That Night in Varennes (1982)

Harvey Keitel: Thomas Paine

Photos 

Quotes 

• Thomas Paine : Artists can often sense what's afoot. They understand the causes, the motives long before others do.

• Thomas Paine : A king in flight becomes less of a king every minute.

• Thomas Paine : The people don't want charity. They want their rights.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : A while ago, in the street, I watched the faces of those peasants. They weren't moved. They weren't children happy to have found a "long lost father." Those faces betrayed centuries of famine, of destitution, and humiliation and the fear that today may not be the end of such injustices.

  Thomas Paine : For that they'll have to wait for a future occasion.

• Thomas Paine : Kings are notoriously ungrateful, and fallen kings are even fiercer.

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Idiocy is the worst betrayal of all.

  Thomas Paine : And no revolution can succeed without it.

• Thomas Paine : All of us are afraid. With faith and ideals, we try to protect ourselves from fear. But we must find the ideals that suit us. Yes, Countess. And when we realize our ideals have reached a dead end, we must have courage to change them.

• Thomas Paine : It must be exhausting to play king.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : The greater the task, the greater the honors.