Queen Christina Quotes in Queen Christina (1933)

Queen Christina: Snow is like a wide sea. One could go out and be lost in it, and forget the world... and oneself.

Queen Christina: I have been memorizing this room. In the future, in my memory, I shall live a great deal in this room.

Chancellor: There are rumors that your Majesty is planning a foreign marriage.

Queen Christina: They are baseless.

Chancellor: But your Majesty, you cannot die an old maid.

Queen Christina: I have no intention to, Chancellor. I shall die a bachelor!

Queen Christina: Must we live for the dead?

Oxenstierna: For the great dead, yes, your Majesty.

Queen Christina: One can feel nostalgia for places one has never seen.

Queen Christina: I have *imagined* happiness. But happiness you *cannot* imagine. Happiness you must feel! Joy, you must feel!

Antonio: There's a mystery in you.

Queen Christina: Is there not in every human being?

Queen Christina: Great love...

Antonio: Don't you believe in it's possibility?

Queen Christina: In it's possibility - yes. But not in its existence. A great love, perfect love, is an illusion. It is the golden fable of which we all dream. But in ordinary life it doesn't happen. In ordinary life one must be content with less.

Magnus: I am your destiny, Christina.

Queen Christina: Are you? I long to escape my destiny.

Magnus: You will long to return to it.

Antonio: You are very pretty, Elsa. Are you also good?

Elsa: When I do not like a man, yes.

Queen Christina: That's a true virtue.

Antonio: The basis of all morality in a sentence.

Queen Christina: I have quite a collection of royal portraits. My suitors usually come in oil. And I've kept them - because I love a good painting.

Queen Christina: [on the street protests about her private life] Evidently my people, who are said to love me, do not wish me to be happy.

Queen Christina: [in disguise] I'll tell you the truth. Well, gentlemen, I have the truth as the Queen has had 12 lovers this past year. A proud dozen!

Crowd: Long live the Queen!

Queen Christina: This is how the Lord must have felt when he beheld the finished world with all His creatures breathing... living.

Queen Christina: Spoils. Glory. Flags and trumpets. What is behind these high sounding words ? Death and destruction. Triumphals of crippled men. Sweden victorious in a ravaged Europe. An island in a dead sea. I tell you, I want no more of it! I want for my people, security and happiness. I want to cultivate the arts of peace. The arts of life! I want peace and peace I will have!

Queen Christina: Any lie will find believers as long as you tell it with force enough.

Queen Christina: This war is expensive.

Magnus: The parliament clamors for more war.

Oxenstierna: They clamor for a Swedish marriage for your majesty. They clamor for an heir of Swedish blood!

Queen Christina: In short, Chancellor, they clamor.

Magnus: [Embrace and kiss] It's been so long since I've seen you.

Queen Christina: I saw you yesterday.

Magnus: To me that's long since.

Queen Christina: I'm not an idle woman, Magnus. I have a war on my hands.

Archbishop: This is not a normal war for treasure or conquest. It is for our faith and for our God!

Queen Christina: God is being invoked in many lands, these days, your grace. What about the enemy's God?

Archbishop: When the enemy invokes God - that is blasphemy, your majesty!

Queen Christina: I wish I had your confidence, Archbishop.

Queen Christina: There are other things to live for than wars! I've had enough of them. We have been fighting since I was in the cradle and many years before. It is enough. I shall ask the powers to meet for a speedy and honorable *peace*. There must be an end!

Queen Christina: [Reading a book] What a clever fellow is this, Aage.

Aage: Who?

Queen Christina: Molière.

Aage: What is he?

Queen Christina: Oh, he writes plays. He makes fun of pretentious ladies.

[Reading]

Queen Christina: "As for me, Uncle, all I can say is that I think marriage is an all together shocking thing. How is it possible to endure the idea of sleeping with a man in the room!"

Aage: Is that good, your Majesty?

Queen Christina: Not bad, Aage, Not bad.

Queen Christina: Ebba, come in!

Aage: Now, don't dally, your majesty. You have a busy day.

Queen Christina: [Ebba kneels and kisses Queen Christina's hand] Good morning, Ebba.

[Ebba rises and Queen Christina kisses Ebba on the lips]

Queen Christina: What are you doing up so early?

Ebba: I couldn't sleep.

Queen Christina: That means you're either happy or unhappy. Which is it?

Ebba: Happy!

Ebba: Lets go for a sleigh ride!

Queen Christina: I can't now.

Ebba: Oh, why not?

Queen Christina: Ambassadors. Treaties. Councils.

Ebba: How boring!

Queen Christina: But, we go afterwards, Ebba.

Ebba: Oh, you always say that. But, at the end of the day, you're never free to go anywhere. You're surrounded by musty old papers and musty old men and I can't get near you.

Queen Christina: Today, I'll dispose of them by sundown. I promise you! And we'll go away, for two or three days in the country. Wouldn't you like that?

Ebba: Oh, I'd love it!

French Ambassador: Madame, you are my despair.

Queen Christina: Why?

French Ambassador: Because, you're above me, always, with such charm. That at the end of all our interviews, I find myself always in the veritable glow - of disappointment.

Queen Christina: And I - of anticipation.

University Representative: Your majesty, our University Uppsala is the oldest in Sweden. One of the oldest in Europe. To admit professors from Spain and Italy might corrupt the purity of of our teaching.

Queen Christina: The danger is not so much of corruption, my lord, as of staleness. We need new wine in the old bottles.

Oxenstierna: The sword has made Sweden great, your majesty!

Queen Christina: Yes, but do we not exult it too much, Chancellor?

Oxenstierna: You cannot remake the world, your majesty.

Queen Christina: Why not? Look, Chancellor, the philosophers remake it. The artists remake it. The scientists remake it. Now, why not we - we the power? The people follow blindly, the generals lead them to destruction. Will they not follow us? We'll lead them beyond themselves - where there is grace and beauty and gaiety and freedom!

Oxenstierna: Europe is an armed camp, your majesty. Not a Utopia peopled with shepherds.

Queen Christina: Snow again. Eternal snow.

Queen Christina: It is you I cannot forgive, Ebba! You needn't fear my domination any longer.

Ebba: Oh, your Majesty, please!

Queen Christina: You pretended to be interested in me and my problems. Your sympathy. Your concern. All pretends! Underneath, which, you resented me.

Ebba: Oh, you do not understand. Your majesty!

Queen Christina: Your difficulty is, Ebba, that I do.

Queen Christina: Aage, my riding coat. We go out in the snow.

Aage: To hunt, your Majesty!

Queen Christina: At least, not to be hunted.

Queen Christina: Evidently, you Spaniards make too much fuss about a simple elemental thing like love. We Swedes are more direct.

Queen Christina: Why? Why? So many questions!

Magnus: There would be fewer questions if there were more answers.

Antonio: My country could have no greater tribute than your Majesty's curiosity.

Queen Christina: In honoring your great men, we elevate ourselves.

Antonio: Why did you go out of your way to make me look ridiculous? All that idiotic talk of love and beauty. You made my heart beat. You made me dream like a fool and talk like one.

Queen Christina: I thought you'd understand, when you saw me again, what had happened. That it had been so enchanting to be a woman - not a Queen. Just a woman in a man's arms!

Queen Christina: Forgive me for being a Queen.

Antonio: What do you want of me?

Queen Christina: What do I want? What? I want back that room in the inn. The snow that fell. The warm fire and the sweet hours. Beloved one.

Queen Christina: I have grown up in a great man's shadow. All my life I've been a symbol. A symbol as eternal, changeless. An abstraction. A human being is mortal and changeable - with desires and impulses, hopes and despairs. I'm tired of being a symbol, Chancellor. I long to be a human being. This longing I cannot suppress.

Queen Christina: One must live for one's self. After all, Chancellor, one's own life is all one has.

Queen Christina: And, so, let me remember you - with love and loyalty - till memory is no more. God bless you. Farewell.

Queen Christina: The wind is with us.