Madeleine Quotes in Quills (2000)

Madeleine: Some things belong on paper, others in life. It's a blessed fool who can't tell the difference.

Madeleine: If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, I couldn't be such a good woman in life.

Madeleine: You can't be a proper writer without a touch of madness, can you?

Madeleine: How can we know who is good - and who is evil?

Coulmier: All we can do is guard against our own corruption.

Coulmier: But why must you indulge in his pornography?

Madeleine: It's a hard days' wages slaving away for madmen, what I've seen in life - it takes a lot to hold my interest.

Madeleine: Your publisher says I'm not to leave without another manuscript.

Marquis de Sade: I've just the story. It's the unhappy tale... of a virginal laundry lass. The darling of the lower wards where they entomb the criminally insane.

Madeleine: Is it awfully violent?

Marquis de Sade: Most assuredly.

Madeleine: Is it terribly erotic?

Marquis de Sade: Fiendishly so. But it comes with a price. A kiss for each page.

Madeleine: It's a sin against God for me to refuse your kindness. But my heart's held fast here...

Coulmier: By whom? The Marquis?

Madeleine: Mother's not half so blind as you.

Madeleine: He's a writer, not a madman.

Madeleine: Don't come any closer Abbe, God's watching.

Coulmier: There are certain things... feelings... we must not voice.

Madeleine: Why?

Coulmier: They incite us to act on what we should not... cannot.

Madeleine: [reading from a page] His greast conquest was a woman six decades his senior, and a dozen years deceased. He made love with such vigor that it dislodged her bones, and yet he afforded her the highest compliment he afforded any woman.

[long, suspenseful pause]

Madame LeClerc: Well, go on!

Madeleine: "Well worth the dig!"

Madeleine: St Paul says that he who marries does a good thing, but he who remains chaste does something better.

Grandier: Then I am content to do a good thing and leave the best to those that can face it.

Madeleine: I am a simple person I see the world as I have been taught,yet I would not be afraid to go before god with you even in our sin.

Grandier: You shame me.

Madeleine: Could you just not breathe?

Helen: Oh, gosh, I'm glad you came. I didn't know if you would. I spoke to my PR woman and she said Madeleine Ashton goes to the opening of an envelope. Oh, those people can be so cruel!

Madeleine: Mmmm.

Helen: I fired her.

Madeleine: [pleased] Oh!

Helen: Well, I almost fired her.

Madeleine: You're dressed. Special occasion?

Madeleine: Look at you. You have a... waist.

Madeleine: I just want you to know one thing...

[Madeleine points gun at Helen]

Madeleine: You brought this on yourself.

Ernest: Madeleine!

[Madeleine shoots Helen and Ernest screams]

Madeleine: Oh, it's you.

Ernest: Fine, dear, thank you, like a rock.

Madeleine: Do you know that they do to soft, bald, overweight Republicans in prison, Ernest?

Madeleine: You should learn not to compete with me. I always win!

Helen: You may have always won, but you never played fair!

Madeleine: Who cares how I played? I won!

Madeleine: I... fell down the stairs

Emergency Room Doctor: Whoopsie!

Madeleine: Tell me, doctor. Do you think I'm starting to need you?

Madeleine: I was born in Japan.

Ashley: You were not!

Madeleine: [Madeleine is helping Johnny with his book report on Huckleberry Finn] Their relationship is Huck's gradual love affair with this slave is a major theme...

Johnny Johnsten: Wa-wa-wait, they fall in love with each other? I don't think you're talking about the right book...

[laughs nervously]

Madeleine: I even bite my toenails.

Ashley: You do not!

Madeleine: Did they sign a contract?

Bernadette: It wasn't clear; all I know is they were obviously influenced by someone's, you know, high-falutin' talkin'.

Madeleine: You like this one?

George Johnsten: Makes me happy... but I'm gonna buy the UFO.

Madeleine: Why do I bother with a man who keeps a possum in his glove compartment?

Larry: Wally's in the glove box? Wally! Wally!

Larry: You know, the only way to get them folks to back off is if you give them the key to the access codes.

Madeleine: Or if I'm dead.

Larry: Wait a minute. Sure, I can kill ya. Then I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Madeleine: Are you trying to imply that you didn't just break wind?

Larry: That little squeak? That was all you, sugar. Believe me, if I let one fly, they'll pick that up on the Doppler.

Larry: Wait here.

Madeleine: Alone?

Larry: If I get killed or captured or knocked in the head with a ball peen hammer, call Doc Savage.

Madeleine: On my two-way wrist TV?

Larry: That's Dick Tracy. Rondog Savage. My brother-in-law. He's the medical examiner around this area.

Madeleine: I give up this mother bullshit, it's not worth it! You're all a mistake anyway!

Claudia: Madeleine, Louis is shy.

Madeleine: Drink.

Claudia: Do it, Louis, because I cannot, I haven't the strength. You saw to that when you made me.

Louis: You haven't the vaguest conception under God what you ask.

Madeleine: Au contraire, Monsieur, I have.

Claudia: You have found your new companion, Louis. You will make me mine.

Madeleine: Poor Elise. There will be nothing left of her.

Guy Foucher: It's the opposite. She will be part of everything we do.

Madeleine: Are you happy?

Guy Foucher: Very happy, and it's all thanks to you, Madeleine.

Guy Foucher: You have no family. Don't you want to stay here?

Madeleine: What will I do?

Guy Foucher: You'll help me. I'll be lonely.

Madeleine: You don't need anyone.

Guy Foucher: I need you, Madeleine.

Madeleine: Why don't you just say you don't like being alone? I don't see what I could do. I have no influence over you.

Guy Foucher: That's not true.

Madeleine: I don't like what you've become. You hang around with nothing to do. You're sad and bitter.

Madeleine: Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

Madeleine: Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice.

Scottie: I love you, Madeleine.

Madeleine: I love you, too. It's too late.

Scottie: No, no, we're together.

Madeleine: It's too late. There's something I must do...

Scottie: [kisses her passionately] No, there is nothing you must do. There is nothing you must do. No one possesses you. You're safe with me.

Madeleine: [frantically] No, it's too late

[Madeleine breaks free and runs across the courtyard. Scottie trails behind her, eventually catching up to her. He holds her tightly]

Madeleine: Look, it's not fair. It's too late. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It *shouldn't* have happened...

Scottie: But it had to happen. We're in love. That's all that counts!

Madeleine: [struggling] Look. Let me go! Please let me go!

Scottie: Listen to me. Listen to me.

Madeleine: [calmly] You believe I love you?

Scottie: Yes.

Madeleine: And if you lose me, then you'll know I, I loved you. And I wanted to go on loving you.

Scottie: I won't lose you.

Madeleine: Let me go into the church - alone.

Scottie: Why?

[they kiss for the last time. Scottie releases his grip and Madeleine walks away towards the bell tower]

Scottie: I hope we will, too.

Madeleine: What?

Scottie: Meet again sometime.

Madeleine: We have.

Madeleine: Oh Scottie. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I don't want to die. There's someone within me and she says I must die. Oh Scottie, don't let me go.

Scottie: I'm here. I've got you.

Madeleine: I'm so afraid.

[Scottie and Madeleine kiss]

Madeleine: Don't leave me. Stay with me.

Scottie: All the time.

Madeleine: There is something I must do, there is something I must do.

Scottie: There is nothing you must do. There is nothing you must do.