- J.M.W. Turner: Mr. Ruskin, can I pose you a somewhat "conundruous" question?
- John Ruskin: Please do, Mr. Turner.
- J.M.W. Turner: To which do you find yourself the more partial: a steak and kidney pie or veal and ham pie?
- [crowd laughs]
- J.M.W. Turner: Night coach from Brighton proved to be an heinous travail.
- William Turner Snr: How so?
- J.M.W. Turner: It was stuffed full of yacking and cackling females.
- J.M.W. Turner: You making the sauce?
- Hannah Danby: It's all but done, save the brains.
- J.M.W. Turner: Good. Ah. Dearie me.
- William Turner Snr: How was your crossing?
- J.M.W. Turner: Set fair on departure, lumpy in the middle.
- J.M.W. Turner: The ox is a sluggish beast.
- Lord Egremont: Yes, but strong.
- J.M.W. Turner: With the added benefit, when it comes to the end of its natural working life, it makes a very succulent dish.
- Lord Egremont: Unlike the horse.
- J.M.W. Turner: Good for glue.
- Sarah Danby: How do we find you on this fair morning?
- J.M.W. Turner: Exceedingly preoccupied, madam.
- Sarah Danby: 'Twas ever thus. You've always been preoccupied. You're too preoccupied for your own good, sir.
- J.M.W. Turner: Nothing comes from nothing, madam.
- Sarah Danby: And we have had nothing from you, sir.
- Sarah Danby: Do not forget your other daughter, sir, whom you have deigned to neglect these past two years. Sit down, Georgiana.
- Evelina: She is learning French.
- Sarah Danby: And music. She is having an education. Reading, writing, arithmetic and geography with the globe.
- Evelina: Sit up straight, Georgie. Dit quelque chose en Français.
- J.M.W. Turner: Bonjour.
- Georgiana: Bonjour, Papa.
- J.M.W. Turner: [Miss Coggins finishes playing a song on the piano] Exceedingly beautiful.
- Miss Coggins: You are too kind.
- J.M.W. Turner: I'm familiar with the melody, but...
- Miss Coggins: Herr Beethoven. 'The Pathétique'.
- J.M.W. Turner: I possess a rare fondness for Henry Purcell.
- Miss Coggins: As do I. Yes.
- J.M.W. Turner: 'Dido's Lament'.
- [Miss Coggins begins to play, Turner sings]
- J.M.W. Turner: May my wrongs create, create no sorrow...
- Miss Coggins: Trouble.
- J.M.W. Turner: No trouble in thy breast, in they breasts...
- Miss Coggins: Thy breast.
- J.M.W. Turner: In thy breast, Remember me, remember me...
- CR Leslie: His complaint with life is as absurd as that of a spoke in a wheel railing against the motion that it must of necessity partake.
- Mr Booth: Fifty pounds is not sufficient. Five pounds is tantamount to an insult.
- J.M.W. Turner: Sir, I beseech you, brook your ire. If you attend my residence at London, I will loan you fifty pounds.
- Mr Booth: In addition to the five?
- J.M.W. Turner: Mr. Haydon, you are exceedingly tiresome.
- J.M.W. Turner: Whilst you Goddesses are languishing in the Kingdom of Hypnos, I am up before the lark to witness Helios popping his head above the parapet, with the only benefit that the sunrise is not afflicted - with diminishing light.
- Lady Stuckley: Mr. Turner: I have often pondered: might there be a distinction between the way you paint a sunrise as opposed to a sunset?
- J.M.W. Turner: There is indeed, Lady Stuckley. 'Cause one is going up, whilst the other is going down.
- J.M.W. Turner: Rejoice, Haydon. You find yourself in a veritable bacchanalia. His Lordship keeps a very fine wine cellar. Be sanguine. Fill your boots!
- J.M.W. Turner: He suffers the fate of Tantalus. He reaches for the fruit, the branch moves. When he stoops to drink, the water goes down.
- J.M.W. Turner: Color is contradictory.
- Mary Somerville: Well, is it, Mr. Turner? Color is absolute.
- J.M.W. Turner: Sublime but contradictory, yet harmonious.
- Mary Somerville: You are a man of great vision, Mr. Turner. The universe is chaotic and you make us see it. In natural philosophy nothing can ever be proved, only disproved.
- Mary Somerville: The universe is a wondrous is it not, Mr. Turner?
- William Turner Snr: It is, to be sure. natural
- Mary Somerville: The planets and the stars. The oceans and the tides. The clouds and the air. Mountains, volcanoes.
- William Turner Snr: The tides be subject to the effect of the moon.
- Mary Somerville: Quite so. The mysterious force of gravity. It is my strong belief that all things on this earth are connected. Nothing exists in isolation.
- J.M.W. Turner: Indeed.
- William Turner Snr: The rain falls, the sun shines and the onions grow.
- J.M.W. Turner: [with disgust] Humans.
- Sophia Booth: Humans can be dreadful cruel. I watch them boys down there in the sands whipping them poor donkeys. Mind you, you're better off being a donkey than them wretched souls on the slave ships.
- J.M.W. Turner: Mrs Somerville, what is the element contained within the violet light such as magnetises the material?
- Mary Somerville: That is what as yet, Mr. Turner, I do not know.
- J.M.W. Turner: Ah. The majesty of mystery.
- J.M.W. Turner: Will you not take a drink yourself?
- Mr Booth: I ain't touched a drop this many a long year.
- Sophia Booth: He did used to enjoy a tipple, though that were long before I knew him.
- J.M.W. Turner: I'm astounded you have all your paraphernalia contained in yon small pouch.
- Mary Somerville: Indeed it is, Mr. Turner. Everything except God's good sunlight.
- J.M.W. Turner: What did you ply? Whalers? Spicers? Traders?
- Mr Booth: Slavers. For my sins.
- Sophia Booth: He don't like to talk about it, though.
- Mr Booth: Africa, Zanzibar, the Indies. Such terrible sufferings I did see. Treated like animals, they was. Worse than.
- J.M.W. Turner: The howling sound of sorrow.
- William Turner Snr: Was the river busy?
- Mary Somerville: Extremely. You can see the whole world on the Thames.
- Young Lady Singer: [singing] I'm called Pretty Kitty, Pretty Kitty, Pretty Kitty, The maid of the mill. I have lovers in plenty, Come hither to woo, If they will be so teasing, Pray what can I do? I'm good-tempered and kind, And a youth to my mind, Who is open and free, Would be happy with me, But they all are so stupid, That none of them will, Pop the question to Kitty, Pretty Kitty...
- Prostitute: I do extras.
- J.M.W. Turner: No, no, no, no. Remove the bodice. Expose your breasts. No, no. No. Lay upon the bed. Part your legs. Crook your knee. Right arm as thus. Hand upon the head. No. As in despair.
- [Turner begins to draw]
- William Turner Snr: I shall. I shall tell her. I will tell her. I ought to have told her afore. Years ago.
- Sophia Booth: Well, you sit there and make yourself comfy. I expect you'll be tired after your journey. Now, I have not poured your tea for it is fresh in the pot.
- J.M.W. Turner: No matter. Suits me, brewed and stewed.
- Sophia Booth: Will you take a biscuit?
- J.M.W. Turner: No, thank you, madam. I purchased a potato on the boat.
- Benjamin Robert Haydon: Do not talk to me of Turner's work.
- George Jones: Stand down, man!
- Sir Martin Archer Shee: Please, please, please, please lower your voice, Mr. Haydon. Just...
- Benjamin Robert Haydon: His - his pictures look as if they were painted by somebody born without hands!
- Henry William Pickersgill: Haydon, can I point out that I too hang in the inferior chamber?
- Benjamin Robert Haydon: I care not for your work, sir. I care not a fig.
- Henry William Pickersgill: At least my work does not represent self-portrait as ass.
- Sir William Beechey: He's got a damn fine picture here and he's made a damn mockery of it.
- Sir Charles Eastlake: There's method in the madness gentlemen.
- Sir Martin Archer Shee: If that is method, it is pure madness.
- J.M.W. Turner: When I peruse myself in the looking- glass, I see a gargoyle.
- Sophia Booth: Now, you be fishing for compliments, and my old Ma used to say, them that fish for compliments don't get none. Besides, 'tis what's within a person that do matter. I do not know you, Mr. Mallard, and I'm sure there be things about you that are beyond my understanding. But I believe you to be a man of great spirit and fine feeling.
- J.M.W. Turner: Mrs. Booth, you are a woman of profound beauty.
- J.M.W. Turner: Find yourself well, John?
- Clarkson Stanfield: Relishing the day.
- J.M.W. Turner: Capital.
- J.M.W. Turner: Mrs. Booth, would you be so kind as to look out of the window?
- Sophia Booth: Where? What am I looking at?
- J.M.W. Turner: From the tip of your nose to the bridge, to the curve of your brow, you put me in mind of a Greek sculpture I'm familiar with, of Aphrodite, goddess of love.
- Sophia Booth: No. No one's ever said that about my nose before. This old snout.
- J.M.W. Turner: Hmm.
- J.M.W. Turner: [Referring to Leslie's painting] Little maid, in a gamboge gown, left foot instep, touch of highlight.
- CR Leslie: Thank you, Turner.
- David Roberts: Paintings always benefit his remarks.
- J.M.W. Turner: Thackeray reviles it.
- John Ruskin: How so?
- J.M.W. Turner: Sublime or ridiculous, he says.
- John Ruskin: Well, perhaps he should make up his mind.
- J.M.W. Turner: He has a sharp and cynical tongue.
- John Ruskin: There is no place for cynicism in the reviewing of art.
- J.M.W. Turner: Hmm. 'Tis of no consequence
- J.M.W. Turner: There she is!
- Clarkson Stanfield: The saucy 'Temeraire.'
- J.M.W. Turner: Going to her death, I fear.
- David Roberts: She's served her time.
- Clarkson Stanfield: The auctioneer's hammer has struck that final blow.
- J.M.W. Turner: Indeed.
- Clarkson Stanfield: If not for her, the 'Victory' might never again have seen our shores.
- David Roberts: Aye, nor the body of Lord Nelson.
- J.M.W. Turner: The little savior of Trafalgar.
- Clarkson Stanfield: They say five thousand oaks went into making that ship.
- David Roberts: Now she's destined to be reduced to five thousand tables and chairs.
- J.M.W. Turner: To be sat on by five thousand fat arses.
- Clarkson Stanfield: Gentlemen, a toast. Raise your pot of grog. To the fine, fighting 'Temeraire'!
- J.M.W. Turner: [viewing a steamboat] The past is the past. We're observing the future. Smoke. Iron. Steam.
- Clarkson Stanfield: She'd make a fine subject for you to paint, Turner.
- J.M.W. Turner: Oh, is that so, Stanny? I shall cogitate upon it.
- J.M.W. Turner: Mr. Haydon, do you still find yourself in a position of impecuniousness?
- Benjamin Robert Haydon: Impecunity. Turner, that has been my constant state these thirty years. You are most well-appointed here. I do not recall the last time we had as much coal in our scuttle as that. I fear we shall be burning our furniture this winter.
- Ruskin's Mother: My good husband is of the opinion that the gooseberry prefers the colder climate, whereas I consider that all fruits benefit from the warmth.
- George Jones: My dear late mother always insisted that both the gooseberry and the rhubarb favour the colder climes of our victorious isles.
- Ruskin's Father: I do not doubt that the gooseberry for its preference may enjoy the warm. However, I am convinced that a cold start promotes the more vigorous specimen.
- John Ruskin: Are we not to take as empirical evidence our many expeditions to the warmer climes of the Mediterranean, where we do not exactly encounter an abundance of gooseberries?
- Ruskin's Father: Ha! Indeed.
- David Roberts: Exactly so. I did not myself savour many gooseberries in Jerusalem.
- Ruskin's Mother: Ah, the Holy City, Mister Turner.
- David Roberts: And yet we do enjoy fine gooseberries in Scotland, do we not, Mr. Ruskin?
- Ruskin's Father: Aye, and no better a cold start than a good Scottish sun. Stanfield and Roberts laugh.
- David Roberts: Exactly that.
- Clarkson Stanfield: Surely regardless of how cold the start of the life of the gooseberry might be, it is almost certainly destined for a warm ending.
- George Jones: To which we have all borne witness in Mrs. Ruskin's excellent gooseberry pie.
- Queen Victoria: [reviewing paintings on display at the Royal Academy] Turner.
- Prince Albert: He is clearly losing his eyesight
- Queen Victoria: And this one is vile.
- Prince Albert: Ah, unglaublich.
- Queen Victoria: Was ist das?
- Prince Albert: Ich weiß' es nicht.
- Queen Victoria: A dirty, yellow mess.