Wuthering Heights (1939)

Laurence Olivier: Heathcliff

Photos 

Quotes 

• Heathcliff : Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest so long as I live on! I killed you. Haunt me, then! Haunt your murderer! I know that ghosts have wandered on the Earth. Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this dark alone where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul.

• Heathcliff : I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!

• Heathcliff : Why are your eyes always empty? Like Linton's eyes.

  Isabella : They're not empty, if you'd only look deeper. Look at me. I'm pretty. I'm a woman and I love you. You're all of life to me. Let me be a single breath of it for you.

• Cathy : Are you enjoying yourself, Heathcliff?

  Heathcliff : I've had the pleasure of watching you.

  Cathy : You're very grand, Heathcliff. So handsome. Looking at you tonight I could not help but remember how things used to be.

  Heathcliff : They used to be better.

  Cathy : Don't pretend life hasn't improved for you.

  Heathcliff : Life has ended for me.

  [they pause and look off the balcony in silence] 

  Heathcliff : How can you stand here beside me and pretend not to remember? Not to know that my heart is breaking for you? That your face is the wonderful light burning in all this darkness?

  Cathy : Heathcliff, no. I forbid it.

  Heathcliff : Do you forbid what your heart is saying to you now?

  Cathy : It's saying nothing.

  Heathcliff : I can hear it louder than the music. Oh, Cathy. Cathy.

  Cathy : I'm not the Cathy that was. Can you understand that? I'm somebody else. I'm another man's wife, and he loves me. And I love him.

  Heathcliff : If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day. Not he. Not the world. Not even you, Cathy, can come between us.

  Cathy : Heathcliff, you must go away. You must leave this house and never come back to it. I never want to see your face again or listen to your voice again as long as I live.

  Heathcliff : You lie! Why do you think I'm here tonight? Because you willed it. You willed me here across the sea.

• Cathy : Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.

  Heathcliff : The moors and I will never change. Don't you, Cathy.

  Cathy : I can't. I can't. No matter what I ever do or say, Heathcliff, this is me now; standing on this hill with you. This is me forever.

• Heathcliff : If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I'd be your slave. Cathy, if your heart were only stronger than your dull fear of God and the world, I'd live contented, silently in your shadow. But No. You must destroy us both with that weakness you call virtue.

• Heathcliff : If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.

• Cathy : It would be dreadful if Hindley ever found out.

  Heathcliff : Found out what? That you talk to me once in a while?

  Cathy : I shouldn't talk to you at all. Look at you! You get worse every day. Dirty and unkempt and in rags. Why aren't you a man? Heathcliff, why don't you run away?

  Heathcliff : Run away? From you?

  Cathy : You could come back to me rich and take me away. Why aren't you my prince like we said long ago? Why can't you rescue me, Heathcliff?

  Heathcliff : Cathy, come with me now!

  Cathy : Where?

  Heathcliff : Anywhere!

  Cathy : And live in haystacks and steal our food from the marketplaces? No, Heathcliff. That's not what I want.

  Heathcliff : You just want to send me off. That won't do. I've stayed here and been beaten like a dog. Abused and cursed and driven man, but I stayed just to be near you. Even as a dog! And I'll stay till the end. I'll live and I'll die under this rock!

• Heathcliff : I want to crawl to her feet, whimper to be forgiven... for loving me. For needing her more than my own life... for belonging to her more than my own soul.

• Edgar Linton : Well, what brought about this amazing transformation? Did you discover a gold mine in the New World, or perhaps you fell heir to a fortune?

  Heathcliff : The truth is I remembered that my father was an emperor of China and my mother was an Indian queen, and I went out and claimed my inheritance. It all turned out just as you once suspected, Cathy: that I had been kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England; that I was of noble birth.

• Cathy : Did Joseph see which way you came?

  Heathcliff : What does it matter? Nothing's real down there. Our life is here.

  Cathy : Yes, milord.

• Cathy : Go on, Heathcliff. Run away. Bring me back the world.

  Judge Linton : Pack this fellow off.

  Heathcliff : I'm going. I'm going from here and from this cursed country both.

  Judge Linton : Throw him out!

  Heathcliff : But I'll be back in this house one day, Judge Linton and I'll pay you out. I'll bring this house down in ruins about your heads. That's my curse on you!

  [spits on the floor] 

  Heathcliff : On all of you!

• Heathcliff : Tell the dirty stable boy to let go of you. He soiled your pretty dress. But who soiled your heart? Not Heathcliff. Who turns you into a vain, cheap, worldly fool? Linton does. You'll never love him, but you'll let yourself be loved because it pleases your stupid, greedy vanity.

• Heathcliff : My tears don't love you, Cathy. They blight and curse and damn you!

  Cathy : Heathcliff, don't break my heart.

  Heathcliff : Oh Cathy, I never broke your heart. You broke it!

• Cathy : You could come back to me rich and take me away. Why aren't you my prince like we said long ago? Why can't you rescue me Heathcliff?

  Heathcliff : Cathy, come with me now.

  Cathy : Where?

  Heathcliff : Anywhere.

  Cathy : And live in haystacks and steal our food from the marketplaces? No Heathcliff, that's not what I want.

  Heathcliff : You just want to send me off. That won't do. I've stayed here and been beaten like a dog, abused and cursed and driven mad, but I stayed just to be near you, even as a dog. And I'll stay 'til the end. I'll live and I'll die under this rock.