- [alone at his dead wife's bedside during her wake]
- Paul: Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 35-cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap goddamn fucking godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You're worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere, and you know why? You know why? Because you lied. You lied to me and I trusted you.
- [gradually starts losing his composure]
- Paul: You lied and you knew you were lying. Go on, tell me you didn't lie. Haven't you got anything to say about that? You can think up something, can't you? Go on, tell me something! Go on, smile, you cunt!
- [starts crying noticeably]
- Paul: Go on, tell me... tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood. Go on, tell me. You pig-fucker... you goddamn, fucking, pig-fucking liar.
- Paul: No, you're alone. You're all alone. And you won't be able to be free of that feeling of being alone until you look death right in the face. I mean that sounds like bullshit. Some romantic crap. Until you go right up into the ass of death. Right up in his ass. 'Til you find the womb of fear.
- Jeanne: Let's drink a toast to our life in the hotel.
- Paul: No fuck all that! Hey listen! Let's drink a toast to our life in the country.
- Jeanne: You're a nature lover? You didn't tell me that.
- Paul: Oh, for christ sake... I'm nature boy. Can't you see me with the cows and the chickenshit all over me? Huh?
- Jeanne: Oh, that's right. To the cows!
- Paul: Cow.
- Jeanne: I will be your cow too.
- Paul: I get to milk you twice a day. How about that?
- Paul: It's me again.
- Jeanne: It's over.
- Paul: That's right. It's over and then it begins again.
- Jeanne: What begins again? I don't understand anything anymore.
- Paul: There's nothing to understand. We left the apartment, and now we begin and love all the rest of it.
- Jeanne: The rest of it?
- Paul: Yeah, listen. I'm 45. I'm a widower. I own a little hotel. It's kind of a dump, but not completely a flop house. Then I used to live on my luck and I got married, and my wife killed herself.
- [alone at his dead wife's bedside during her wake]
- Paul: [sobbing] Rosa... I'm sorry, I... I just - I can't stand it to see these goddamn things on your face!
- [peels off her fake eyelashes]
- Paul: You never wore make-up... this fucking shit.
- [wipes off her lipstick with a flower petal]
- Paul: I'm gonna take this off your mouth, this - this lipstick...
- [falls over her, sobbing uncontrollably]
- Paul: Rosa - oh GOD! I'm sorry! I - I don't know why you did it! I'd do it too, if I knew how... I just *don't know how*... I have to... have to find a way...
- [first lines]
- Paul: [with his hands over his ears at the overwhelming sound of a passing train] Fucking GOD!
- Jeanne: [in French; subtitled] Olympia is the personification of domestic virtue: faithful, economic and racist.
- Paul: Anyway, to make a long, dull story even duller, I come from a time when a guy like me used to come into a joint like this and pick up a young chick like you and... call her a 'bimbo'.
- Paul: What about that? Can I open that? Huh? Wait a minute. Maybe there's jewels in it. Maybe there's gold.
- [unbuttoning Jeanne's jeans]
- Paul: Are you afraid?
- Jeanne: No.
- Paul: No? You're always afraid.
- [turns Jeanne over on her stomach]
- Jeanne: No, but, maybe there is some family secrets inside.
- Paul: Family secrets?
- [pulls down her jeans]
- Paul: I'll tell you about family secrets.
- [grabs the butter]
- Jeanne: What are you doing?
- Paul: I'm gonna tell you about the family. That holy institution - meant to breed virtue in savages.
- Paul: [drunkenly] Beauty of mine, sit before me. Let me peruse you and remember you always like this. Garçon! Champagne! If music be the food of love, play on.
- Paul: [as a frustrated Jeanne reaches down his pants in the dance hall] Listen, that's not a subway strap, that's me cock!
- Tom - un cinéaste, le fiancé de Jeanne: [in French; subtitled] How did you find it?
- Jeanne: [in French] By chance.
- Tom - un cinéaste, le fiancé de Jeanne: [in French] We'll change everything.
- Jeanne: [in French] Everything! We'll turn chance into destiny.
- Paul: Well, first you have to take a hot bath and if you don't you're gonna get pneumonia. Right?... and then you know what happens? You get pneumonia... and then you know what happens? You die! And then, you know what happens then when you die? I get to fuck the dead rat!
- Paul: Give me the soap. Listen, you dumb dodo. All the mysteries that you're ever gonna know in life are right here.
- Paul: [puts on her father's military hat and salutes] How do you like your hero? Over easy or sunny side up?
- Paul: [opens the door and sees his dead wife laying on a bed of purple flowers in a dark bedroom lit only by a dim table lamp] You look ridiculous in that makeup. Like the caricature of a whore. A little touch of Mommy in the night. Fake Ophelia drowned in the bathtub. I wish you could see yourself. You'd really laugh. You're your mother's masterpiece.
- [Paul and Jeanne are talking in bed about Jeanne's past experiences with men]
- Paul: You started grabbing his joint?
- Jeanne: Your crazy!
- Paul: Well, he touched you, didn't he?
- Jeanne: I never let him! Never!
- Paul: Ugh! Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire.
- [slight pause]
- Paul: You mean to tell me he didn't touch you? Look at me straight in the face and say, 'He didn't touch me.'
- Jeanne: No, he touched me, but the way he did it.
- Paul: Aha! The *way* he did it.
- Paul: I want you to cut the fingernails on your right hand, these two. That's it. I want you to put your fingers up my ass.
- Jeanne: What?
- Paul: Put your fingers up my ass, are you deaf? Go on. I'm gonna get a pig. And I'm gonna have the pig fuck you. And I want the pig to vomit in your face. Then I want you to swallow the vomit. Are you gonna do that for me?
- Jeanne: Yeah.
- Paul: Huh?
- Jeanne: Yeah!
- Paul: I want the pig to die while you're fucking him. And then you have to go behind it. I want you to smell the dying farts of the pig. Are you gonna do all of that for me?
- Jeanne: Yes and more than that! And worse! And worse than before!
- Paul: My father was a - a drunk. Tough. Whore-fucker Bar-fighter. Super-masculine. And he was tough. My mother was very - very poetic. And also a drunk. And one of my memories, when I was a kid was of her being arrested nude.
- Jeanne: Behind the house, there were two trees. A plane tree and a chestnut. I sat under the plane tree and he sat under the chestnut. And one, two, three - we each began to masturbate. The first who came - won!
- Paul: Right here is the beautiful Miss Blowjob 1933. She still makes a few points when she takes her teeth out.
- Jeanne: You must find someone else.
- Tom - un cinéaste, le fiancé de Jeanne: For what?
- Jeanne: For your film.
- Tom - un cinéaste, le fiancé de Jeanne: Why?
- Jeanne: Because you're taking advantage of me. Because you make me do things I've never done. Because you're taking up my time. You make me do whatever you want. The film is over! I'm tired of being raped!
- Paul: [alone at his dead wife's bedside during her wake] Even if the husband lives 200 fucking years he's never going to be able to discover his wife's real nature. I mean, I - I might be able to comprehend the universe, but I'll never discover the truth about you. Never. I mean, who the hell were you?
- President of Tango Jury: The jury has chosen the following 10 best couples: number 3! 7! 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 19! And now, ladies and gentlemen, good luck for the last tango!
- Paul: You know, the tango is a rite. Do you understand "rite?" And you must watch the legs of the dancers.
- Jeanne: What's going on? Do you know them?
- Tom - un cinéaste, le fiancé de Jeanne: It's a long story. In short, "Portrait of a Girl." It's been accepted for television! And the girl is you. It's you!
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