. Mozart you listen to. Just imagine all the royalties the poor man would get nowadays. Music you don't listen to is what's called modern "serious" music. No one goes to the concerts. Real modern music, paradoxically, is based on Mozart's harmonies. You hear bits of Mozart in Dario Moreno, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or whatever. Fundamentally Mozart harmonies. Modern "serious" music looked for others, resulting in what is probably the biggest disaster in the history of art.
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Roland: We'll find the way in the end.
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Roland: Are you going Oinville way?
Woman in Car: Would you rather be screwed by Mao or Johnson?
Roland: Johnson, of course.
Woman in Car: Drive on, Jean. He's a Fascist.
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Title Card: A FILM ADRIFT IN THE COSMOS
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Title Card: A FILM FOUND IN A DUMP
Weekend Quotes
Extended Reading