"Tommy Nettle (on France): No-one speaks the fucking lingo out here. You can't say, "Pass the biscuit", or "Where's me 'and grenade?"; they just shrug. 'Cause they hate us too. I mean, that's the point: we fight in France and the French fuckin' 'ate us! Make me 'Ome Secretary and I'll sort this out in a fuckin' minute. We got India and Africa, right? Jerry can have France and Belgium and whatever else they want. 'Oo's fuckin' ever been to Poland? It's all about room, empire! They want more empire; give 'em this shit hole, we keep ours, and it's Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your fucking aunt! Think about it."

"[to Briony] Five years ago you didn’t care about telling the truth. You- all your family, you just assumed that for all my education, I was still little better than a servant, still not to be trusted!. Thanks to you, they were able to close ranks and throw me to the fucking wolves!."

"[to Briony] How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? What are you, eighteen? Do you have to be eighteen before you bring yourself to own up to a lie? There are...soldiers of eighteen old enough to be left to die on the side of the road! Did you know that!?"

"[to Briony] I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and taking you and throwing you down the stairs."

"[In a letter] Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the Surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame."

"[To Robbie] Come back, come back to me."

"[In a letter] My darling, Briony found my address somehow and sent a letter. The first surprise was she didn't go up to Cambridge. She's doing nurses' training at my old hospital. I think she may be doing this as some kind of penance.She says she's beginning to get the full grasp of what she did and what it meant. She wants to come and talk to me. I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me."

"[Last lines] I never made that journey to Balham. So the scene in which I confess to them is invented, imagined. And, in fact, could never have happened... .because Robbie Turner died of septicaemia at Bray Dunes on the first of June 1940, the last day of the evacuation...and I was never able to put things right with my sister Cecilia....because she was killed on the 15th of October, 1940 by the bomb that destroyed the gas and water mains above Balham tube station. So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for... and deserved. Which ever since I've... ever since I've always felt I prevented. But what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book, I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I'd like to think this isn't weakness or... evasion... but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness."

"My doctor tells me I have something called vascular dementia; which is essentially a continuous series of tiny strokes. Your brain gradually closes down. You lose words, you lose your memory: which, for a writer, is pretty much the point. That’s why I could finally write this book; and why, of course, it’s my last novel. Strangely enough, it would be just as accurate to call it my first novel. I wrote several drafts as far back as my time at St. Thomas’s Hospital during the war. I just couldn’t ever find the way to do it."

"[writing] The princess was well aware of his remorseless wickedness. But that made it no easier to overcome the voluminous love she felt in her heart for Sir Romulus. The princess knew instinctively that the one with red hair was not to be trusted. As his young ward dived again and again into the depths of the lake, in search of the enchanted chalice, Sir Romulus twirled his luxuriant mustache. Sir Romulus rode with his two companions, northwards, drawing ever closer to an effulgent sea. So heroic in manner, he appeared so valiant in word... And no could ever guess at the darkness lurking in the black heart of Sir Romulus Turnbull. He was the most dangerous man in the world."

"I am very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused you. I am very, very sorry..."

"[in a letter] Dear Cecilia, Please don't throw this away without reading it. As you'll have seen from the notepaper, I'm here at St. Thomas's, doing my nurses' training. I decided not to take up my place at Cambridge. I decided I wanted to make myself useful, do something practical. But no matter how hard I work, no matter how long the hours, I can't escape from what I did and what it meant, the full extent of which I'm only now beginning to grasp. Cee, please write and tell me we can meet. Your sister, Briony."

"Love is all very well, but you have to be sensible."

"If you write a story, you only have to say the word ‘castle’ and you can see the towers and the woods and the village below... But in a play it’s... it all depends on other people."

"What do you think it would feel like to be someone else?"

"[to Mrs. Rittenhouse] Why, you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and that's not saying much for you."

"Edward Metcalf - Inspector Hennessey"

"Robert Greig - Hives, the butler"

"Kathryn Reece - Grace Carpenter"

"Margaret Irving - Mrs. Whitehead"

"Hal Thompson - John Parker"

"Louis Sorin - Roscoe W. Chandler"

"Margaret Dumont - Mrs. Rittenhouse"

"Lillian Roth - Arabella Rittenhouse"

"Zeppo Marx - Horatio Jamison"

"Chico Marx - Signor Emanuel Ravelli"

"Harpo Marx - The Professor"

"Groucho Marx - Captain Jeffrey Spaulding"

"Signor Emanuel Ravelli: [about playing bridge] How do you want to play...honest?"

"I don't like Junior crossing the tracks on his way to the reform school. I don't like Junior at all, as a matter of fact."

"One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. The tusks. That's not so easy to say, tusks. You try that some time...As I say, we tried to remove the tusks, but they were embedded in so firmly that we couldn't budge them. Of course, in Alabama, the Tusk-a-loosa. But, uh, that's entirely ir-elephant to what I was talking about. We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. But we're going back again in a couple of weeks."

"The principal animals inhabiting the African jungle are moose, elks and Knights of Pythias. Of course, you all know what a moose is. That's big game. The first day, I shot two bucks. That was the biggest game we had. As I say, you all know what a moose is? A moose runs around on the floor, and eats cheese, and is chased by the cats. The elks, on the other hand live up in the hills, and in the spring they come down for their annual convention. It is very interesting to watch them come to the water hole. And you should see them run when they find it is only a water hole. What they're looking for is an 'elk-a-hole'."

"Well, this bear was anemic and he couldn't stand the cold climate. He was a rich bear and he could afford to go away for the winter. You take care of your animals and I'll take care of mine! Frozen North, my eye! From the day of our arrival, we led an active life. The first morning saw us up at six, breakfasted, and back in bed at seven - this was our routine for the first three months. We finally got so we were back in bed at six thirty. One morning, I was sitting in front of the cabin, smoking some meat...Yes. There wasn't a cigar store in the neighborhood. As I say, I was sitting in front of the cabin when I bagged six tigers...Six of the biggest tigers...I bagged them. I...I bagged them to go away, but they hung around all afternoon. They were the most persistent tigers I've ever seen."

"Friends, I'm gonna tell you of the great, mysterious, wonderful continent known as Africa. Africa is God's country, and He can have it."

"[to audience] Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. Why, you couple of baboons! What makes you think I'd marry either one of you! Strange how the wind blows tonight. It has a thin eerie voice, that reminds me of poor old Marsden. How happy I could be with either of these two if both of them just went away!"

"[singing] Hello, I must be going. I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going. I'm glad I came, but just the same I must be going."

"Reverend Austen: Nothing destroys the spirit like poverty."

"Lucy Cohu - Eliza De Feuillide"

"Maggie Smith - Lady Gresham"

"James Cromwell - Rev. Austen"

"Julie Walters - Mrs. Austen"

"James McAvoy - Tom Lefroy"

"Anne Hathaway - Jane Austen"

"Jane Austen's Greatest Love Story Was Her Own"

"Between sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice was a life worth writing about."

"Her own life is her greatest inspiration."