Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri in Phèdre (1962)

Quotes

Phèdre

Thanos: [to Alexis, after Phaedra has told him the truth about her affair with Alexis] My whole life - my whole *life*, you make my whole life *dirty*!

Alexis: I don't call you "mother," do I?
Phaedra: If you do, I'll kill you.

Phaedra: Didn't your father teach you *any* Greek?
Alexis: No. Mother wouldn't let him. She thinks all Greeks are savages.

Ercy: I see you and Heleni. I see everything.
Alexis: Little cousin, you don't own me. Why does everybody think they own me? *Nobody* owns me!

Ercy: Don't be angry with me.
[disrobing]
Ercy: It's the first time in my life that I stayed out all night. I love him. I want him to love me. Help me. Tell me how to be attractive to him. I know he can love me. I can tell.
[Dabbing some of Phaedra's perfume on herself]
Phaedra: Don't touch my perfume! I don't like my perfume on other people.

Phaedra: There's only one thing more terrible than what we have done: and that is to leave each other.

Phaedra: Don't come to Greece.

Alexis: Go, girl, go! That's my girl. You do what I say, don't you?

Alexis: Phaedra, please help me. Let me go.
Phaedra: I can't.

Chorus: They are powerful. They speak many languages. And they celebrate with fire in the sky.

Phaedra: Thanos you're a pirate. One day you'll be hung by your own ambition.
Thanos: I'm ambitious, my Queen, only for you.

Ercy: Do you know any girl who wants a uranium mine?

Ercy: Phaedra, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to lure all the men away from their women.

Ercy: I know everything.
Phaedra: About what?
Ercy: About how Uncle Thanos was crazy about Mommy first and he divorced the English woman for her and then you came back from Switzerland and he fell madly in love with you and the son of the English woman hates you instead of Mommy.

Phaedra: The power you have over people. It must be exciting to you.
Thanos: From time to time. And the power you have over men, is it exciting to you?
Phaedra: From time to time.

Phaedra: You must love her very much, to hate me as much as you did.

Phaedra: You're Alexis.
Alexis: Yes. And you're Phaedra.
Phaedra: Yes.

Phaedra: He's half Greek. Very impulsive.

Alexis: You're my step mother. As wicked and ugly as a fairy tale's step mother and I adore you.

Alexis: Never let them photograph you. They'd make you look pretty - and you're not pretty. Your face is unique. I never saw a face like your's. Don't turn away. We're here to know each other. Father's orders.
Phaedra: Do you always obey your father's orders?
Alexis: [mockingly] They are sacred.
Phaedra: Well, he commands you to like me and - me to like you.
Alexis: And do you always obey his orders?
Phaedra: I write them.

Phaedra: Your father stays in no place forever. He's a meteor.

Phaedra: Please come to Greece. At least come to Paris to talk to your father.
Alexis: I would like you to want me to come to Greece - because *you* would like me to come to Greece.
Phaedra: I do. I wish it with all my heart.

Phaedra: Please help me. I'm sorry you hate me again. I love you.
Alexis: Thank you.
Phaedra: When I say I love you, that means I'm in love with you.

Alexis: Please. Be forgiving. I only hated you until I met you. Now, I'm crazy about you. And now I'd like you to dance with me so that everyone will look at me with dark jealousy.

Phaedra: You're a child.
Alexis: Yes, Mommy. Will you talk to him?
Phaedra: I will and don't call me Mommy.
Alexis: No, ma'am.

Alexis: What's it about?
Phaedra: Like all Greek songs, about love and death.

Phaedra: [singing] I give you milk and honey, In return you give me poison...

Alexis: We're leaving. I want to make love to you. *Now*. I'll give you two minutes.

Anna: I live only for you.
Phaedra: I don't want to live.

Alexis: Phaedra, what are we going to do?
Phaedra: Not yet.
Alexis: We have to talk.
Phaedra: *Please*, not yet.

Christos: [unloading a crate with Alexis' Aston Martin] What is it?
Thanos: Don't you know, Christos?
Christos: To me it looks like a big coffin.
Thanos: It's the fastest coffin you ever saw driven by hundreds of horses.
Christos: Horses?
Thanos: Don't try to figure it out, Christos. Just let me know when my coffin is open

Thanos: Phaedra, forgive me. The next time I shout at you, don't stop, just - just scratch out my eyes.

Phaedra: Please, come. Please.

Thanos: I need him. I asked for your help.
Phaedra: Forgive me. I wasn't able. Forgive me.

Thanos: Your father called you, didn't he? Your father wants to swallow the whole world. Alright! He helped me in the beginning. But, I am not at the beginning any more. He doesn't want my son in business with me.

Thanos: What do you think of the appetite of our father-in-law?
Andreas: Big!
Thanos: Big. Separately, one-by-one, he can swallow us whole. But, if we get together: indigestible.

Thanos: This is my son, Alexis.
Ercy: Oh, wonderful. What a handsome cousin.
Thanos: Not your cousin. But, I let you kiss him anyway.

Ercy: He's delicious! I could eat him up.

Ariadne: Why do men dedicate all their crimes to women?

Ercy: Remember, we don't hold hands when we do the cha-cha-cha. But, always look in my eyes. That's what makes it sexy.

Alexis: You're a sweet little girl.
Ercy: I'm not sweet! I'm not a little girl. And one night I'll come to your room and seduce you. And don't laugh.

Phaedra: I'm losing my mind.
Anna: Put that boy out of your heart or everything will fall.

Ercy: I don't like you.
Alexis: Then, come closer.

Heleni: You're the first Englishman I ever liked.
Alexis: Fee fi. Fo fum.
Heleni: What?
Alexis: I'm a woman-eater!

Ercy: Alexis, a girl name Heleni will be at the party. She's old, about 24, and a man-eater. Keep away from her.

Thanos: Get out of Greece. Carry my curse wherever you go.

Thanos: The Americans have an expression: If you can't lick them, join them!

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