- Sonja: To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down.
- Countess Alexandrovna: You are the greatest lover I've ever had.
- Boris: Well, I practice a lot when I'm alone.
- Napoleon: This is an honor for me.
- Boris: No, it's a greater honor for me.
- Napoleon: No, a greater honor for me.
- Boris: No, it's a greater honor for me.
- Napoleon: No, a greater honor for ME.
- Boris: Well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps it IS a greater honor for you.
- Napoleon: And you must be Don Francisco's sister.
- Sonja: No, you must be Don Francisco's sister.
- Napoleon: No, you must be Don Francisco's sister.
- Sonja: No, you must be Don Francisco's sister.
- Boris: No, it's a greater honor for me.
- Napoleon: I see our Spanish guests have a sense of humor.
- Boris: She's a great kidder.
- Sonja: No, you're a great kidder.
- Boris: No, you're Don Francisco's sister.
- Boris: If it turns out that there IS a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
- [Boris is standing, looking at Napoleon, who's lying unconcious on the floor]
- Boris: If I don't kill him he'll make war all through Europe. But murder... the most foul of all crimes. What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. Heh... I'm not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know... they become lawyers.
- [last lines]
- Boris: The question is: have I learned anything about life? Only that... only that human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun. The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there IS a God, I don't think that He's evil. I think that the worst you can say about Him is that, basically, He's an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death. I mean, if you've ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, you know exactly what I mean. The key here, I think, is to... to not think of death as an end, but think of it more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses. Regarding love, heh, you know, what can you say? It's not the quantity of your sexual relations that count. It's the quality. On the other hand, if the quantity drops below once every eight months, I would definitely look into it. Well, that's about it for me folks. Goodbye.
- Sonja: Oh, Boris, I'm so unhappy.
- Boris: Ohh, I wish you weren't.
- Sonja: Voskovec and I quarrel frequently. I've become a scandal.
- Boris: Poor Sonja.
- Sonja: For the past weeks, I've visited Seretski in his room
- Boris: Why? What's in his room? Oh...
- Sonja: And before Seretski, Aleksei, and before Aleksei, Alegorian, and before Alegorian, Asimov, and...
- Boris: Okay!
- Sonja: Wait, I'm still on the A's.
- Boris: How many lovers do you have?
- Sonja: In the mid-town area?
- Death: You're an interesting young man. We'll meet again.
- Young Boris: Don't bother.
- Death: It's no bother.
- Sonja: Alright, let's say that there is no God and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses, well, well, what prevents you from murdering somebody?
- Boris: Well, murder is immoral.
- Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
- Boris: Yes but subjectivity is objective.
- Sonja: Not in any rational scheme of perception.
- Boris: Perception is irrational, it implies immanence.
- Sonja: But judgement of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstract and empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.
- Boris: Yeah, I've said that many times.
- Boris: Oh, if only God would give me some sign. If He would just speak to me once. Anything. One sentence. Two words. If He would just cough.
- Sonja: Of course there's a God! We're made in His image!
- Boris: You think I was made in God's image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?
- Sonja: Not with those frames.
- Gen. Leveque: They call me mad, but one day when the history of France is written, they will mark my name well... Sidney Applebaum!
- Boris: Isn't all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed? The difference is that all men go eventually, but I go six o'clock tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go at five o'clock, but I have a smart lawyer. Got leniency.
- Boris: In addition to our summer and winter estate, he owned a valuable piece of land. True, it was a small piece, but he carried it with him wherever he went.
- [comforting her husband on his deathbed]
- Sonja: I know I could have been a better wife to you... kinder. I could have made love with you more often... or once, even.
- Leon Voskovec: Once would have been nice.
- Boris: I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.
- Drill Sergeant: From now on you'll clean the mess hall and the latrine!
- Boris: Yes, sir! How will I tell the difference?
- [Boris and his father speak in Dostoevsky references]
- Father: Remember that nice boy next door, Raskolnikov?
- Boris: Yeah.
- Father: He killed two ladies.
- Boris: What a nasty story.
- Father: Bobak told it to me. He heard it from one of the Karamazov brothers.
- Boris: He must have been possessed.
- Father: Well, he was a raw youth.
- Boris: Raw youth, he was an idiot!
- Father: He acted assaulted and injured.
- Boris: I heard he was a gambler.
- Father: You know, he could be your double!
- Boris: Really, how novel.
- Sergeant: If they kill more Russians, they win. If we kill more Frenchmen, we win.
- Boris Grushenko: What do we win?
- [Sonja meets Ivan's widow in church]
- Anna: You're praying for Ivan?
- Sonja: Yes. Your husband, I loved him, as you know.
- Anna: I wanted you to have some of his possessions.
- Sonja: How kind.
- Anna: I kept his sword and gold watch... but here, I'm giving you his mustache.
- Sonja: I'll cherish it.
- Anna: Also some string. Ivan saved string.
- Sonja: I know. It was one of the reasons why I loved him.
- Anna: I understand that. I loved him for his string, too.
- Sonja: Anything else for me?
- Anna: I thought we should divide his letters. Do you want the vowels or the consonants?
- Boris: [about their plan to murder Napoleon] ... I know, but murder, the most foul of all crimes. And not just abstract murder like shooting an unknown enemy on the battlefield, but standing in a closed room with a live human being and pulling the trigger, face to face. And a famous human being, a successful one, one who earns more than I do... My God, you figure Napoleon has gotta be good for 10,000 francs a week... That's minimum. That's without tips or extras. Nothing like that. And me, what am I? He's a great man. He thinks like the superman, and I'm just a worm, an insect... some kind of crawling, disgusting, creeping little vermin! You know, you can stop me!
- Sonja: I will when I disagree.
- [first lines]
- Boris: How I got into this predicament I'll never know. Absolutely incredible. To be executed for a crime I never committed. Of course, isn't all mankind in the same boat? Isn't all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed? The difference is that all men go eventually, but I go six o'clock tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go at five o'clock but I have a smart lawyer. Got leniency.
- Father Andre: I have lived for 87 years, and the best thing in the World is... Blonde 12 year-old girls!
- Sonja: Father!
- Father Andre: Two of them, whenever possible.
- Anton Inbedkov: Shall we say pistols at dawn?
- Boris Grushenko: Well, we can say it. I don't know what it means, but we can say it.
- Boris: Granted, I have a few eccentricities. I won't eat any food that begins with the letter F. Like chicken, for instance.
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