Ruth Condomine Quotes in Blithe Spirit (1945)
Ruth Condomine Quotes:
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Charles Condomine: Anything interesting in The Times
Ruth Condomine: Don't be silly, dear.
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Violet Bradman: Can you foretell the future?
Madame Arcati: Certainly not. I disapprove of fortune-tellers most strongly.
Violet Bradman: Oh, really - why?
Madame Arcati: Too much guesswork and fake mixed up with it - even when the gift is genuine - and it only very occasionally is - you can't count on it.
Ruth Condomine: Why not?
Madame Arcati: Time again. Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked.
Ruth Condomine: You mean because it has never yet been proved that the past and the present and the future are not one and the same thing?
Madame Arcati: I long ago came to the conclusion that nothing has ever been definitely proved about anything.
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Ruth Condomine: [to Charles] Now I want you to come upstairs with me and go to bed.
Elvira Condomine: The way that woman harps on bed.
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Charles Condomine: What do you suppose induced Agnes to leave us?
Ruth Condomine: The reason was becoming increasingly obvious, dear.
Charles Condomine: Yes. We must keep Edith in the house more.
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Ruth Condomine: Edith, you know the cocktail shaker?
Edith: Yes 'em.
Ruth Condomine: Well, I want you to fill two of those long stem glasses from it and bring them up here.
Edith: Yes 'em.
Ruth Condomine: And Edith, as you're not in the Navy, its unnecessary to do everything on the double.
Edith: Very good, ma'am.
Ruth Condomine: And Edith, when you're serving dinner, try to remember to do it calmly, methodically.
Edith: Yes 'em.
Ruth Condomine: Now, go and get the cocktails.
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Charles Condomine: I haven't forgotten Elvira. I remember her very distinctly, in deed. I remember how fascinating she was and how maddening. I remember how her gay charm when she'd achieved her own way over something and her extreme acidity when she didn't. I remember her physical attractiveness, which was tremendous, and her spiritual integrity which was nil.
Ruth Condomine: Was she more physically attractive than I am?
Charles Condomine: That's a very tiresome question, darling. It fully deserves a wrong answer.
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Madame Arcati: Some mediums prefer Indians, of course. But, personally I've always found them unreliable.
Ruth Condomine: In what way, unreliable?
Madame Arcati: Well, to start with, they're frightfully lazy. Also, when faced with any sort of difficulty, they're apt to go off into their own tribal language - which is naturally unintelligible. That generally spoils everything and wastes a good deal of time.
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Madame Arcati: We might contact a poltergeist - which would be extremely destructive and noisy.
Ruth Condomine: In what way destructive?
Madame Arcati: They throw things, you know.
Ruth Condomine: No. I didn't know.
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Ruth Condomine: There's no need to be aggressive, Charles. I'm doing my best to help you.
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Ruth Condomine: Oh, to blazes with Elvira!
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Ruth Condomine: I gather you got some sort of plan behind all this? I'm not quite a fool.
Charles Condomine: Ruth, Elvira is here! She's standing a few yards away from you!
Ruth Condomine: Yes, dear, I can see her distinctly - under the piano with a zebra!
Charles Condomine: But, Ruth...
Ruth Condomine: I'm not going to stay here arguing any longer.
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Charles Condomine: But, listen, Ruth, please...
Ruth Condomine: I will not listen to any more of this nonsense. I'm going upstairs to bed now. I shall leave you to turn off the lights. I won't be asleep. I'm much too upset. So, you can come in and say good night to me. If you feel like it.
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Charles Condomine: Its extraordinary about daylight, isn't it?
Ruth Condomine: How do you mean?
Charles Condomine: Oh, it introduces everything to normal.
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Ruth Condomine: Now look here, Charles, this display of roguish flippancy might have been alluring. In a middle-aged novelist it's nauseating.
Charles Condomine: I don't see what I've done that's so awful?
Ruth Condomine: You behaved abominably last night. You wounded me and insulted me.
Charles Condomine: I was a victim of an aberration.
Ruth Condomine: Nonsense. You were drunk.
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Charles Condomine: You're very glacial this morning.
Ruth Condomine: Are you surprised?
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Charles Condomine: Drunk?
Ruth Condomine: You had two strong dry martinis before dinner. A great deal too much burgundy at dinner. Heaven knows how much port and kimmel with Dr. Bradman while I was doing my best to entertain that mad woman. And two large brandies later. I gave them to you myself. Of course you were drunk.
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Charles Condomine: I know I wasn't drunk. If I'd been all that drunk, I should have a dreadful hangover, shouldn't I?
Ruth Condomine: I'm not at all sure that you haven't.
Charles Condomine: Well, I haven't the trace of a headache. My tongues not coated. Look at it.
Ruth Condomine: I haven't the least desire to look at your tongue. Kindly put it in again.
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Ruth Condomine: Will you be in for lunch, Charles?
Charles Condomine: Please don't worry about me. I shall be perfectly happy with a bottle of gin in my bedroom.
Ruth Condomine: Don't be silly dear.
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Ruth Condomine: Alcohol will ruin your whole life if you allow it to get ahold on you, you know.
Charles Condomine: Once and for all, Ruth, I'd like you to understand that what happened last night was nothing whatever to do with alcohol! I grant you it may have been some form of psychic delusion, but I was stone cold sober from first to last.
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Ruth Condomine: You called me a guttersnipe. You told me to shut up. And when I quietly suggested we should go upstairs to bed, you said, with the most disgusting leer, it was an immoral suggestion.
Charles Condomine: I was talking to Elvira.
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Ruth Condomine: Charles, dear, if you weren't drunk, how do account for it?
Charles Condomine: I can't account for it. That's what's so awful.
Ruth Condomine: What did you have for lunch?
Charles Condomine: You ought to know, you had it with me.
Ruth Condomine: Let me see. It was lemon sole - and that cheese thing.
Charles Condomine: Why should having a cheese thing for lunch make me see my deceased wife after dinner?
Ruth Condomine: You never know, it was rather rich.
Charles Condomine: Well, why didn't you see your dead husband then? You had just as much of it as I did.
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Madame Arcati: You're just in time for a cup of tea. That's if you don't mind China?
Ruth Condomine: Not at all.
Madame Arcati: I never touch Indian. It upsets my vibrations.
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Ruth Condomine: Madame Arcati, I'm profoundly disturbed and I want your help.
Madame Arcati: Splendid! I thought as much. Fire away.
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Madame Arcati: You say she's visible only to your husband?
Ruth Condomine: Yes.
Madame Arcati: Visible only to husband. Audible too, I presume?
Ruth Condomine: Extremely audible.
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Charles Condomine: If only you'd make an effort to be a little more friendly to Elvira, we might all have quite a jolly time.
Ruth Condomine: I have no wish to have a jolly time with Elvira!
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Ruth Condomine: For heaven's sake, stop looking like a wounded spaniel and concentrate. This is serious.
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Ruth Condomine: This is definitely one of the most frustrating nights I've ever spent.
Elvira Condomine: The reply to that is pretty obvious.
Ruth Condomine: I'm sure I don't know what you mean.
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Ruth Condomine: You called us back and you've done nothing but try to get rid of us ever since we came. Hasn't he, Elvira?
Elvira Condomine: He certainly has.
Ruth Condomine: Now, owing to your idiotic inefficiency, we find ourselves in this mortifying position. We're neither fish, flesh fowl, nor - whatever it is.
Charles Condomine, Elvira Condomine: Good red herring.
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