Neotpravlennoye pismo (1960)

Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy: Konstantin Sabinin

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Quotes 

• Konstantin Sabinin : So, this is it. They won't send a fourth expedition here. They won't send anyone. Never, ever. For a long time now it will be quiet here. For five years. Ten years. A hundred... A thousand. Just my luck. I've been torturing others too. Perhaps Sergei is right... and there are no diamonds here. Eh? There must be! It has been proven theoretically. I can feel it. Intuition does not lie. Why? It does and very often. Perhaps it never lies? What is intuition? It means 'I sense, but I don't know'. But I know and I sense it.

• Konstantin Sabinin : Guys, we'll drink the other half of the cognac when we find the diamonds. Is that clear?

  Tanya : We'll drink for joy.

  Andrey : If we fail, we'll drink for grief.

  Sergey Stepanovich : I am all for drinking whichever way it turns out.

• Andrey : Konstantin, don't you think we should look for a diamond pipe in a different place?

  Konstantin Sabinin : It was here that the geophysicists found an interesting anomaly. You know about it.

  Andrey : We do.

  Konstantin Sabinin : And so?

  Tanya : They can be mistaken.

  Konstantin Sabinin : Right, but hardly a consolation.

  Tanya : Maybe previous results were accidental.

  Konstantin Sabinin : Well, if scientific conclusions, mental calculations, and scientific intuition are nothing but mistakes and fortuity, why are we digging here? The diamond pipe must be somewhere out there.

  Sergey Stepanovich : Somewhere out there. I've heard this a million times. You are possessed, Kostia.

  Konstantin Sabinin : Otherwise you can't accomplish anything within the short human lifetime.

• Konstantin Sabinin : Well begun is half done.

• Tanya : Why don't you sleep?

  Konstantin Sabinin : I'm thinking.

  Tanya : Don't. Thinking makes you tired.

  Konstantin Sabinin : A living person can't help thinking. Not every thought makes you tired. They helped many people in the most difficult situations.

• Konstantin Sabinin : Tania! In future you'll have to keep your oaths more than once.

  Tanya : Oaths?

  Konstantin Sabinin : Didn't you give an oath as a pioneer? It was such a solemn moment.

  Tanya : I... a young pioneer of the Soviet Union, in the presence of my comrades, give a solemn oath...

  Konstantin Sabinin : Some people never have an occasion to recall this oath in their entire lifetime. There is just no need. But sometimes... Tania, we have no more food. We are dead tired. But we must say No to weakness! No to disbelief! No to despair! And Yes to our boundless faith. Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Tanya : Yes. Yes...

• Konstantin Sabinin : Why? Why can't they hear me?

  Vera : You are talking in a whisper, Kostia. You're too weak to shout.

• Konstantin Sabinin : Vera! My darling Vera! My life doesn't belong to me. I must deliver the map to people. I can't die. I can't. I must live. Too much has been lost. Too much has been found...

• Konstantin Sabinin : Nature is against us!