Lolita (1997)
Jeremy Irons: Humbert Humbert
Photos
Quotes
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[first lines]
Humbert : [voiceover] She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks, she was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always - Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul.
[whispered]
Humbert : Lolita.
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Humbert : I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.
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Humbert : Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me.
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[last lines]
Humbert : [voiceover] What I heard then was the melody of children at play, nothing but that. And I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that chorus.
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Clare Quilty : Where the devil did you get her?
Humbert : I beg your pardon?
Clare Quilty : I said, "The weather's getting better."
Humbert : Seems so.
Clare Quilty : Who's the lassie?
Humbert : Um - my daughter.
Clare Quilty : You lie, she is not.
Humbert : What?
Clare Quilty : I said "July was hot."
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[Of his childhood love, Annabel]
Humbert : The shock of her death froze something in me. The child I loved was gone, but I kept looking for her - long after I had left my own childhood behind. The poison was in the wound, you see. And the wound wouldn't heal.
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Humbert Humbert : Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if my happiness could have talked it would have filled that hotel with a deafening roar.
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Humbert : I missed you. I missed you a lot.
Lolita : Well I haven't missed you. In fact, I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. But it doesn't matter, because you don't care about me anymore anyway.
Humbert : What makes you think I don't care about you?
Lolita : Well you haven't kissed me yet, have you?
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Humbert : From here to that old car you know so well is a stretch of twenty-five paces. Make those twenty-five steps. With me. Now.
Lolita : You're saying you'll give us the money if I go to a motel with you?
Humbert : No, no, no. I mean leave here now, and come live with me. And die with me, and everything with me.
Lolita : You're crazy.
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Humbert : [thoughts heard] A normal man, given a group photograph of school girls... and asked to point out the loveliest one, will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them. You have to be an artist.. a madman... full of shame and melancholy... and despair in order to recognize the little deadly demon among the others. She stands... unrecognized by them... unconscious herself of her fantastic power.
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Lolita : Wait a sec. You're telling me we're sleeping in one room? With one bed?
Humbert : I've asked them to bring up a cot, which I'll use if you like.
Lolita : You're crazy.
Humbert : Why, my darling?
Lolita : Because, my darrr-ling, when my darrr-ling mother finds out she'll divorce you and strangle me.
Humbert : Lo, listen a moment. For all intents and purposes I am your father and I am responsible for your welfare. We are not rich, so when we travel, we shall be - we shall uh... we shall be thrown together a great deal. And two people who enter into a cohabitation inevitably lead into a kind of...
Lolita : The word is "incest".
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Humbert : We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing.
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Humbert : I was not quite prepared for the reality of my dual role. On the one hand, the willing corruptor of an innocent, and on the other, Humbert the happy housewife.
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Humbert Humbert : Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the colour of hell-flames - but still a paradise.
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Charlotte Haze : [showing him around the large house] Upstairs... I and Lo have our rooms just there... and this is your room. And at 20 dollars a month, you can't beat the price. And this is the kitchen. Now if you have any special food needs, you just say so. I don't know if Ramsdale can provide pâté de foie gras, like you're used to.
Humbert : How's that?
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Charlotte Haze : [referring to her daughter Lolita] Humbert? Is she keeping you up?
Humbert : [guilty look on his face] I beg your pardon?
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Humbert : [observing coquettish Lolita, thoughts heard:] I long for some terrific disaster. Earthquake. Spectacular explosion.
[as Charlotte yells at Lolita to make her bed:]
Humbert : Her mother instantly eliminated.
[feasting his eyes]
Humbert : Along with everybody else for miles around. Lolita... in my arms.
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Humbert : [narrating, re his ulterior motives wedding:] Two weeks later we were married in a simple ceremony. Big Haze made sure Little Haze was *not* in attendance.
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Humbert : [readying herself for what comes next, Lolita took out her retainer] Gentle women of the jury, I was not even her first lover.
