- all the men: [all the men] Carmen! At your feet we follow you! Carmen! At your feet, we beg of you! Be nice, and tell us the day you will love us! Carmen, tell us the day that you will love us!
- Carmen: [singing in an amazed tone of voice] "The day that I will love you"? My word! I don't know!
- [turns saucy, then sultry]
- Carmen: Maybe never!... mm, maybe tomorrow...
- [then mockingly]
- Carmen: ... But NOT today! That's for sure!
- Zuñiga: Ah! Damn, my beauty! That's a pretty poor choice! It's a misalliance to take the trooper when you could have the officer!
- Carmen: No, you don't love me. No, for if you loved me, over there, over there, you'd follow me, yes, over there in the mountains. Over there you'd follow me, you'd take me on your charger and like a gallant across country, riding pillion, we'd run away together. Over there, in the mountains, over there, over there, if you loved me, you'd follow me! If you loved me! You'd be at no one's beck and call, no officer giving you orders, no sounding the retreat telling a lover that he must leave! The open sky, the roving life, the universe your home. Your only law would be desire! And more than all, the intoxication of liberty, liberty!
- Escamillo: She did have a lover, she did have a lover, a soldier who some time ago deserted for her. They adored each other, but I think it's over. Carmen's loves never last more than six months.
- Carmen: Now then, let me try my turn. Diamonds, spades! Death! I saw it, no doubt. First me, then him. For both of us, death! You may shuffle them again and again to avoid an unwelcome prediction. You shuffle in vain, the cards are too honest, the cards will never lie! If you're destined for happiness in the Book up on high, then fearlessly shuffle and cut. The card in your hand will joyously turn up to announce your bliss. But if you must die, if that terrible word is inscribed in the Book as your fate, though you do it twenty times, the pitiless card will repeat nought but Death. Will repeat nought but Death. Yes, if you must die, though you deal twenty times, the pitiless card will repeat nought but Death. Again! Always... Death!