- Mathilde: ...then promise me something, just one thing: the day you don't love me anymore don't pretend you do.
- Mathilde: [Letter:] "My love, I'm going before you do. I am going before your desire dies... Then we'd be left with affection alone, and I know that won't be enough... I'm going before I grow unhappy... I go bearing the taste of our embraces, your smell, your look, your kisses... I go with the memory of my loveliest years, the ones you gave me... I kiss you now, so tenderly I'll die of it... I have always loved you... I have loved only you... I'm going so you never forget me... Mathilde."
- Antoine: Dance with me...
- Mathilde: I don't know how to dance to this music.
- Antoine: Neither do I... So? Close your eyes, tell yourself no one is looking at you... Come on... See how easy it is?... Someday... I'll buy a lottery ticket. Just one. Of course I'll win the jackpot... We'll cruise down the Nile, dancing on the deck of a paddle boat from morning to night, watching the sun go down behind the Pyramids!
- Mathilde: Hold me tight, Antoine, with all your might!... Crush my breasts so tight I can't breathe!... I'm scared that someday you won't want to dance with me.
- Antoine: What nonsense!... Not plaster my belly against yours?... Or feel your skin?... Or caress your shoulders?... Your neck?... Your ass?
- Mathilde: I've known other men, Antoine, but no one like you... I've never belonged to anyone...
- Antoine: I ask nothing of you.
- Mathilde: Hold me tight!
- Antoine's father: [Angry about the older brother] If you start small, you end small... And you? What'll you do later on?
- Antoine - Age 12: Later on, I'll marry a hairdresser.
- Mathilde: [Lettre:] Mon amour, je m'en vais avant que tu t'en ailles. Je m'en vais avant que tu ne me désires plus, parce que alors il ne nous restera que la tendresse et je sais que ça ne sera pas suffisant. Je m'en vais avant d'être malheureuse. Je m'en vais en apportant le goût de nos étreintes, en apportant ton odeur, ton regard, tes baisers. Je m'en vais en apportant les souvenirs des plus belles années de ma vie, celles que tu m'as données. Je t'embrasse longuement, jusqu'à mourrir. Je t'ai toujours aimé. Je n'ai aimé que toi. Je m'en vais pour que tu ne m'oublies jamais. Mathilde.
- Antoine: My father said life was simple, that if you wanted something enough you'd get it... Failure was proof the desire wasn't strong enough.
- Ambroise Dupré dit Isidore Agopian: You think the old are friends because they're old... It's not true... I can tell you from experience: old assholes are the worst.
- Antoine: I was around 12. I loved going to the barber's. In our town there was a barber shop for men only... run by a beautiful Alsatian woman... the lovely Mrs. Sheaffer. She had few clients, so you didn't need an appointment. She had no husband but many lovers. I adored going there. When I opened the door, a wonderful smell flooded my nostrils, a mixture of lotion, hair spray, rose water, shampoo... It was intoxicating... The most extraordinary smell of all was her own. She had red hair and a pronounced body odor that no doubt bothered some clients but drove me wild... Her body seemed to smell of love... I adored that.
- Antoine: I recall that sleepless night... under Mathilde's window... I wanted her to toss and turn, throw off the sheets, get up for a glass of water, look in the mirror, and undress before going back to bed... thinking of me... In fact, she may have been sound asleep. Maybe she had forgotten me... Why assume she is alone in bed? I don't know her.
- Mathilde: [Reading a magazine] "Lose 10 pounds in two weeks on nothing but cucumbers and tea..."... You buy that?
- Antoine: Where'd you read it?
- Mathilde: In this... They say it's medically proven.
- Antoine: What time is it?
- Mathilde: A quarter to 7.
- Antoine: Let's close up... Lose half a pound and I'll throw myself under a bus...
- Mathilde: Then promise me something... just one thing: the day you don't love me anymore don't pretend you do.
- [a customer is trying to come in/door is locked]
- Mathilde: A customer!
- Antoine: He'll be tomorrow's customer.
- Antoine: We've no friends... Never did have... What could they add to our lives?... I take a dim view of couples who go out with other couples, share vacations... It's proof that love is lacking, a gulf bridged by outside friendship... We're fine, Mathilde... We're happy together... that's all that matters.
- Ambroise Dupré dit Isidore Agopian: [At the retirement home] Know why this park has a strange color?... Because folks here will never see anything else: