Tom Lefroy Quotes in Becoming Jane (2007)

Tom Lefroy: I have no money, no property, I am entirely dependent upon that bizarre old lunatic, my uncle. I cannot yet offer marriage, but you must know what I feel. Jane, I'm yours. God, I'm yours. I'm yours, heart and soul. Much good that is.

Jane Austen: Let me decide that.

Tom Lefroy: What will we do?

Jane Austen: What we must.

Tom Lefroy: What value will there ever be in life, if we are not together?

Tom Lefroy: How can you, of all people, dispose of yourself without affection?

Jane Austen: How can I dispose of myself with it?

Tom Lefroy: You dance with passion.

Jane Austen: No sensible woman would demonstrate passion, if the purpose were to attract a husband.

Tom Lefroy: As opposed to a lover?

Tom Lefroy: Miss Austen...

Jane Austen: Yes?

Tom Lefroy: Goodnight.

Jane Austen: Could I really have this?

Tom Lefroy: What, precisely?

Jane Austen: You.

Tom Lefroy: Me, how?

Jane Austen: This life with you.

Tom Lefroy: Yes.

Tom Lefroy: [reading from Mr. White's Natural History] Swifts, on a fine morning in May, flying this way, that way, sailing around at a great hight, perfectly happily. Then -

[checks he has her attention and nods to let her know this is what he meant]

Tom Lefroy: Then, one leaps onto the back of another, grasps tightly and forgetting to fly they both sink down and down, in a great dying fall, fathom after fathom, until the female utters...

Jane Austen: [breaking out of trance] Yes?

Tom Lefroy: [looks at her for a moment, then continues reading] The female utters a loud, piercing cry...

[he looks up at her again]

Tom Lefroy: ... of ecstasy.

[smiles tantalisingly]

Tom Lefroy: Is this conduct commonplace in the natural history of Hampshire?

Wine Whore: [comes to sit on Tom's lap] Glass of wine?

Tom Lefroy: Yes, thank you.

[lifts the glass]

Tom Lefroy: A toast from one member of the profession to another.

Jane Austen: This, by the way, is called a country dance, after the French, contredanse. Not because it is exhibited at an uncouth rural assembly with glutinous pies, execrable Madeira, and truly anarchic dancing.

Tom Lefroy: You judge the company severely, madam.

Jane Austen: I was describing what you'd be thinking.

Tom Lefroy: Allow me to think for myself.

Jane Austen: Gives me leave to do the same, sir, and come to a different conclusion.

Tom Lefroy: If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

Jane Austen: I see. And what qualifies you to offer this advice?

Tom Lefroy: I know more of the world.

Jane Austen: A great deal more, I gather.

Tom Lefroy: Enough to know that your horizons must be... widened.

Tom Lefroy: A metropolitan mind may be less susceptible to extended juvenile self-regard.

Tom Lefroy: Good God. There's writing on both sides of those pages.

Tom Lefroy: I think that you, Miss Austen, consider yourself a cut above the company.

Jane Austen: Me?

Tom Lefroy: You, ma'am. Secretly.

Tom Lefroy: I am yours. Heart and soul, I am yours. Much good that is.

Jane Austen: I will decide that.

Tom Lefroy: I have been told there is much to see upon a walk, but all I've detected so far is a general tendency to green above and brown below.

Jane Austen: Yes, well, others have detected more. It is celebrated. There's even a book about Selborne Wood.

Tom Lefroy: Oh. A novel, perhaps?

Jane Austen: Novels? Being poor, insipid things, read by mere women, even, God forbid, written by mere women?.

Tom Lefroy: I see, we're talking of your reading.

Jane Austen: As if the writing of women did not display the greatest powers of mind, knowledge of human nature, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour and the best-chosen language imaginable?

Tom Lefroy: If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be considered the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

Henry Austen: What do you make of Mr. Lefroy?

Jane Austen: We're honoured by his presence.

Eliza De Feuillide: You think?

Jane Austen: He does, with his preening, prancing, Irish-cum-Bond-Street airs.

Henry Austen: Jane.

Jane Austen: Well, I call it very high indeed, refusing to dance when there are so few gentleman. Henry, are all your friends so disagreeable?

Henry Austen: Jane.

Jane Austen: Where exactly in Ireland does he come from, anyway?

Tom Lefroy: [coming up behind Jane] Limerick, Miss Austen.

Jane Austen: [after Tom loses a boxing match] Forgive me if I suspect in you a sense of justice.

Tom Lefroy: I am a lawyer. Justice plays no part in the law.

Jane Austen: Is that what you believe?

Tom Lefroy: I believe it. I must.

Tom Lefroy: Vice leads to difficulty, virtue to reward. Bad characters come to bad ends.

Jane Austen: Exactly. But in life, bad characters often thrive. Take yourself.

Tom Lefroy: What rules of conduct apply in this rural situation? We have been introduced, have we not?

Jane Austen: What value is there in an introduction when you cannot even remember my name? Indeed, can barely stay awake in my presence.

Tom Lefroy: Was I deficient in propriety?

Jane Austen: Why did you do that?

Tom Lefroy: Couldn't waste all those expensive boxing lessons.

Jane Austen: [she has just kissed him] Did I do that well?

Tom Lefroy: Very. Very well.

Jane Austen: I wanted, just once, to do it well.

Tom Lefroy: I depend entirely upon...

Jane Austen: Upon your uncle. And I depend on you. What will you do?

Tom Lefroy: What I must.

Tom Lefroy: [to Jane] Do you love me?

Tom Lefroy: Was I deficient in rapture?

Jane Austen: In consciousness!

Tom Lefroy: Was I deficient in rapture?

Jane Austen: Inconsciousness!

Tom Lefroy: It was... It was accomplished.

Jane Austen: It was ironic.

Tom Lefroy: If there is a shred of truth or justice inside of you, you cannot marry him.

Jane Austen: Oh no, Mr. Lefroy. Justice, by your own admission, you know little of, truth even less.

Tom Lefroy: Jane, I have tried. I have tried and I cannot live this lie. Can you?

Tom Lefroy: [turns Jane's head towards himself] Jane, can you?

Tom Lefroy: Miss? Miss? Miss...

Jane Austen: Austen.

Tom Lefroy: Mr. Lefroy.

Jane Austen: Yes, I know, but I am alone.

Tom Lefroy: Except for me.

Jane Austen: Exactly.

Tom Lefroy: I would regard it as a mark of extreme favour if you would stoop to honour me with this next dance.

Tom Lefroy: [after reading an excerpt about swifts] Your ignorance is understandable since you lack... What shall we call it? The history?

Jane Austen: Propriety commands me to ignorance.

Tom Lefroy: Condemns you to it and your writing to the status of female accomplishment. If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

Jane Austen: I have read your book. I have read your book and disapprove.

Tom Lefroy: Of course you do.

Jane Austen: [at Laverton Fair] Trouble here enough.

Tom Lefroy: And freedom, the freedom of men. Do not you envy it?

Jane Austen: But I have the intense pleasure of observing it so closely.

Tom Lefroy: I... I depend entirely upon...

Jane Austen: Upon your Uncle. And I depend on you. So what will you do?

Tom Lefroy: What I must. I have a duty to my family, Jane. I must think of them as well as...

Jane Austen: Tom... Is that... Is that all you have to say to me?

Jane Austen: Goodbye, Mr. Lefroy.

Jane Austen: Tell me about your lady, Mr. Lefroy. From where does she come?

Tom Lefroy: She's from County Wexford.

Jane Austen: Your own country. Excellent. What was it that won her?. Your manner, smiles and pleasing address?

Jane Austen: How many brothers and sisters do you have in Limerick, Tom?

Tom Lefroy: Enough. Why?

Jane Austen: What are the names of your brothers and sisters?

Tom Lefroy: They...

Jane Austen: On whom do they depend?

Tom Lefroy: Jane, an old friend. Late as ever.

Judge Langlois: Wild companions, gambling, running around St James's like a neck-or-nothing young blood of the fancy. What kind of lawyer will that make?

Tom Lefroy: Typical.

Tom Lefroy: Good morning, sir.

Judge Langlois: Good morning? Has the world turned topsy?

Tom Lefroy: Hampshire, your home county.

Jane Austen: It was.

Lucy Lefroy: Laverton Fair. Vastly entertaining. Monstrous good idea, Jane.

Tom Lefroy: Yes, Miss Austen, not exactly your usual society, I'd say.

Jane Austen: Show a little imagination, Mr. Lefroy.

Tom Lefroy: ...your horizons must be... widened, by an extraordinary young man.

Jane Austen: By a very dangerous young man, one who has, no doubt, infected the hearts of many a young... young woman with the soft corrup...

Tom Lefroy: Read this

[hands Jane a book]

Jane Austen: -tion...

Tom Lefroy: and you will understand.

Judge Langlois: [Tom just joked about lawyers] Humour? Well, you're going to need that because I'm teaching you a lesson. I'm sending you to stay with your other relations, the Lefroys.

Tom Lefroy: Uncle, they live in the country.

Judge Langlois: Deep in the country.

[chuckles]

Judge Langlois: Welcome...

Tom Lefroy: [walks in a circle and discreetly reminds his uncle] Madame le Comtesse.

Judge Langlois: Madame le Comtesse. Seldom, too seldom, my house receives the presence of nobility. And, of course, its friends. Please.