- Samuel Fuller: Film is like a battleground. There's love, hate, action, violence, death... in one word: emotion.
- Marianne: That's what makes me sad: life is so different from books. I wish it were the same: clear, logical, organized.
- Ferdinard: We'll just stop anywhere.
- Marianne: And do what all day? No, let's find my brother. He'll give us tons of dough. Then we'll find ourselves a high-class hotel and have some fun!
- Ferdinard: [breaking the fourth wall] All she thinks about is fun.
- Marianne: Who are you talking to?
- Ferdinard: The audience.
- Marianne: Ah.
- Marianne: What are you doing?
- Ferdinard: [looking at the mirror] Looking at myself.
- Marianne: And what do you see?
- Ferdinard: The face of a man who's driving towards a cliff at 100 km/h.
- Marianne: [turns the mirror towards herself] I see a woman who is in love with the man who's driving towards a cliff at 100 km/h.
- Ferdinard: So let's kiss.
- Ferdinard: Ten minutes ago, I saw death everywhere. Now it's just the opposite, look at the sea, the waves, the sky. Life may be sad, but it's always beautiful!
- Marianne: Look at the last page, there's a little poem about you. It's by me.
- Ferdinard: Tender... and cruel... real... and surreal... terrifying... and funny nocturnal... and diurnal usual... and unusual handsome as anyone
- Marianne: Pierrot le Fou !
- Ferdinard: My name is Ferdinand. I have told you often enough. Christ almighty ! You bore me to death !
- Ferdinard: [quoting what he has written] "That is the basic problem... you're waiting for me... I'm not there... I arrive... I enter the room... that's when I really start to exist for you... But I existed before that... I had thoughts... I may have been suffering... So the problem is to show you alive, thinking of me,and at the same time, to see me alive by virtue of that very fact." Underlined.
- Ferdinard: It's a good thing I don't like spinach, because if I did, I'd eat it, and I can't stand the stuff. It's the same with you, only the other way around. There is a film like that with Michel Simon. He got taken by this girl.
- Ferdinard: A little harbor, as in Conrad.
- Marianne: A sailboat, as in Robert Louis Stevenson.
- Ferdinard: An old brothel, as in Faulkner.
- Marianne: A steward-turned-millionaire, as in Jack London.
- Ferdinard: With you, its always mixed up.
- Marianne: Everything's simple.
- Ferdinard: Too much at once.
- Marianne: No.
- Ferdinard: Two men who beat me up, as in Raymond Chandler.
- Marianne: And you and me and him, see how simple it is?
- Ferdinard: I don't see at all.
- Marianne: It's easy for a girl to kill a lot of people. There's no reason why soft breasts and thighs should keep her from killing everybody to stay free or defend herself! Just look at Cuba or Vietnam or Israel.
- Crazy Man on the Dock: Then the tune I hear doesn't exist? The tune I've been hearing all my life? That tenderness? No! Insensitive man! You missed the whole point!
- Ferdinard: Off to bed, sleepyheads! Why are they still up?
- La femme de Ferdinand: Because you sent the maid to the movies for the third time this week.
- Ferdinard: Sure, I did. They're showing "Johnny Guitar", good for her education. We see too many squares.
- Ferdinard: You see? I was right
- Marianne: What about?
- Ferdinard: You didn't believe we'd always be in love.
- Marianne: No. I didn't...
- [singing]
- Marianne: I never told you I'd love you all my life. Oh my love, you never swore to adore me all your life. We never made promises like that, knowing me knowing you. We never thought we ever would be caught by love fickle as we were. And yet, and yet, step by step, without a word between us, bit by bit, feelings slipped between our merry mingle bodies and words of love rose to our naked lips. Bit by bit lots of words of love began to mingle gently with our kisses. How many words of love? I never would have thought I'd always want you. Oh my love, we never would have thought we two could live together and not get bored. Wake up every morning and be just as surprised to be just as happy in the same bed, desire nothing more than that oh so banal pleasure of feeling so good to be together. And yet, and yet, step by step without a word between us, bit by bit our feelings bound us tight in spite of ourselves, bound us tight forever Feelings stronger than any words of love known or unknown. Feelings so wild and so strong. Feelings we never thought were possible before. Don't ever promise to adore me all your life. Let's not make promises like that knowing me knowing you. Let's keep the feeling that this love of ours, this love of ours, will be short and sweet.
- [stops singing]
- Ferdinard: Anyway, we'll know when we're dead... in 60 years... we'll know if we were always in love.
- Marianne: That's not true, I know I love you, but I'm not sure about you.
- Ferdinard: I do, Marianne, I do.
- Marianne: Well, I'll know soon enough.
- Ferdinard: Aren't you wearing a slip?
- La femme de Ferdinand: No. I'm wearing my new Maidenform girdle, it's invisible.
- Ferdinard: [Reading an advertisement] "In my new trousers I've got that young look with Maidenform!"
- [Talking to himself]
- Ferdinard: After Athens, after the Renaissance, we are now entering the civilization of the rump.