"Michael Collins was 31 when he died. Half a million people attended his funeral in Dublin. All parties to the conflict, both British and Irish, were temporarily united in grief. In his brief lifetime, he had fought the British Empire to a stalemate, negotiated the first Treaty of Independence for Ireland and overseen its transition to democracy. He died, paradoxically, in an attempt to finally remove the gun from Irish politics."

"That's why he died. He knew the risk he was taking when he went down there, but he thought them worth taking. He took them for us, for every gobshite in this country, no matter what side they were on."

"You've got to think of him the way he was. The way he cycled round Dublin in his pin-striped suit with £10,000 pounds on his head. "Why hide, Joe" he'd say "when that's what they'd expect?". But he never did what anyone expected. He got the British out of here and no one expected that. Some people are what the times demand, and life without them seems impossible. But he's dead. And life is possible. He made it possible."

"[Trying to convince the Dáil to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty] I would plead with every person here. Make me a scapegoat if you will, call me a traitor if you will, but please, let's save the country. The alternative to this treaty is a war which nobody in this gathering can even contemplate. If the price of freedom, the price of peace is the blackening of my name, I will gladly pay it."

"All women have a built-in grain of indestructibility."

"And when all the celebrations are over it remains only to pick up all the ornaments—all the accessories of the celebration—and by burning them, make a celebration."

"If the images of the present don't change, then change the images of the past."

"Rumor has it that every third world leader coined the same phrase the morning after independence: “Now the real problems start.”"

"He wrote me: I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?"

"Frankly, have you ever heard of anything stupider than to say to people as they teach in film schools, not to look at the camera?"

"But the more you watch Japanese television, the more you feel it's watching you."

"Guy Decomble - 'Petite Feuille', the French teacher"

"Daniel Couturier - Betrand Mauricet"

"Patrick Auffay - René"

"Georges Flamant - Mr. Bigey"

"Albert Rémy - Julien Doinel"

"Claire Maurier - Gilberte Doinel - la mère d'Antoine"

"Jean-Pierre Léaud - Antoine Doinel"

"I'm an unstable psychotic individual with perverted tendencies."

"If she drops her pen, pick it up, but don't look at her legs. Or else it will be on your record."

"[to Antoine about another boy in the reformatory] He escaped a week ago, but they got him. Around here to escape is bad enough, but getting caught is worse."

"Every time I cried, my father would imitate me on his fiddle, just to drive me nuts. One day I got fed up and I knocked him out."

"Doinel, if your paper is first today, it's because I've decided to give the results beginning with the worst."

"Now, Doinel, go get some water and erase those insanities, or I'll make you lick the wall, my friend."

"I have no socks left around these holes."

"Rebecca Romjin - Laure Ash/Lily"

"Antonio Banderas - Nicolas Bardo"

"Eriq Ebouaney - Black Tie"

"Ann Dowd as Peggy"

"Lois Smith - Brontë's Mother"

"Robert Prosky - Brontë's Lawyer"

"[trying to shift all the blame for their bogus marriage onto Georges] You stroll around my apartment, touching my things. Do you realize the situation that you've put me in? Do you?"

"Bebe Neuwirth - Lauren Adler"

"Andie MacDowell - Brontë Parrish"

"Gérard Depardieu - Georges Fauré"

"The story of two people who got married, met, and then fell in love."

"An irresistibly charming comedy!"

"[in response to Brontë's telling him that she will donate her time to a children's agriculture charity] If it amuses you, then do it."

"I am the husband!"

"Gregg Edelman - Phil"

"We don't have to like each other. We just have to get married."

"Larry Wright as Larry Wright the bucket drummer"

"Kenneth Branagh - Sir Alistair Dormandy"

"Ralph Brown - Bob Silver"

"Gemma Arterton - Desiree"

"January Jones - Elenore"

"Emma Thompson - Charlotte"

"Talulah Riley -Marianne"

"Jack Davenport - Domenic Twatt"