Marianne Quotes in Bird on a Wire (1990)

Rick Jarmin: What does it matter to you - you're happily married?

Marianne Graves: I'm not.

Rick: Not happy?

Marianne: Not married.

[from trailer]

[fight]

Bog King: You fight well!

Marianne: I wish I could say the same about you!

Bog King: What do you mean?

Marianne: I don't know, I was expecting... more.

[smiles at Bog King]

Bog King: What?

Fairy King: [escorting Marianne to the dance] Please smile.

Marianne: [sighs; then smiles a wide, uncomfortable smile at the King]

Fairy King: A real smile.

Marianne: [through her teeth] This is one of my better ones.

[from trailer]

Marianne: There's a higher power that will judge you for your indecency.

Olive Penderghast: Tom Cruise?

Olive Penderghast: Don't you think it's a little strange that your boyfriend is 22 years old and still in high school?

Marianne: Not that it's any of your busniess, trollop, but he is here by choice.

Olive Penderghast: So it's his choice that he's a fourth year senior who can't pass any test he takes?

Marianne: No, silly,

[points up]

Marianne: His. His, with a capital H. If God wanted him to graduate, then God would have given him the right answers.

Olive Penderghast: [laughs] I'm sorry, but you gotta be shittin' me, woman.

Marianne: I just hope for your sake you had the good sense to use protection.

Olive Penderghast: Why? Your parents didn't.

Marianne: I hope for your sake, God has a sense of humor.

Olive Penderghast: Oh, I have sixteen years worth of anecdotal proof that He does.

Olive Penderghast: [about the Cross Your Heart Club] Last year's cause celebre was the changing of the school mascot,

Principal Gibbons: [Cut to basketball game, last year] Give it up for your very own BLUE DEVILS!

[crowd screams]

Woodchuck Todd: WOOO! Blue Devils!

[does a flip and scores a basket]

Woodchuck Todd: Yeah! Wooo!

Marianne: [Cut to Marianne handing out pamphlets] How can we exhibit school pride when we're conveyed to others as Satan worshipers?

Olive Penderghast: Now, thankfully, we're the much less intimidating...

Principal Gibbons: [Cut to game, this year] Give it up for the woodchucks!

[Crowd is silent]

Woodchuck Todd: The woodchucks! Ar-ra-ra!

[pretends to chuck wood]

Woodchuck Todd: Wooo!

Rhiannon: I liked Todd much better when he was topless.

Marianne: You're going to hell!

Olive Penderghast: Just as long as *you* won't be there

Marianne: [Forceful] I can assure you; I won't.

Marianne: Seems as if someone's on a downward spiral.

[stapling papers]

Olive Penderghast: Seems as if someone's practicing the mundane activity she'll be saddled with the rest of her pathetic life.

Marianne: [to Olive] You've made your bed... I just hope for your sake, you've cleaned the sheets.

Prof. Robert O. Sutwell: Marianne, this book will be my triumph.

Marianne: And you'll never get it though the mail. But hang on to the picture rights, I'm sure American International will snap it up in a minute.

Marianne: He's the most sexual man I've ever known.

Phyllis: How many men have you known?

Marianne: Two.

Marianne: You're too stuck on yourself to be jealous.

Marianne: Is your wife an actress?

Lucky Mann: All the time.

Marianne: I love the way you smell-like a man! Jeffrey smells like soap.

Marianne: My husband won't have sex with me either... or he can't. He hasn't said which.

Ferdinard, Marianne: Why do you look so sad? Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.

Ferdinard: We'll just stop anywhere.

Marianne: And do what all day? No, let's find my brother. He'll give us tons of dough. Then we'll find ourselves a high-class hotel and have some fun!

Ferdinard: [breaking the fourth wall] All she thinks about is fun.

Marianne: Who are you talking to?

Ferdinard: The audience.

Marianne: Ah.

Marianne: That's what makes me sad: life is so different from books. I wish it were the same: clear, logical, organized.

Ferdinard: I wonder what's keeping the cops. We should be in jail by now.

Marianne: They're smart... They let people destroy themselves.

Marianne: What are you doing?

Ferdinard: [looking at the mirror] Looking at myself.

Marianne: And what do you see?

Ferdinard: The face of a man who's driving towards a cliff at 100 km/h.

Marianne: [turns the mirror towards herself] I see a woman who is in love with the man who's driving towards a cliff at 100 km/h.

Ferdinard: So let's kiss.

Ferdinard, Marianne: I can never have a real conversation with you. You never have ideas, only feelings. That's not true. There are ideas in feelings.

Marianne: Look at the last page, there's a little poem about you. It's by me.

Ferdinard: Tender... and cruel... real... and surreal... terrifying... and funny nocturnal... and diurnal usual... and unusual handsome as anyone

Marianne: Pierrot le Fou !

Ferdinard: My name is Ferdinand. I have told you often enough. Christ almighty ! You bore me to death !

Ferdinard: Leave a woman and she'll claim you're off your nut.

Marianne: Oh, men are the same way.

Ferdinard: That's true.

Ferdinard: You see? I was right

Marianne: What about?

Ferdinard: You didn't believe we'd always be in love.

Marianne: No. I didn't...

[singing]

Marianne: I never told you I'd love you all my life. Oh my love, you never swore to adore me all your life. We never made promises like that, knowing me knowing you. We never thought we ever would be caught by love fickle as we were. And yet, and yet, step by step, without a word between us, bit by bit, feelings slipped between our merry mingle bodies and words of love rose to our naked lips. Bit by bit lots of words of love began to mingle gently with our kisses. How many words of love? I never would have thought I'd always want you. Oh my love, we never would have thought we two could live together and not get bored. Wake up every morning and be just as surprised to be just as happy in the same bed, desire nothing more than that oh so banal pleasure of feeling so good to be together. And yet, and yet, step by step without a word between us, bit by bit our feelings bound us tight in spite of ourselves, bound us tight forever Feelings stronger than any words of love known or unknown. Feelings so wild and so strong. Feelings we never thought were possible before. Don't ever promise to adore me all your life. Let's not make promises like that knowing me knowing you. Let's keep the feeling that this love of ours, this love of ours, will be short and sweet.

[stops singing]

Ferdinard: Anyway, we'll know when we're dead... in 60 years... we'll know if we were always in love.

Marianne: That's not true, I know I love you, but I'm not sure about you.

Ferdinard: I do, Marianne, I do.

Marianne: Well, I'll know soon enough.

Marianne: It's easy for a girl to kill a lot of people. There's no reason why soft breasts and thighs should keep her from killing everybody to stay free or defend herself! Just look at Cuba or Vietnam or Israel.

Marianne: I remember a trick from Laurel and Hardy.

Marianne: Give me the rifle.

Ferdinard: The same make that killed Kennedy!

Marianne: Sure, didn't you know it was me?

Marianne: What about you? Do you know what you are?

Ferdinard: I am a sexual being.

Ferdinard: A little harbor, as in Conrad.

Marianne: A sailboat, as in Robert Louis Stevenson.

Ferdinard: An old brothel, as in Faulkner.

Marianne: A steward-turned-millionaire, as in Jack London.

Ferdinard: With you, its always mixed up.

Marianne: Everything's simple.

Ferdinard: Too much at once.

Marianne: No.

Ferdinard: Two men who beat me up, as in Raymond Chandler.

Marianne: And you and me and him, see how simple it is?

Ferdinard: I don't see at all.

Marianne: [repeated exchange] ... Pierrot.

Ferdinard: My name's Ferdinand.

Marianne: [to John] Quite an erection you have there. I'm dripping.

Marianne: I envy you. Convenient memory is a gift from God.

Marianne: [Last lines] What is he really like, deep in his heart?

Inspector Marcel Bonet: He was a Frenchman!

Brandon Sullivan: If you had a choice to live in the past or the future, and you could be anything you wanted to be , what would you be?

Marianne: What would you be?

Brandon Sullivan: Well, i always wanted to be a musician in the Sixties.

Marianne: That's cool. Musician?

Brandon Sullivan: Yeah.

Marianne: Sixties it's tough though! I saw Gimme Shelter recently, you know, the Rolling Stones documentary?

Brandon Sullivan: Yeah.

Marianne: Kinda seem like hell!

Brandon Sullivan: What?

Marianne: Yeah, Sixties be like the last place I want to be.

Brandon Sullivan: No way!

Marianne: [laughing] Yes. Ugh, chaos!

Brandon Sullivan: So, where would you and what would you want to be?

Marianne: Umm, i dunno. Here, now.

Brandon Sullivan: [pauses] That's boring.

Marianne: Fuck you.

Marianne: Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?

Elinor Dashwood: What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.

Elinor Dashwood: I do not attempt to deny that I think very highly of him, that I... greatly esteem him... I like him.

Marianne: "Esteem him?" "Like him?" Use those insipid words again and I shall leave the room this instant.

[after Marianne has first met Willoughby]

Elinor Dashwood: Marianne, you must change. You will catch a cold.

Marianne: What care I for colds when there is such a man.

Elinor Dashwood: You will care very much when your nose swells up.

Marianne: You are right. Help me, Elinor.

Marianne: "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken." Willoughby. Willoughby. Willoughby.

[after a reading of Spenser's The Faerie Queen]

Marianne: Shall we continue tomorrow?

Colonel Brandon: No, for I must away.

Marianne: Away? Where?

Colonel Brandon: That I cannot tell you. It is a secret.

Mrs. Dashwood: Why so grave? You disapprove her choice?

Marianne: By no means. Edward is very amiable.

Mrs. Dashwood: Amiable? But...?

Marianne: But there is something wanting. He's too sedate. His reading last night...

Mrs. Dashwood: But Elinor has not your feelings. His reserve suits her.

Marianne: Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise.

Mrs. Dashwood: They made rather pathetic ends, dear.

Marianne: Pathetic? To die for love? How can you say so? What could be more glorious?

Mrs. Dashwood: I think that would be taking your romantic sensibilities a little far.

Marianne: Good morning, Fanny.

Fanny: Good morning, Miss Marianne.

Marianne: How did you find the silver? Was it all genuine?

Marianne: Colonel Brandon.

[Though trying to slip out, he eases slowly back into the room, almost afraid to speak]

Marianne: Thank you.

[a fleeting look of mild gratitude crosses his face from these first sincerely kind words she's ever spoken to him]

Colonel Brandon: Miss Dashwood, Miss Marianne - I come to issue an invitation. A picnic on my estate at Delaford if you would care to join us on Thursday next. Mrs. Jennings daughter and her husband are traveling up especially.

Elinor Dashwood: We should be delighted, Colonel.

Colonel Brandon: I will of course be including Mr. Willoughby in the party.

Marianne: I shall be delighted to join you, Colonel.

Marianne: I'm taking you for a walk.

Margaret: No, I've been a walk.

Marianne: You need another.

Margaret: It's going to rain.

Marianne: It is NOT going to rain.

Margaret: You ALWAYS say that and then it ALWAYS does.

Elinor Dashwood: You have no confidence in me.

Marianne: This reproach from you. You who confide in no-one.

Elinor Dashwood: I have nothing to tell.

Marianne: Nor I. Neither of us have anything to tell. I because I conceal nothing and you because you communicate nothing.

Elinor Dashwood: Did he tell you that he loved you?

Marianne: Yes. No. Never absolutely. It was everyday implied but never declared.

Marianne: When is a man to be safe from such wit if age and infirmity do not protect him?

Elinor Dashwood: Infirmity?

Mrs. Dashwood: If Colonel Brandon is infirm then I am at death's door.

Elinor Dashwood: It is a miracle your life has extended this far.

Marianne: Did you not hear him complain of a rheumatism in his shoulder?

Elinor Dashwood: "A slight ache" I believe was his phrase.

Marianne: Is love a fancy or a feeling... or a Ferrars?

Elinor Dashwood: Poor Willoughby. He will always regret you.

Marianne: But does it follow that, had he chosen me, he would have been content? He would have had a wife he loved, but no money, and might soon have learned to rank the demands of his pocketbook far above the demands of his heart. If his present regrets are half as painful as mine, he will suffer enough.

Elinor Dashwood: Do you compare your conduct with his?

Marianne: No, I compare it with what it ought to have been. I compare it with yours.

John Willoughby: Are you hurt?

Marianne: Only my ankle.

John Willoughby: May I have your permission to ascertain if there are any breaks?

Marianne: Fanny wishes to know where the key to the silver cabinet is kept.

Elinor Dashwood: Betsy has it, I think. What does Fanny want with the silver?

Marianne: One can only presume she wants to count it. What are you doing?

Elinor Dashwood: Presents for the servants. Have you seen Margaret, by the way? I'm worried about her. She's taken to hiding in the oddest places.

Marianne: Fortunate girl. At least she can escape Fanny, which is more than any of us is able.

Elinor Dashwood: You do your best. You've not said a word to her for a week.

Marianne: I have. I've said "yes" and "no".

Marianne: And as for you, you have no right, no right at all, to parade your ignorant assumptions...

Margaret: They're not assumptions, you told me.

Marianne: I told you nothing.

Margaret: They'll meet him when he comes, anyway.

Marianne: Margaret, that is not the point. You do not speak of such things before strangers.

Margaret: But everyone else was.

Marianne: Mrs Jennings is not everyone.

Margaret: I like her. She talks about things. We never talk about things.

Mrs. Dashwood: Hush, please. That is enough, Margaret. If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather

Margaret: He must like you very much.

Marianne: It is not just for me. It is for all of us.

Marianne: I was never so grateful in all my life as I am to Mrs. Jennings. Oh, Elinor, I shall see Willoughby and you will see Edward. Are you asleep?

Elinor Dashwood: With you in the room?

Marianne: I do not believe you feel as calm as you look, Elinor. Not even you. Oh, I will never sleep tonight. And what were you and Miss Steele talking about so long?

Elinor Dashwood: Nothing of significance.

John Willoughby: Frailty, thy name is Brandon.

Marianne: There are some people who can't bear a party of pleasure.

Mrs. Dashwood: You're a very wicked pair. Colonel Brandon will be sadly missed.

John Willoughby: Why? When he is the sort of man that everyone speaks well of and no one remembers to talk to?

Marianne: Did you see him? He expressed himself well, did he not?

Mrs. Dashwood: With great decorum and honour.

Marianne: And spirit and wit and feeling!

Elinor: And economy - ten words at most.

Edward Ferrars: I trust I find you all well?

Marianne: Thank you, Edward, we are all very well.

Margaret: We've been enjoying very fine weather.

[Marianne nudges her]

Margaret: Well, we have.

Edward Ferrars: Well, I-I'm glad to hear it. The roads were very... dry.

Marianne: Sir John, might I play your pianoforte?

Sir John Middleton: Yes, yes, of course. My goodness. Yes, we do not stand upon ceremony here, my dear.

Elinor Dashwood: Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course... at least you may be certain that he loved you.

Marianne: But not enough. Not enough.

Marianne: Are we never to have a moment's peace? The rent here may be low but I believe we have it on very hard terms.

Elinor Dashwood: Mrs Jennings is a wealthy woman with a married daughter. She has nothing to do but marry off everyone else's.

Marianne: Is there any felicity in the world superior to this?

Margaret: I told you it would rain.

Marianne: There's some blue sky! Let us chase it!

Elinor Dashwood: Would you have him treat her even worse than Willoughby has treated you?

Marianne: No, but nor would I have him marry where he does not love.

[as Mrs. Dashwood sees off Marianne's dashing rescuer]

Marianne: [whispering] His name! His name!

Mrs. Dashwood: Oh, his name!

[runs back]

Mrs. Dashwood: Please, could you tell us to whom we are so much obliged?

Margaret: Edward promised he'd bring the atlas to Barton for me?

Marianne: Did he? Well, I'll wager he will do so in less than a fortnight.

Marianne: Do I look like someone who would go to the hookers?