Bill Nighy credited as playing...
Edmund Brundish
- Edmund Brundish: Old age is not the same thing as historical interest. Otherwise you and I would be far more interesting than we are.
- Edmund Brundish: In the case of biographies, it's better, I find, if they're about good people, whereas novels are much more interesting if they are about nasty people.
- Florence Green: I mustn't let myself worry while there's life, there's hope.
- Edmund Brundish: Oh, God. What a horrifying thought.
- Edmund Brundish: Let me tell you what it is I admire about human beings. What I value most is the one virtue they share with gods and animals, and which I will therefore no longer refer to as a virtue. I mean... courage. And you, Mrs. Green, possess that quality in a-bundance. I would like - I would like to help. You make me believe - once more in things - things I - that I thought forgotten.
- Edmund Brundish: I could just put a bullet through her, but...
- [is disrupted by Florence laughing]
- Edmund Brundish: I'm not sure that would be to your liking.
- General Gamart: You seem to think I'm an outrageous person. Is that it?
- Edmund Brundish: I can't answer that question "yes" or "no". I suspect that by "outrageous" you mean "unexpectedly offensive". And the truth is that you have been fairly offensive, but also - repulsive, Mrs. Gamart. That is, you have behaved exactly as I expected.
- Edmund Brundish: I do not attach as much importance as you do, I dare say, to the notions of right and wrong. I have read Lolita, as you asked me to. It is a good book, and therefore I think you should try and sell it to the people of Hardborough. They won't understand it, but that's all for the best. Understanding makes the mind lazy.
- Edmund Brundish: [taking book out of delivery from the bookshop] Fahrenheit four five one. What kind of book is this?
- Edmund Brundish: [in a letter to Florence] I should undoubtedly visit your shop one day if I ever went out. But nowadays I rather make a point of never doing that.
- Edmund Brundish: That harpy. What she wants is an: arts center. Now, I ask you, what the hell does this damn village need with an arts center? And how could art have a center? But, she's got it into her head that it does.
- Violet Gamart: I wish I could do something more.
- Edmund Brundish: I assume then that you intend to do nothing.
- Edmund Brundish: What do you intend to do?
- Florence Green: Do? Is there anything I can do?
- Edmund Brundish: Yes! - No. Carry on.
- Florence Green: That's what I was going to do.