Emma Thompson Monologues

My dearest Lytton, There is a great deal to say, and I feel very incompetent to write it today. You see, I knew there was nothing really to hope for from you, well, ever since the beginning. All these years, I have known all along that my life with you was limited. Lytton, you're the only person who I ever had an all-absorbing passion for. I shall never have another. I couldn't, now. I had one of the most self-abasing loves that a person can have. It's too much of a strain to be quite alone here, waiting to see you, or craning my nose and eyes out of the top window at 44, Gordon Square to see if you were coming down the street. Ralph said you were nervous lest I'd feel I have some sort of claim on you, and that all your friends wondered how you could have stood me so long, as I didn't understand a word of literature. That was wrong. For nobody, I think, could have loved the Ballards, Donne, and Macaulay's Essays and, best of all, Lytton's Essays, as much as I. You never knew, or never will know, the very big and devastating love I had for you. How I adored every hair, every curl of your beard. Just thinking of you now makes me cry so I can't see this paper. Once you said to me - that Wednesday afternoon in the sitting room - you loved me as a friend. Could you tell it to me again. Yours, Carrington.

Lytton, I love being with you. You're so cold - and wise. These last few months, whenever I know I'm going to see you I get so excited inside. If you want to kiss me again, I don't think I'd mind at all.

It makes me think, you're only interested in me sexually.

His conversations are so dull. He's like a Norwegian dentist.

If only I wasn't so - plural. Especially when people seem to want me so - conclusively.

When you've been married for as long as six weeks, you have no idea how pleasant it is to get away on your own.

What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering? For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hopes. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.

You talk of feeling idle and useless. Imagine how that is compounded when one has no hope and no choice of any occupation whatsoever.

Except that you will inherit your fortune. We cannot even earn ours.

Yes. Marianne does not approve of hiding her emotions. In fact, her romantic prejudices have the unfortunate tendency to set propriety at naught.

Rather too unspoilt, in my view. The sooner she becomes acquainted with the ways of the world, the better.

Marianne, please try... I... I cannot... I cannot do without you. Oh, please, I... I-I have tried to bear everything else... I will try... Please, dearest, beloved Marianne, do not leave me alone.

Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course… at least you may be certain that he loved you.

I am by no means assured of his regard, and even were he to feel such a preference, I think we should be foolish to assume that there would not be many obstacles to his marrying a... a woman of no rank who cannot afford to buy sugar.

In such a situation, Mamma, it is perhaps better to use one's head.

Mrs Jennings is a wealthy woman with a married daughter. She has nothing to do but marry off everyone else's.

John and Fanny are in town. I think we shall be forced to see them.

Why? Why, Mr. Stevens, why do you always have to hide what you feel?

Mister Stevens! Am I to take it that after all the years I have been in this house you have nothing else to say to me?

People always cheer when they turn the lights on in the evening. Every time.

They do say, that for a great many people the evening's the best part of the day. The part they most look forward to.

You don't like having pretty girls on the staff, I've noticed.

Might it be that our Mr Stevens fears distraction? Can it be that our Mr Stevens is flesh and blood after all and doesn't trust himself?

…then why is that guilty smile still on your face?

It *is* a guilty smile. You can hardly bear to look at her. That's why you didn't want to take her on, she's too pretty.

I am a coward. I'm frightened of leaving and that's the truth. All I see out in the world is loneliness and it frightens me. That's all my high principals are worth, Mr. Stevens. I'm ashamed of myself.

I so often think of the good old days when I was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall. It was certainly hard work and I've certainly known butlers easier to please than our Mr. Stevens; but, I remember those years as among the happiest of my life.

I don't know what my future is. Ever since Katherine, my daughter, got married last year, my life has been empty. The years stretch before me and if only I knew how to fill them. But, I would like to be useful again.

There are times when I think what a terrible mistake I've made with my life.

What's in that book? Come on, let me see. Or, are you protecting me? Is that what you're doing? Would I be shocked? Would it ruin my character. Let me see it.

Young man, if it is your ambition to handle ladies' garments, may I suggest you take employment in a launderette?

I cannot begin to tell you how uninterested - no, positively sickened I am at the thought of visiting your dollar-printing machine.

Disappointments are to the soul what the thunderstorm is to the air.

I know what he's going to do to her. She'll be cavorting, and twinkling, careening towards a happy ending like a kamikaze.

Penguins! Penguins have very much upset me, Mr. Disney; ANIMATED, DANCING penguins! Now, you have seduced me with the music, Mr Disney, yes, you have. Those Sherman boys have quite turned my head but I shall NOT be moved on the matter of cartoons, Sir; not one inch!

You promised me... You PROMISED me that this film would not be an animation!

It is blasphemy to drink tea from a paper cup.

Because these books simply do not lend themselves to chirping and prancing. No, it's certainly not a musical. Now, where is Mr. Disney? I should so much like to get this started and finished as briskly as is humanly possible.

Why did you have to make him so cruel? He was not a monster!

You all have children, yes? And do those children make letters for you? Do they write letters? Do they make you drawings? And would you tear up those gifts in front of them? It's a dreadful thing to do. I don't understand. Why must Father tear up the advertisement his children have made and throw it in the fireplace? Why won't he mend their kite? Why have you made him so unspeakably awful? "In glorious Technicolor"? "For all the world to see"? If you claim to make them live, why can't he... they live well? I can't bear it. Please don't. Please don't. I feel like I let him down again.

I will not have her called Cynthia, absolutely not. It feels unlucky. It should be something warm, a bit sexy. How about Mavis?

Hold it. Now, I see that Cherry Tree Lane as not too townified on one side of the park. And we'll get you a photograph of 50 Smith Street, in order to see that the house is really quite like that. But it has more of a garden than my house had. But it might be useful and amusing to put it in as my house. You see?

Now, go on. "At the end of the chorus…" There ought perhaps to have been people in this countryside, you see? Are you making note of it? And they would be the Pearly people. They'd be arriving and they'd come nearer and they'd see, "Ah. Hmm." They know they are not grand enough to eat at this table. Have you got this on tape? Because I think it's important. I'm not going to do this film unless I'm available for it.

Yes, yes. Well, anyway, it brings about whatever it is. Mr. Banks, um, is able. He has a tender, good heart, not a change of heart, because he's always been sweet, but worried with the cares of life.

Gotcha, indeed! Mr. Disney, if you have "dangled", it is at the end of a rope you have fashioned for yourself. I was perfectly clear when you approached me 20 years ago that she wasn't for sale and I was clear again when you approached me the following year and clear again when you approached me every annum for the subsequent 18 years and quite honestly, I feel corralled!

My point is that, unlike yourself, Mary Poppins is the very enemy of whimsy and sentiment. She's truthful. She doesn't sugarcoat the darkness in the world that these children will eventually, inevitably come to know. She prepares them for it. She deals in honesty. One must clean one's room, it won't magically do it by itself! This entire script is flim-flam! Where is its heart? Where is its reality? Where… is the gravitas?

Being a mother is a job. It's a very difficult job and one not everyone is up to, not one everyone should have taken on in the first place.

Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die and then dies. But if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway, dies willingly, knowing he could stop it, then... I mean, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?

Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.

It wasn't just about finding a guitar. It was about finding a guitar that said something about Harold. Unfortunately, this guitar said: "When I get back to Georgia, that woman gonna feel my pain." This one said something along the lines of: "Why, yes, these pants are Lycra." These said, "I'm very sensitive, very caring and I have absolutely no idea how to play the guitar." "I'm compensating for something. Guess what." And then Harold saw it.

As Harold took a bite of Bavarian Sugar Cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be okay. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian Sugar Cookies, and fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin… or a kind and loving gesture… or a subtle encouragement… or a loving embrace… or an offer of comfort… not to mention hospital gurneys… and nose plugs… and uneaten Danish… and soft-spoken secrets… and Fender Stratocasters… and maybe, the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And so it was a wristwatch saved Harold Crick.

Why was Harold talking to this man? This man was an idiot.

Excuse me, where are the dying people? Most of these people are sick or injured - Which is great, don't get me wrong. But they're gonna get better, which doesn't really help me. Is there any way to see the people who aren't going to get better?

The sound the paper made against the folder had the same tone as a wave scraping against sand. And when Harold thought about it, he listened to enough waves every day to constitute what he imagined to be a deep and endless ocean...

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never. Then sigh not so but let them go and be you blithe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into hey nonny nonny.

A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. And he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man - I am not for him.

Is he not approved in the height of a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonored my kinswoman? O, that I were a man! What bear her in hand until they come to take hands and then, with public accusation uncovered slander, unmitigated rancor… O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace!

I pray you, who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.

O lord, he will hang upon him like a disease. He is sooner caught than the pestilence and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio. If he have caught the Benedick, 'twill cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.