Algy Quotes in The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

Algy: Bunbury? He was quite *exploded*.

Lady Bracknell: Exploded?

Algy: [pretending sadness] Mm.

Lady Bracknell: Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation.

Algy: My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was *found out*. The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live - that is what I mean - so Bunbury died.

Lady Bracknell: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.

Jack: I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

Algy: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

Algy: But why does your aunt call you her uncle?

[Reading cigarette case]

Algy: "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out.

Algy: Do you mean you couldn't love me if I had a different name?

Cecily: But what name?

Algy: Well... Algy, for instance.

Cecily: I might respect you, Earnest, I might admire your character, but I feel that I could never give you my undivided attention.

[in the end credits]

Jack: Algy, you're always talking nonsense.

Algy: It's better than listening to it.

Algy: I don't seem to care about anything anymore... I only care for you. I love you Cecily. Will you marry me?

Cecily: Why, of course! We've been engaged for the past 3 months!

Algy: ...3 months?

Jack: You don't think there's any chance of Gwendolyn becoming like her mother in about 150 years, do you Algy?

Algy: My dear fellow, all women become like their mothers, that's their tragedy. No man does, and that's his.

Algy: I really don't see what is so romantic about proposing. One may be accepted - one usually is, I believe - and then the excitement is ended. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Algy: The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

[while Algy is pretending to be Jack's brother]

Jack: [whispering] Algy! Algy! Algy!

[Algy looks around, as if wondering who Jack's calling]

Jack: Ernest.

Algy: Ah, good morning, dear fellow.

Jack: Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.

Algy: But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins!

Jack: I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.

Algy: That may be, but the muffins are the same!

Jack: How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't make out! It seems to me to be perfectly heartless...

Algy: I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

Algy: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

Lane: I didn't think it polite to listen, Sir.

[over the end credits, Algy and Jack rehearse their song to win back their girls]

Jack: I think your high notes may have damaged our chances, old boy. You do want them to come down, don't you?

Algy: Well, they're never going to come down while you're singing like that, you're completely out of tune.

Jack: How dare you.

Algy: I'll take this next bit.

Jack: You leave this one to me, you go and have a lie-down.

Algy: I'm doing it.

Jack: Move out of my way, I'm coming through.

Algy: Go easy, my dear fellow...

Jack: [singing] COME DO-O-O-O-WN, LADY COME DOWN...

Algy: Overdoing it, less is more.

Algy: [to Jack] You are *the* most advanced Bunburyist I know.

Algy: Where's Knuckles? Isn't he is gonna to eat?

Danny: He's takin' a bath.

Muggs: That kid's gonna get sick from washin' himself so much.

Algy: Oh, I guess we owe you an apology, Simps.

Muggs: Yeah, maybe we owe it to 'im, but I ain't givin' it to 'im.

Danny: [to simp] So long as it's on the cuff, you can have mine, too.