The English Patient (1996)

Ralph Fiennes: Almásy

Photos 

16 more photos

Quotes 

• Almásy : Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again.

  Katharine Clifton : Darling, my darling.

• Katharine Clifton : Will we be alright?

  Almásy : Yes. Yes, absolutely.

  Katharine Clifton : "Yes" is a comfort. "Absolutely" is not.

• Almásy : You're wearing the thimble.

  Katharine Clifton : Of course, you idiot. I always wear it; I've always worn it; I've always loved you.

• Hana : There's a man downstairs. He brought us eggs. He might stay.

  Almásy : Why? Can he lay eggs?

  Hana : He's Canadian.

  Almásy : Why are people always so happy when they collide with someone from the same place? What happened in Montreal when you passed a man in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?

  Hana : He needn't disturb you.

  Almásy : He can't. l'm already disturbed.

• Katharine Clifton : I've been thinking. How does someone like you decide to come to the desert? What is it? You - you're doing whatever you're doing in your castle, or wherever it is you live, and one day you say, ''l have to get to the desert'' or what?

  Almásy : l once traveled with a guide who was taking me to Faya. He didn't speak for nine hours. At the end of it, he pointed at the horizon and said, ''Faya.'' That was a good day.

• Almásy : That's a Christmas cracker. A firecracker.

  Hana : This isn't your handwriting, is it?

  Almásy : Yes, it is.

  Hana : [reads Almásy's note on the firecracker]  "December 22. Betrayals in war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace, New lovers are nervous and tender, But smash everything, For the heart is an organ of fire." "For the heart is an organ of fire." I love that. I believe that. K? Who is K?

  Almásy : K is for Katharine.

• Almásy : Katherine, I - I just want you to know: I'm - I'm not missing you yet.

  Katharine Clifton : You will. You will.

• Almásy : There is no God... but I hope someone looks after you.

  Madox : Just in case you're interested, it's called the suprasternal notch. Come and visit us in Dorset when all this nonsense is over.

  [Heads away but turns back] 

  Madox : You'll never come to Dorset.

• Katharine Clifton : Promise me you'll come back for me.

  Almásy : I promise, I'll come back for you. I promise, I'll never leave you.

• Almásy : What do you love?

  Katharine Clifton : What do I love?

  Almásy : Say everything.

  Katharine Clifton : Hm, let's see... Water. Fish in it. And hedgehogs; I love hedgehogs.

  Almásy : And what else?

  Katharine Clifton : Marmite - I'm addicted. And baths. But not with other people. Islands. Your handwriting. I could go on all day.

  Almásy : Go on all day.

  Katharine Clifton : My husband.

  Almásy : What do you hate most?

  Katharine Clifton : A lie. What do you hate most?

  Almásy : Ownership. Being owned. When you leave, you should forget me.

  [she adopts a look of disgust, pushes him gently away to get out of the tub, picks up her tattered dress and leaves] 

• Almásy : New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire.

• Almásy : When were you most happy?

  Katharine Clifton : Now.

  Almásy : And when were you least happy?

  Katharine Clifton : Now.

• Katharine Clifton : This - what is this?

  Almásy : It's a folk song.

  Katharine Clifton : Arabic.

  Almásy : No, no. It's Hungarian. My daijka sang it to me when I was a child growing up in Budapest.

  Katharine Clifton : It's beautiful. What's it about?

  Almásy : Szerelem means love. And the story, well, there's this Hungarian count. He's a wanderer. He's a fool. And for years he's on some kind of a quest for... who knows what. And then one day, he falls under the spell of a mysterious English woman. A harpy, who beats him, and hits him, he becomes her slave, and he sews her clothes, and worships...

  [Katharine starts hitting him] 

  Almásy : Stop it! Stop it!

  [laughing] 

  Almásy : You're always beating me!

  Katharine Clifton : Bastard! You bastard, I believed you! You should be my slave.

• Almásy : I once heard of a captain who wore a patch over a good eye. The men fought harder for him.

• Almásy : Could I have a cigarette?

  Hana : [laughing]  Are you crazy?

  Almásy : Why... why are you so determined to keep me alive?

  Hana : Because I'm a nurse.

• [Asked what he hates most] 

  Almásy : Ownership. I hate being owned.

• Almásy : Dance with me.

  Katharine Clifton : No.

  Almásy : Dance with me. l want to touch you. l want the things which are mine which belong to me.

  Katharine Clifton : Do you think you're the only one who feels anything? Is that what you think?

• Almásy : Let me tell you about winds. There is a, a whirlwind from southern Morrocco, the Aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. And there is the - the Ghibli, from Tunis...

  Katharine Clifton : [giggling]  The "Ghibli"?

  Almásy : [smiling]  The Ghibli, which rolls and rolls and rolls and produces a - a rather strange nervous condition. And then there is the - the Harmattan, a red wind, which mariners call the sea of darkness. And red sand from this wind has flown as far as the south coast of England, apparently producing showers so dense that they were mistaken for blood.

  Katharine Clifton : Fiction! We have a house on that coast and it has never, never rained blood.

  Almásy : No, it's all true. Herodotus, your friend. He writes about it. And he writes about a - a wind, the Simoon, which a nation thought was so evil they declared war on it and marched out against it. In full battle dress. Their swords raised.

• Katharine Clifton : I wanted to meet the man who could write such a long paper with so few adjectives.

  Almásy : Well, a thing is still a thing no matter what you place in front of it. Big car, slow car chauffeur-driven car.

  Geoffrey Clifton : Broken car.

  Almásy : It's still a car.

  Geoffrey Clifton : Not much use, though.

  Katharine Clifton : Love? Romantic love plutonic love, filial love. Quite different things, surely.

  Geoffrey Clifton : Uxoriousness. That's my favourite kind of love. Excessive love of one's wife.

  Almásy : Now there you have me.

• Almásy : That place. That place at the base of a woman's throat, you know, the hollow. Here. Does it have an official name?

  Madox : For God's sake, man, pull yourself together.

• Almásy : How can you ever smile, as if your life hadn't capsized?

• Almásy : There is no God, but I hope someone watches over you.

• Almásy : Swoon, I'll catch you.

• Katharine Clifton : I'm impressed you can sew.

  Almásy : Good.

  Katharine Clifton : You sew very badly.

  Almásy : Well, you don't sew at all.

  Katharine Clifton : A woman should never learn to sew, and if she can she shouldn't admit to it.

• Almásy : I am just a bit of toast, my friend.

• Hana : What about your own book?

  Almásy : My book? Oh, yes the Herodotus. Yes, you can read him.

  Hana : Oh, l found plums. We have plums in the orchard. There. We have an orchard.

  Almásy : Herodotus is the father of history. Do you know that?

  Hana : l don't know anything.

  [feeds Almásy a plum] 

  Almásy : lt's a - it's a very plum - plum.

• Almásy : Madox knows, I think. He keeps talking about Anna Karenina.

• Katharine Clifton : [dancing]  Why did you follow me yesterday?

  Almásy : I'm sorry, what?

  Katharine Clifton : After the market, you followed me to the hotel.

  Almásy : I was concerned. A woman in that part of Cairo, a European woman, I felt obliged to.

  Katharine Clifton : [amused]  You felt obliged to?

  Almásy : As the wife of one of our party.

  Katharine Clifton : So why follow me? Escort me, by all means, but following me is predatory, isn't it?

• Katharine Clifton : D'you not come in?

  Almásy : No. I should go home.

  Katharine Clifton : Will you please come in?

  Almásy : Mrs. Clifton...

  Katharine Clifton : [scowls]  Don't.

  Almásy : I believe you still have my book.

• Almásy : [being carried up the stairs]  There was a Prince, who was dying, and he was carried up the tower at Pisa so he could die with a view of the Tuscan Hills. Am I that Prince?

  Hana : [laughs]  Because you're leaning? No, you're just on an angle. You're too heavy!

• Almásy : So, Caravaggio, Hana thinks you invented your name.

  Caravaggio : And you've forgotten yours.

  Almásy : l said that no one would ever invent such a preposterous name.

  Caravaggio : And l said you can forget everything but you never forget your name.

• Almásy : We planned badly.

• Almásy : Could I ask you, please, to paste you paintings into my book? I should like to have them. I should be honored.

• Hana : Are you in pain? Do you need something?

  Almásy : Yes.

• Almásy : You can't explore from the air, Madox. lf you could explore from the air life would be very simple. Contact.

  Madox : Contact.

• Almásy : l understand you were in Africa. Whereabouts?

  Caravaggio : Oh, all over.

  Almásy : All over? l kept trying to cover a very modest portion and still failed.

• Almásy : [translating from Arabic]  "A mountain the shape of a woman's back." Good. Good.

• Almásy : What was all that banging? Are you - are you fighting rats or the entire German army?

  Hana : No. l was repairing the stairs. l found a library and the books were very useful.

• Almásy : Clifton, this is probably none of my business. Your wife. Do you think it's appropriate to leave her?

  Geoffrey Clifton : Appropriate?

  Almásy : Well, the desert is, it's, uh, for a woman, it's very tough. l wonder if it's not too much for her.

  Geoffrey Clifton : Are you mad? Katharine loves it here. She told me yesterday.

  Almásy : All the same, were l you...

  Geoffrey Clifton : l've known Katharine since she wss three. We were practically brother and sister before we were man and wife. l think l'd know what is and what isn't too much for her. l think she'd know herself.

  Almásy : Very well.

  Geoffrey Clifton : Why are you people so threatened by a woman?

• Almásy : l think you've got the wrong end of the stick, old boy.

• Katharine Clifton : l can't sleep. l wake up shouting in the middle of the night. Geoffrey thinks it's the thing in the desert, the trauma.

  Almásy : l can still taste you.

• Katharine Clifton : Am I a terrible coward to ask how much water we have?

  Almásy : A little in our can, we have water in the radiator which can be drunk. And it's not at all cowardly at all, it's extremely practical. Come on, come on! There's also a plant I've never seen it but I believe you can cut a piece the size of a heart from this plant and the next day it will be filled with a delicious liquid.

  Katharine Clifton : Find that plant. Cut out its heart.

• Almásy : l try to write with your taste in my mouth.

• Almásy : You're reading it too fast.

  Kip : Not at all.

  Almásy : You have to read Kipling slowly. The eye is too impatient. Think about the speed of his pen. What is it? ''He sat" comma ''in defiance of municipal orders" comma ''astride the gun Zamzammah on her brick..." What is it?'

  Kip : 'Brick platform - opposite the old Ajaib-Gher.''

  Almásy : ''The wonder house" comma "as the natives called the Lahore Museum.''

  Kip : lt's still there, the cannon outside the museum. It was made of metal cups and bowls taken from every household in the city as tax, then melted down. Then later, they fired the cannon at my people - comma - the natives. Full stop.

• Katharine Clifton : Shall we be all right?

  Almásy : Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

  Katharine Clifton : Oh, dear.

• Caravaggio : [Fred Astaire's "Cheek to Cheek" on the Victrola]  No one should own music. The real question is, who wrote the song?

  Almásy : Irving Berlin.

  Caravaggio : For?

  Almásy : "Top Hat".

  Caravaggio : Is there a song you don't know?

• Katharine Clifton : This is a different world is what l tell myself. A different life. And here l'm a different wife.

  Almásy : Yes. Here you are a different wife.

• Almásy : What do they care about our maps?

  Madox : What do we find in the desert? Arrowheads, spears. ln a war, if you own the desert you own North Africa.

  Almásy : Own the desert? Ha!

• Almásy : I claim this shoulder blade. No, wait. I want - turn over - I want this.

  [touches just below K's throat] 

  Almásy : This - this place. I love this place. What's it called? This is mine. I'm going to ask the King permission to call it the Almásy Bosphorus.

  Katharine Clifton : [laughs]  I thought we were against ownership?

• Almásy : [mocking toast]  The International Sand Club: misfits, buggers, fascists, and fools. God bless us, every one. Oops! Mustn't say ''lnternational". Dirty word, *filthy* word.

• Almásy : Read to me will you? Read me to sleep.

• Almásy : [singing]  We'll bathe at Brighton, The fish you'll frighten, When you're in, Your bathing suit so thin, Will make the shellfish grin, fin to fin.

  [speaking] 

  Almásy : They're playing it far to slowly, but these were the words, actually, before they were cleaned up. Might be a song for you...

• Almásy : When l arrived in ltaly on my medical chart they wrote ''English Patient.'' lsn't that funny? After all that l became English.