Clopin Quotes in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

[describing the bells]

Clopin: Listen. They're beautiful, no? So many colors of sound, so many changing moods. Because, you know, they do not ring all by themselves.

Puppet: They don't?

Clopin: No, you silly boy. Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mysterious bell ringer. Who is this creature?

Puppet: Who?

Clopin: What is he?

Puppet: What?

Clopin: How did he come to be there?

Puppet: How?

Clopin: Hush!

Puppet: Ow!

Clopin: Clopin will tell you. It is a tale, a tale of a man, and a monster.

Clopin: [singing] Now that we've seen all the evidence...

Puppet: Wait! I object!

Clopin: Overruled!

Puppet: I object!

Clopin: QUIET!

Puppet: Dang.

Clopin: [singing] We find you totally innocent... which is the worst crime of all...

Gypsies: SO YOU'RE GOING TO HANG!

Clopin: [to Quasimodo and Phoebus] Don't interrupt me! You're very clever to have found our hideaway. Unfortunately, you won't live to tell the tale.

Clopin: [singing] Now here is a riddle / To guess if you can / Sing the bells of Notre Dame / Who is the monster / And who is the man?/ Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells / Bells of Notre Dame

Clopin: [singing] Once a year we throw a party here in town / Once a year we turn all Paris upside-down / Every man's a king and every king's a clown / Once again it's Topsy-turvy Day!

Clopin: And Frollo gave the child a cruel name, a name that means "half-formed" - Quasimodo.

Clopin: [to the Gypsies] Gather around, everyone. There's "good noose" tonight! It's a double-header. A couple of Frollo's spies.

[Gypsies boo]

Clopin: And not just any spies. His captain of the guards, and his loyal, bell-ringing henchman.

Clopin: [singing] Justice is swift in the Court of Miracles / I am the lawyers and judge all in one / We like to get the trial over with quickly / Because it's the sentence that's really the fun!

[Opening lines]

Clopin: [singing] Morning in Paris, the city awakes / To the bells of Notre Dame / The fisherman fishes, the bakerman bakes / To the bells of Notre Dame / To the big bells as loud as the thunder / To the little bells soft as a psalm / And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells / The bells of Notre Dame.

Man In Crowd: That's no mask.

Woman In Crowd: It's his face! He's hideous!

Man In Crowd: It's the bellringer from Notre Dame!

[the crowd gasps in fright]

Quasimodo: Oh! Oh! Oh!

[buries his face in his hands]

Clopin: [appearing onstage reassuring the audience, then soon crowning Quasi] Ladies and gentlemen, don't panic. We asked for the ugliest face in Paris, and here he is! Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame!

Crowd: [sings] Come one, come all! / Leave your looms and milking stools / Coop the hens and pen the mules. / Come one, come all! / Close the churches and the schools / It's the day for breaking rules / Come and join the feast of...

Clopin: [sings] Fools!

Clopin: Three cheers for Quasimodo!

Clopin: [singing] So, here is a riddle to guess if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame: What makes a monster and what makes a man? Whatever their pitch, you feel them bewitch you, the rich and the ritual knells of the bells of Notre Dame.

Clopin: [after Esmeralda's dance at the Festival of Fools] And now, ladies and gentlemen, the pi-ece de resistance!

Clopin: Try to take a purse out of that pocket, but if one single bell jingles, you fail.

Gringoire: And then?

Clopin: And then you hang!

Gringoire: [pondering for a moment] Can you do it?

Clopin: I'm above that sort of thing. I cut throats. I don't cut purses.

Clopin: [to Gringoire immediately following flogging of Quasimodo] Never trust a man with pinched nostrils and thin lips.