- Micki Foster: I've never known anyone so unrepentant. You fascinate me.
- Marquis de Sade: I've heard that from many women.
- Micki Foster: [laughing] You've been told that by peasant girls who fear you, never by your equals.
- Marquis de Sade: [after a pause, slowly] I can devise tests which will break you, Duchess.
- Micki Foster: Let's see.
- Marquis de Sade: If a man's taste in food is considered unusual, it's amusing. But when it's his taste in pleasure, some feel they can be his judges.
- Webster Eby: [Speaking to his helpless captive] We'll do everything twice: once to get over the shock, and a second time, to see what it offers.
- Marquis de Sade: Are you in the habit of exploring a gentleman's chambers?
- Micki Foster: That depends upon the gentleman.
- Marquis de Sade: Welcome, Mademoiselle! Now don't be afraid. There are no dangers here - except those you wish to embrace.
- Webster Eby: [Opening lines of the episode]
- [Lecturing]
- Webster Eby: The Marquis de Sade's mind was a maelstrom of violent thoughts. But more than anyone of his time, he understood the essential fact of the human condition. He knew that each of us is capable of the actions that he described in such terrifying detail. He knew that we must not deny our darker side, that we must examine it closely, so that we may rid ourselves of our fears and our hatred, and thus, find our humanity.
- Larissa: The man was sick!
- Webster Eby: You have a question, Larissa?
- Larissa: No. It's just, you're making him out to be some kind of prophet, when he was a pervert. I mean, he didn't make this stuff up. He lived this way.
- General Lafayette: Your excesses will lead you to the guillotine, and bring it down on every perfumed neck in France.
- Marquis de Sade: [laughing] And wouldn't that be something, hm?
- Marquis de Sade: If you can't escape your flesh before death, then death becomes your only escape. And you're fit for nothing but the charnel pit.
- Marquis de Sade: Don't confuse the pain with malice. One gives his lover pain, one is seeking to make an impression.
- Jack Marshak: Thoughts don't cause pain, it's what people do with them. People are looking for evil, know how they're going to find it. There's nothing anybody can do about that.