Before Sunrise (1995)

Julie Delpy: Céline

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Quotes 

• Celine : Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

• Celine : I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away.

• Celine : I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.

• Jesse : Alright, I have an admittedly insane idea, but if I don't ask you this it's just, uh, you know, it's gonna haunt me the rest of my life

  Celine : What?

  Jesse : Um... I want to keep talking to you, y'know. I have no idea what your situation is, but, uh, but I feel like we have some kind of, uh, connection. Right?

  Celine : Yeah, me too.

  Jesse : Yeah, right, well, great. So listen, so here's the deal. This is what we should do. You should get off the train with me here in Vienna, and come check out the capital.

  Celine : What?

  Jesse : Come on. It'll be fun. Come on.

  Celine : What would we do?

  Jesse : Umm, I don't know. All I know is I have to catch an Austrian Airlines flight tomorrow morning at 9:30 and I don't really have enough money for a hotel, so I was just going to walk around, and it would be a lot more fun if you came with me. And if I turn out to be some kind of psycho, you know, you just get on the next train.

  Jesse : Alright, alright. Think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay, and you're married. Only your marriage doesn't have that same energy that it used to have, y'know. You start to blame your husband. You start to think about all those guys you've met in your life and what might have happened if you'd picked up with one of them, right? Well, I'm one of those guys. That's me y'know, so think of this as time travel, from then, to now, to find out what you're missing out on. See, what this really could be is a gigantic favor to both you and your future husband to find out that you're not missing out on anything. I'm just as big a loser as he is, totally unmotivated, totally boring, and, uh, you made the right choice, and you're really happy.

  Celine : Let me get my bag.

• Celine : I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

• Celine : When you talked earlier about after a few years how a couple would begin to hate each other by anticipating their reactions or getting tired of their mannerisms-I think it would be the opposite for me. I think I can really fall in love when I know everything about someone-the way he's going to part his hair, which shirt he's going to wear that day, knowing the exact story he'd tell in a given situation. I'm sure that's when I know I'm really in love.

• Celine : You know, I have this awful paranoid thought that feminism was mostly invented by men so that they could like, fool around a little more. You know, women, free your minds, free your bodies, sleep with me. We're all happy and free as long as I can fuck as much as I want.

• Celine : If there's any kind of magic in this world... it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know it's almost impossible to succeed... but who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.

• Celine : Yeah.

  Jesse : OK, well this was my thought: 50,000 years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. 10,000 years ago, there's, like, two million people on the planet. Now there's between five and six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? You know, are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls? 'Cause if they are, that represents a 5,000 to 1 split of each soul in the last 50,000 years, which is, like, a blip in the Earth's time. You know, so at best we're like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking... I mean, is that why we're so scattered? You know, is that why we're all so specialized?

  Celine : I don't know. Wait a minute, I'm not sure... I don't...

  Jesse : Yeah, hang on, hang on. It's a, it's a totally scattered thought. It... which is kind of why it makes sense.

• Celine : You know what I want?

  Jesse : What?

  Celine : To be kissed.

  Jesse : Well I can do that.

• Celine : You know, I've been wondering lately. Do you know anyone who's in a happy relationship?

  Jesse : Uh, yeah, sure. I know happy couples. But I think they lie to each other.

  Celine : Hmf. Yeah. People can lead their life as a lie. My grandmother, she was married to this man, and I always thought she had a very simple, uncomplicated love life. But she just confessed to me that she spent her whole life dreaming about another man she was always in love with. She just accepted her fate. It's so sad.

  Jesse : I guarantee you, it was better that way. If she'd ever got to know him, I'm sure he would have disappointed her eventually.

  Celine : How do you know? You don't know them.

  Jesse : Yeah, I know, I know. It's just, people have these romantic projections they put on everything. That's not based on any kind of reality.

• Celine : I used to think that if none of your family or friends knew you were dead, it was like not really being dead. People can invent the best and the worst for you.

• Jesse : Listen, if somebody gave me the choice right now, of to never see you again or to marry you, alright, I would marry you, alright. And maybe that's a lot of romantic bullshit, but people have gotten married for a lot less.

  Celine : Actually, I think I had decided I wanted to sleep with you when we got off the train. But now that we've talked so much, I don't know anymore.

  Celine : Why do I make everything so complicated?

• Jesse : [stops Celine and positions her in front of him at arm's length] 

  Celine : What?

  Jesse : Uh... I'm gonna take your picture. So I never forget you or, uh, or all this.

  Celine : Okay. Me too.

• Celine : Maybe we should meet here in five years or something.

  Jesse : All right, all right, five year- Five years! That's a long time!

  Celine : It's awful! It's like a sociological experiment!

• Celine : Even though I reject most of the religious things I can't help but feeling for all those people that come here lost or in pain, guilt, looking for some kind of answers. It fascinates me how a single place can join so much pain and happiness for so many generations.

• Celine : I don't think we should sleep together. I mean, I want to, but since we're never gonna see each other again, it will make me feel bad. I'll wonder who else you're with. I'll miss you.

  Celine : I know. It's not very adult. Maybe it's a female thing. I can't help it.

  Jesse : Let's see each other again.

• Celine : No, then it's like some male fantasy. Meet a French girl on the train, fuck her, and never see her again.

• Celine : But then the morning comes, and we turn back into pumpkins, right?

• Jesse : I feel like this is, uh, some dream world we're in, y'know.

  Celine : Yeah, it's so weird. It's like our time together is just ours. It's our own creation. It must be like I'm in your dream, and you in mine, or something.

  Jesse : And what's so cool is that this whole evening, all our time together, shouldn't officially be happening.

  Celine : Yeah, I know. Maybe that's why this feels so otherworldly.

• Jesse : This friend of mine had a kid, and it was a home birth, so he was there helping out and everything. And he said at that profound moment of birth, he was watching this child, experiencing life for the first time, I mean, trying to take its first breath... all he could think about was that he was looking at something that was gonna die someday. He just couldn't get it out of his head. And I think that's so true, I mean, all - everything is so finite. But don't you think that that's what, makes our time, at specific moments, so important?

  Celine : Yeah, I know. It's the same for us, tonight, though. After tomorrow morning, we're probably never going to see each other again, right?

  Celine : We, maybe we should try something different. I mean, it's no so bad if tonight is our only night, right? People always exchange phone numbers, addresses, they end up writing once, calling each other once or twice...

  Jesse : Right. Fizzles out. Yeah, I mean, I don't want that. I hate that.

  Celine : I hate that too, y'know.

  Jesse : Why do you think everybody thinks relationships are supposed to last forever anyway?

  Celine : Yeah, why. It's stupid.

• Celine : I had worked for this old man and once he told me that he had spent his whole life thinking about his career and his work. And he was fifty-two and it suddenly struck him that he had never really given anything of himself. His life was for no one and nothing. He was almost crying saying that.

• Jesse : Yeah. So, uh, were we having our first fight back there?

  Celine : No.

  Jesse : Yeah, I think so, I think we were.

  Celine : Well, even if we were a little bit, y'know. Why does everyone think conflict is so bad. There's a lot of good things coming out of conflict.

• Celine : Did your parents divorce?

  Jesse : Yeah. Finally. They should have done it a lot sooner, but they stuck together for a while for the "well-being of my sister and I", thank you very much.

• Celine : Each time I wear black, or like, lose my temper, or say anything about anything, you know, they always go, "Oh it's so French. It's so cute." Ugh! I hate that!

• Celine : Wait! I have to say something stupid.

• Celine : Its just... its depressing, no? That the... the only thing we're gonna think of is when we're gonna have to say goodbye tomorrow.

  Jesse : Well, we could say goodbye now. Then we wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.

• Jesse : Would you be in Paris by now, if you hadn't gotten off the train with me?

  Celine : No not yet. What would you be doing?

  Jesse : I'd probably be hanging around the airport, reading old magazines, crying in my coffee cause you didn't come with me.

  Celine : Aww... Actually, I think I'd probably have gotten off the train in Salzburg with someone else.

  Jesse : Oh, yeah? Oh, I see. So, I'm just that dumb American momentarily decorating your blank canvas.

  Celine : I'm having a great time.

  Jesse : Really?

  Celine : Yeah.

  Jesse : Me too.

• Jesse : There's these breeds of monkeys, right, and all they do is have sex, all the time, you know? And they turn out to be the least violent, the most peaceful, the most happy, you know? So maybe fooling around isn't so bad.

  Celine : Are you talking about monkeys?

  Jesse : Yes I'm talking about monkeys.

  Celine : Ah, I thought so...

• Celine : This is the one I remember the most. She was only 13 when she died. That meant something to me, you know? I was that age when I first saw this. Hm. Now I'm ten years older and she's still 13, I guess. That's funny.

• Jesse : You're close with your grandmother?

  Celine : Yeah. i think it's because i always have this strange feeling that i'm this very old woman laying down, about to die. You know, that my life is just her memories or something.

  Jesse : That's so wild.

• Celine : Since we're never gonna see each other again, I don't think we should sleep together.

  Jesse : Let's see each other again.

  Celine : I don't want you to break our vow - just so you can get *laid*.

• Celine : I hate that the medias, ya know, they are trying to control minds.

  Jesse : The media?

  Celine : Yea, the media. Ya know, its very subtle, but its a new form of fascism really.

• Jesse : Do you believe in reincarnation?

  Celine : Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.

  Jesse : Yeah, right. Well, most people, you know, a lot of people talk about past lives and things like that, you know? And even if they don't believe it in some specific way, you know, people have some kind of notion of an eternal soul, right?