"[To Roger Ames, explaining Factory's vision] Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I'm afraid we, er, we don't because that's, er, that's the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands."

"[About a scene involving Vini Reilly] This scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD."

"[Whilst hosting 'Wheel of Fortune'] Welcome to the Wheel of Fortune. There it is, the wheel that throughout the centuries has been used as a symbol for the vicissitudes of life. Boethius himself in his great work 'The Consolation of Philosophy' compares history to a great wheel, hoisting us up, then dropping us down again. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Raise yourself up on my spokes if you wish, but don't complain when you plunge back down" Now spin the wheel."

"[after Shaun Ryder fires a gun in his general direction] You really ought to be careful with that, Shaun. You could take somebody's eye out."

"[On the glossing over of Hilary, his second wife] OK. I should have found time to tell you earlier: I did have children with my second wife, Hilary, and there was a time when I was with Lindsay when that was all I wanted, and no, I've not been the best father in the world; yes, I could have been there, more than I have; and obviously I've got regrets. But this is not a film about me. I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. I'm a minor character in my own story. This is a film about the music, and the people who made the music: Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder, and Martin Hannett."

"[About the music scene surrounding the Haçienda] It was like being on a fantastic fairground ride, centrifugal forces throwing us wider and wider. But it's all right, because there's this brilliant machine at the center that's going to bring us back down to earth. That was Manchester. That is the Haçienda. Now imagine the machine breaks. For a while, it's even better, because you're really flying; but then, you're fucked, because nobody beats gravity."

"[After a stoned Martin Hannett tries to set fire to him] I am not a lump of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think."

"[To the camera, while leaving Granada studios with Yvette Livesey for the first time] I'm being postmodern, before it was fashionable."

"[To an overweight Martin Hannett, during some sessions with the Happy Mondays] You can't threaten me anymore, Martin. You're a big man, but you're out of shape, although you could sit on me."

"[First address to camera; after his hang-gliding news report] You’re gonna be seeing a lot more of that sort of thing in the film. All of that actually did happen. Obviously, it’s symbolic. It works on both levels. I don’t want to tell you too much, don’t want to spoil the film. But I’ll just say, "Icarus." OK? If you know what I mean, great. If you don’t, doesn’t matter. But you should probably read more."

"[At a gig at the Haçienda] And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Madchester."

"[About the Happy Mondays, and when Shaun Ryder is introduced to Bez] Every band needs its own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist."

"[to his friends, about A Certain Ratio's surprising move to another genre] Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does."

"[To Peter Saville, about the tickets to the opening night of the Haçienda] They didn't hand out tickets to the Sermon on the Mount. People just turned up, they knew it was a good gig."

"[To Lindsay, who's breaking up with him after Ian Curtis's death] Energy, energy? You don't know what energy is. That is nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as spirituality."

"[first lines] Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the latest craze sweeping the Pennines. I've got to be honest with you... right now I'd rather be sweeping the Pennines."

"[When catching Lindsay having sex with Howard Devoto out of spite] I only got a blowjob. That's full penetration."

"[When caught receiving an act of oral sex from a prostitute by his wife Lindsay] It's not what it looks like, love!"

"[After Lindsay storms off when catching him with the prostitute; to Lindsay] I love you! [To the prostitute] Can you finish me off?"

"Rob Brydon - Ryan Letts"

"John Thomson - Charles"

"Paul Popplewell - Paul Ryder"

"Mightiest entertainment in all screen history!"

"James Westerfield - Policeman at Accident"

"Gus Schilling - Drug Clerk"

"Don Dillaway - Wilbur Minafer"

"Orson Welles - Narrator"

"Richard Bennett - Maj. Amberson"

"Erskine Sanford - Roger Bronson"

"Ray Collins - Jack"

"Agnes Moorehead - Fanny"

"Tim Holt - George"

"Anne Baxter - Lucy"

"Dolores Costello - Isabel"

"Joseph Cotten - Eugene"

"Orson Welles' Mercury Production of Booth Tarkington's Great Novel"

"From the Man who Made "The Best Picture of 1941""

"Real life screened more daringly than it's ever been before!"

"Most girls are usually pretty fresh. They ought to go to a man's college for about a year. They'd get taught a few things about freshness. Look here, who sent you those flowers you keep making such a fuss over?"

"Anybody that really is anybody ought to be able to do about as they like in their own town, I should think."

"Nobody has a good name in a bad mouth! Nobody has a good name in a silly mouth, either."

"You can't ever tell what will happen at all, can you? Once I stood where we're standing now to say goodbye to a pretty girl. Only, it was in the old station, before this was built. We called it the depot. We knew we wouldn't see each other again for almost a year. I thought I couldn't live through it. She stood there crying. Don't even know where she lives now. If she is living."

"[to George] Ah, life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. When they're gone, you can't tell where, or what the devil you did with them... I've always been fond of you, Georgie. I can't say I've always liked ya. But we all spoiled you terribly when you were a boy... There have been times when I thought you ought to be hanged. And just for a last word, there may be somebody else in this town who's always felt about you like that. Fond of you, I mean, no matter how much it seems you ought to be hanged."

"Fanny, I wish you could have seen Georgie's face when he saw Lucy. You know what he said to me when we went into that room? He said, "You must have known my mother wanted you to come here today, so that I could ask you to forgive me." We shook hands. I never noticed before how much like Isabel Georgie looks. You know something, Fanny? I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you. But it seemed to me as if someone else was in that room. And that through me, she brought her boy unto shelter again. And that I'd been true at last, to my true love."

"[in a letter to Isabel] And so we come to this, dear. Will you live your life your way, or George's way? Dear, it breaks my heart for you, but what you have to oppose now is your own selfless and perfect motherhood. Are you strong enough, Isabel? Can you make a fight?"

"I know what your son is to you and it frightens me. Let me explain a little. I don't think he'll change. At twenty-one or twenty-two, so many things appear solid and permanent and terrible. Which forty sees are nothing but disappearing miasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this. Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty."

"George Amberson-Minafer walked home through the strange streets of what seemed to be a strange city. For the town was growing... changing... it was heaving up in the middle, incredibly; it was spreading incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its skies. This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue, to Amberson Edition, and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard. Tommorow they were to move out. Tomorrow everything would be gone."

"Something had happened, a thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He'd got it three times filled and running over. But those who had longed for it were not there to see it. And they never knew it, those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him."

"And now Major Amberson was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life. And he realized that everything which had worried him or delighted him during this lifetime, all his buying and building and trading and banking, that it was all trifling and waste beside what concerned him now. For the Major knew now that he had to plan how to enter an unknown country where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson."

"In those days, they had time for everything. Time for sleigh rides, and balls, and assemblies, and cotillions, and open house on New Year's, and all-day picnics in the woods, and even that prettiest of all vanished customs: the serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window, and flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, bass viol, would presently release their melodies to the dulcet stars. Against so home-spun a background, the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral."