Lolita (1962)

Peter Sellers: Clare Quilty

Photos 

Quotes 

• Clare Quilty : She's a yellow belt. I'm a green belt. That's the way nature made it. What happens is, she throws me all over the place.

  Swine : She throws you all over the place?

  Clare Quilty : Yes. What she does, she gets me in a, sort of, thing called a sweeping ankle throw. She sweeps my ankles away from under me. I go down with one helluva bang.

  Swine : Doesn't it hurt?

  Clare Quilty : Well, I sort of lay there in pain, but I love it. I really love it. I lay there hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness. It's really the greatest.

• Clare Quilty : Listen, didn't you... didn't you have a daughter? Didn't you have a daughter with a lovely name? Yeah! A lovely... What was it now? A lovely, lyrical, lilting name, like, uh... uh...

  Charlotte Haze : Lo-li-ta!

  Clare Quilty : Lolita, that's right, Lolita. Diminutive of Dolores, "The Tears and the Roses."

  Charlotte Haze : Wednesday she's going to have a cavity filled by your Uncle Ivor.

  Clare Quilty : Yes. Hahahahaha... Yes.

• Humbert Humbert : Well, it's nothing, but... she had an accident.

  Clare Quilty : Oh gee, she had an accident? That's really terrible, I mean, fancy a fellow's wife having... a normal guy having... his wife having an accident like that. W-what happened to her?

  Humbert Humbert : Er, she was hit by a car.

  Clare Quilty : Gee, no wonder she's not here. Gee, you must feel pretty bad about it. W-w-w-w-when uh eh w-what's happening, is she coming out later or something?

  Humbert Humbert : Well, that was the understanding.

  Clare Quilty : What, in an ambulance? Hahahaha! Gee, I'm sorry, I-I-I-shouldn't say that; I get sorta carried away, you know, being so normal and everything.

• [first lines] 

  Humbert Humbert : Quilty! Quilty?

  Clare Quilty : Ah, wha? Who's there?

  Humbert Humbert : Are you Quilty?

  Clare Quilty : No, I'm... Spartacus. You come to free the slaves or sumpn?

  Humbert Humbert : Are you Quilty?

  Clare Quilty : Yeah, yeah, I'm Quilty, yeah, sure.

• Clare Quilty : [looks at bullet hole]  Gee... right in the boxing glove.

• Humbert Humbert : Read it.

  Clare Quilty : I can't read, mister. I never did none of that there book learning, you know.

  Humbert Humbert : Read it, Quilty.

  Clare Quilty : "Because you took advantage of a sinner." "Because you took advantage." "Because you took." "Because you took advantage of my disadvantage." Hey, that's a dad-blasted, darn good poem you done there. "When I stood Adam-naked." Oh! Adam-naked! You should be ashamed of yourself, Captain. "Before a federal law and all its stinging stars." Tarnation! You old horn toad. That's mighty pretty. That's a pretty poem. "Because you took advantage." It's getting a bit repetitious, isn't it? "Because." Another one. "Because you cheated me." "Because you took her at an age when young lads - "

  Humbert Humbert : That's enough.

  Clare Quilty : Say, why'd you take it away for, Mister? That was gettin' kinda smutty there.

• Dr. Zempf : Has anybody instructed Lolita in the facts of life?

  Humbert Humbert : The facts?

  Dr. Zempf : The facts of life. You see, Lolita is a sweet, little child, but the onset of maturity seems to be giving her a certain amount of trouble.

  Humbert Humbert : I really don't think that this is a fit topic.

  Dr. Zempf : Well, Dr. Humbert, to you she is still the little girl that is cradled in the arms. But, to those boys over there at the Beardsley High, she is a lovely girl, you know with the swing, you know, and the jazz, and she has got the curvatures which they take a lot of notice of.

• Dr. Zempf : I have not made my point quite clear. I have some other details which I would like to put to you, Dr. Humbert. Here. "She is defiant and rude. Sighs a good deal in the class." She sighs, makes the sound of: Haaa! "Chews gum vehemently." All the time she is chewing this gum. "Handles books gracefully." This is alright. That doesn't really matter. "Voice is pleasant. Giggles rather often and is excitable." She giggles at things. "A little dreamy. Concentration is poor." She looks at the book for a while and then she gets fed up with it. "Has private jokes of her own." Which no one understands so they can't enjoy them with her. "She either has exceptional control or she has no control at all." We cannot decide which. Added to that, just yesterday, Dr. Humbert, she wrote a most obscene word with the lipstick, if you please, on the health pamphlets. And so, in our opinion, she is suffering from acute repression of the libido - of the natural instincts.

• Dr. Zempf : We Americans - we are progressively modern. We believe that it is equally important to prepare the pupils for the mutually satisfactory mating and the successful child rearing.

• Clare Quilty : Brewster, go and get some Type "A" Kodachrome.

• Clare Quilty : Ow, right in the head!

• Clare Quilty : Gee, I'm really winning here! I'm really winning. I hope I don't get overcome with power.

• Clare Quilty : Hey, you're a sort of bad loser, Captain. I never found a guy who'd sort of pull a gun on me when he lost a game. Didn't anyone ever tell you - it's not really who wins, it's how you play, like the champs. Listen, I don't think I want to play anymore. I wanna get a drink. Gee, I'm just dying for a drink. I'm just dying to have a drinkie.

  Humbert Humbert : You're dying anyway, Quilty.

• Clare Quilty : Jeez! All my friends always put their smokies out in the drink. It's so unsanitary.

• Clare Quilty : You are either Australian or a German refugee. This is a gentile's house. You'd better run along.

• Clare Quilty : That's a darling little gun you got there. That's a darling little thing. How much a guy like you want for a darling little gun like that?

• Clare Quilty : I could fix for you to attend executions. How would you like that? Just you there, and nobody else, just watching, watch. Do you like watching, Captain?

• Clare Quilty : I sort of get the impression that you want to leave, but you don't like to leave, because, maybe you think I think it looks suspicious, me being a policeman and everything.

  Humbert Humbert : Yes.

  Clare Quilty : Well, you don't have to think that, because I haven't really got a suspicious mind at all. I look suspicious myself. A lot of people think I'm suspicious, especially when I stand around on street corners. One of our boys picked me up the other week. He thought that I was a bit too suspicious standing on the street corner and everything.

• Clare Quilty : I noticed when you was checking in you had a lovely, pretty little girl with you. She was really lovely. As a matter of fact, she wasn't so little, come to think of it. She was a fairly tall little, I mean, taller than little, you know, I mean, but, she was really lovely. I wish I had a lovely, pretty, tall, lovely little girl like that, I mean.

  Humbert Humbert : That was my daughter.

  Clare Quilty : Your daughter? Gee, isn't it great to have a lovely, tall, pretty, small, little daughter like that? It's really wonderful. It's wonderful. I don't have any children or boys or little tall girls.