Moulin Rouge

Jane Avril:
Henri, we heard you were dying. We simply had to come say good-bye.

Henri:
Marriage is like a dull meal with the dessert at the beginning. I have it on the very highest authority.

Henri:
Will you to the opera go with me tomorrow night, mademoiselle? While you make up your mind, let me remind you of the ladies of the Spanish court, who always kept their pet apes by their side so that they themselves would look more beautiful.

Myriamme Hayam:
Is your wit always turned against yourself, Monsieur Lautrec?

Sarah:
You should not drink so fast, Monsieur Lautrec. It burns your stomach.

Henri:
I'm thirsty. Please.

Sarah:
Wine is for thirst.

Henri:
At least you did not say water.

Sarah:
Water is for Americans.

Henri:
Some men can swing by their heels on the flying trapeze. Some men can become president of the republic. I can drink cognac.

Jane Avril:
What is wrong with me, Henri? Other women find love and happiness. I find only disenchantment.

Henri:
But you find it so often.

Jane Avril:
Have you ever had contact with a legal mind, Henri? It's beyond belief. I wasn't the vision of his dreams, I was the party of the first part. He didn't declare his love for me, he merely acknowledged that as a state of affection exists... Oh Henri, why couldn't you be tall and handsome?

Henri:
Two more of these and I shall be.

Jane Avril:
You are the only man who has never bored me.

Henri:
I am the only man who has never loved you.

Jane Avril:
Henri, over there. There is the most beautiful creature. Look at those shoulders.

Henri:
For your sake, I pray that they are not padded.

Georges Seurat:
Drink your drink, Henri, and then we will go to the Louvre and refresh our souls, eh?

Henri:
The Louvre. That graveyard.

Gauzi:
Graveyard! The home of the Mona Lisa, and he calls it a, a graveyard!

Anquetin an Artist:
Ah, the Mona Lisa. Only the greatest painting in the world. At this moment I could kneel down and give thanks to Leonardo.

Henri:
And how do you know it is the greatest painting in the world? And how do you know it was by Leonardo?

Anquetin an Artist:
Because I feel it! I feel it here, in my heart.

Henri:
I feel in my heart that you are a pompous ass, but that does not make it so.

Gauzi:
Only Leonardo could have painted that smile. She smiles with her eyes!

Henri:
I don't care if she smiles with her navel, that still doesn't say that Da Vinci painted it.

Anquetin an Artist:
If I hadn't needed this drink

Anquetin an Artist:
I'd have thrown it at him.

Henri:
I am sorry you do not like my work, Father. But I shall continue to sign it as I please, for it is my name and it is my work.

Henri:
Yes, I call it work. On this I am more of an authority than you, Father. You've never worked. Our kind never did. We are the grand seigneurs, we are above work.

Henri:
Big crowd tonight.

Zidler:
Too big, thanks to your poster. Oh, I know I'm making millions, but I liked the Moulin Rouge as she was, lighthearted and hot-blooded, a little strumpet who thought only of tonight. Now she is grown up and knowns better. She has money in her stocking, wears corsets, and never drinks a drop too much. Worst of all, she never sees her old friends anymore. She has gone into society. Last night she entertained a cabinet minister and his wife and daughter. It's disgusting.

Henri:
The morning wind is cold, but not so cold as the waters of the Seine.

Myriamme Hayam:
You are mistaken, monsieur. I am not a candidate for the river.

Henri:
We are all candidates when driven by the mania of love.

Maurice Joyant:
Yes, madame.

Henri:
Forgive me, madame, the lady is not undressing, she is dressing. The gentleman happens to be her husband. They are celebrating their twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. They are going to have dinner with their oldest son. He is a taxidermist. I am appalled that you should thus malign these good people. It goes to prove what I have always maintained, that evil exists only in the eye of the beholder. I will thank you to stop looking at my pictures.

Maurice Joyant:
Work or dissipate. You can't do both.

Henri:
Well, Jane, what a long road you have traveled. Only a few years ago you were singing for your supper, and here you are a full-fledged star at twenty-nine.

Jane Avril:
Twenty-five!

Henri:
Of course, I beg your pardon. Twenty-five.

Jane Avril:
I have been twenty-five for four years, and I shall stay there for another four. Then I'll be twenty-seven for a while. I intend to grow old gracefully.

Jane Avril:
I ask you, what is the world coming to when a girl won't even accept a horse?

Jane Avril:
Myriamme, you are incorrigible. The first time you're out with a man and you tell him your father died of alcoholism. Anyway, whose father didn't?