- [last lines]
- Marion: [voiceover] I closed the book, and felt this strange mixture of wistfulness and hope, and I wondered if a memory is something you have or something you've lost. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.
- Paul: Do you remember some years ago when I showed you something I'd written, do you remember what you said?
- Marion: No, I don't remember. I was probably just trying to be truthful.
- Paul: Yes, I'm sure. You said, "This is overblown, it's too emotional, it's maudlin. Your dreams may be meaningful to you, but to the objective observer, it's just so embarrassing."
- Marion: I said that?
- Paul: Exactly your words. So I tried not to embarrass you any more.
- Marion: Then I saw my mother's favorite poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo." There were stains on the page, which, I believe were her tears. They fell across the last line, "For here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life."
- Marion: Fifty. I didn't think anything turning thirty. Everybody said I would. Then they said I'd be crushed turning forty, but they were wrong. I didn't give it a second's thought. Then they said that I'd be traumatized when I hit fifty, and they were right. I'll tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever recovered my balance since turning fifty.
- Hope: Oh, gee, fifty's not so old.
- Marion: No, I know it isn't, but... you just suddenly look up and see where you are.
- Hope: You're in a good spot, aren't you?
- Marion: Well, I thought I was. But then there's chances gone by you can't have back again.
- Hope: Like what?
- Marion: I don't know. Maybe it would be nice to have a child.
- Hope: You really think that?
- Marion: I do. I never said it before, but I do.
- [first lines]
- Marion: [voiceover] If someone had asked me when I reached my fifties to assess my life, I would have said that I had achieved a decent measure of fulfillment, both personally and professionally. Beyond that, I would say I don't choose to delve.
- Hope: She can't allow herself to feel. And the result is she's lead this cold, cerebral life. And its alienated everyone around her.
- Marion: But you want nothing around to even remind you of mother?
- Marion's Father: Well, there are times when even an historian shouldn't look at the past.
- Laura: Do you think at your age you can find someone and fall in love again?
- Marion's Father: One hopes at my age to build up an immunity.
- Hope: She's pretended for so long that everything's fine, but, you can see clearly how, how lost she is.
- Marion's Father: Now that my life is drawing to a close, I only have one regret - regret that the one I chose to share my life with is not the one I loved the most deeply.
- Hope: I really can't believe I'm saying this. Lately, I've had odd feelings about my marriage. Its as if its been - coming apart. And I've been in just so many ways denying it. I must admit, I have moments when I question whether I made the right choice.
- Larry: Yes, he is my friend and I love him. But, he's a prig. He's cold and he's stuffy. Can't you see that?
- Marion: Don't make something romantic sound infantile...
- Ken: Hey, but it's the same level of maturity as sex on the floor.
- Marion: Well, we might as well have it on the floor, we certainly don't have it in bed anymore.
- Ken: I don't believe we're having this discussion.
- Marion: Why have you stopped sleeping with me?
- Ken: We are simply going through a less active period, that's all. Its not uncommon.
- Marion: Why? I just want to know why?
- Ken: Why don't we just go to bed.
- Marion: There was a time that we were dying to be together.
- Ken: Marion, you're still the most desirable woman that I know.
- Marion: But, we won't make love tonight, because, they'll be some excuse. I hadn't realized how much of that had slipped away, until today.
- Mark: There's no privacy left. Last week, Lydia and I were at home, it was a Sunday morning.
- Lydia: Mark?
- Mark: This is true. And we started kissing...
- Lydia: Mark!
- Mark: And the next thing, you know, we were on the floor and I was having...
- Lydia: Are you crazy? You know, he's drunk.
- Mark: On the kitchen floor, on the living room floor.
- Lydia: I got to admit it was a surprise.
- Mark: Did it not happen that way? So, the door opens and the Superintendent, he has the key, barges in...
- Lydia: Stop it.
- Mark: Some kind of plumbing leak and we are in in flagrant...
- Lydia: You know what this one does, he gets up stark naked and he says, "Mr. Fanducci, this is not the pipe that needs fixing."
- Mark: I was quick, Ken. Very quick. Could you have come up with anything quick, Ken?
- Ken: No.
- Mark: That was grace under pressure.
- Hope: I guess you can't keep deep feelings closed out forever, you know. So, I just don't want to look up when I'm her age and find that my life is empty.