Leslie Caron credited as playing...
- Marius: [angrily insulting Panisse] Lecher!
- Panisse: What?
- Marius: Eunuch!
- Fanny: Oh, Marius, be consistent. He can't be both.
- Marius: Debaucher of young girls!
- Fanny: Why weren't you at the dance last night?
- Marius: Well, I can live without dancing.
- Fanny: I dance practically every dance with Victor. Very good dancer. Very polite and clever too.
- Marius: Victor? Is he that little boy with the large pimples?
- Fanny: Oh the pimples are all gone now.
- Marius: I'm glad to hear it.
- Fanny: They've been replaced by boils.
- Marius: [Torn between Fanny and his dream] Fanny. Only you can stop me. Now tell me that you love me. Tell me now!
- Fanny: [Weeping] Marius, I tell you... you are free to go.
- Marius: [Heartbroken] Alright. Then it's settled. Each to his love! You will marry Panisse's money, and I will marry the sea!
- Panisse: Oh, Fanny! Fanny, we'll give him - everything!
- Fanny: But if it's a girl?
- Panisse: We'll give her - almost everything.
- Fanny: Oh, Panisse, how good you are. I would work like a slave to make you happy. I would be a servant to you.
- Panisse: I'm not asking you to be my servant. I'm asking you to be my wife.
- Fanny: I accept you, Panisse.
- Fanny: Do you know where I've just come from?
- Marius: [Uneasy] No.
- Fanny: Panisse's. I told him I could no marry him.
- Marius: Are you sure you did the right thing?
- Marius: What's the difference if I love you or not? I can't marry...
- Fanny: Why? Do you dislike me, then? Do you hate me? Am I something ugly to you?
- Marius: Fanny... I want to go away. I have to. I'm trapped here among people who maybe love me too much. Look at this harbor, these boats. Every man who walks across one of those gangplanks is a freer man than I am. It's driven me almost crazy.
- Marius: Once when I was a little boy, the Admiral and I watched a strange ship come into the harbor. We went aboard and we met an old sailor with a beard like a snowstorm. He told us about the isles beneath the wind... where black trees grow, and when you cut them, they're gold inside. And smell of camphor, and pepper. That's when it happened, this deep, painful wish I have. Whenever I see a boat steaming out of the harbor it makes me dizzy. As though I were falling forward, always to the sea.
- The Admiral: How long do you think you will keep him? He will clean bars... wash bottles... breed children... and grow to hate the woman who tied him to this life.
- Fanny: He will never hate me.
- The Admiral: You wait and see.
- [spits and laughs, departs]
- Panisse: Such a pretty hand.
- Fanny: Papa Panisse. You have already praised my hand.
- Panisse: Your right hand. I am now referring to your left hand.
- [pets Fanny's hand]
- Panisse: Oh, so delicate. What an agreeable sample of what the rest of you must be like.
- Fanny: Oh, ho, ho. Panisse!
- Marius: Fanny, I - I want to talk to you like a brother to a sister.
- Fanny: Well, you're not my brother, and I'm not your sister.
- Fanny: If it's any comfort to you, remember that there's a woman who thinks about you every night, And would like to lie beside you and fall asleep in the warmth of your body and wake in the morning with your arms around her.
- Fanny: I sell no fish today. It's my birthday.
- Fanny: I have no desire to be a man. Have another whiff.
- Cesar: [sniffs] Delicious.
- Fanny: Here, inhale.
- Cesar: [smells Fanny's arm] It's not sardine.
- Fanny: It's perfume!
- Cesar: Oh! Is it very expensive?
- Fanny: Of course not. But it is perfume! Mama give it to me. She said, uh, today, daughter, you are a woman.
- Fanny: Not only quantity but quality.
- Panisse: How understanding you are for a young girl.
- Fanny: Panisse and I are going to be married.
- Cesar: I don't believe it.
- Panisse: I believe it.
- Cesar: It's your mother! Your mother loves Panisse's money. And she has sold you like a - like a little African slave!
