- Julien Davenne: He taught me a very hard fact: if you agree to be a member of society, be ready to feel a deep sense of disgust.
- Julien Davenne: Hate is not part of my outlook on life. But I do think of him as the man who has hurt me the most. Through him, I saw that for certain people, life is a ferocious race with no holds barred. So, I withdrew from the race and gradually, because of Massigny, I am now only a spectator of life.
- Julien Davenne: I'm shocked by the terrible way the dead are forgotten. I want to correct that injustice.
- Julien Davenne: I thought you didn't want to seem anymore.
- Cecilia Mandel: No. I thought it was you who didn't want to see me.
- Julien Davenne: I don't like cemeteries anymore, they're cold prisons. They lock up the dead to get rid of them under the frozen earth.
- Cecilia Mandel: I don't agree. They're at home everywhere underground.
- Cecilia Mandel: If you can wait a moment, the lesson is nearly over.
- Julien Davenne: Yes, this is the first time I've really come to your house. I wonder if I shouldn't sign up for piano lessons.
- Cecilia Mandel: Piano lessons?
- Julien Davenne: Yes. If I were your student, I'd have some power over you.
- Cecilia Mandel: Power over me?
- Julien Davenne: Yes.
- Cecilia Mandel: You, you want to have power over me?
- Cecilia Mandel: There was the cemetery where we met so often. Did you ever wonder what tomb I was visiting?
- Julien Davenne: Yes, but it was like opening a letter sent to someone else.
- Bernard Humbert: Julien Davenne is a man like the others. He needs to love and be loved. If he claims to enjoy solitude, he's lying to himself. No one, absolutely no one really likes solitude.
- Cecilia Mandel: I know it isn't easy to live with the living, it's easier with the dead. We enclose them in transparent walls of imagination.
- Julien Davenne: But in fact she was irreverence personified. I remember how she ended a heated argument by exclaiming: "If God existed, I'd be the first to know!"
- Cecilia Mandel: You weren't tempted to disobey the order?
- Julien Davenne: No, because I was raised to be obedient.
- Cecilia Mandel: I know about obedience.
- Julien Davenne: I can't say where I'm taking you. Do you trust me?
- Cecilia Mandel: Of course, I trust you; but, I still find you very mysterious. Aren't you going to ask me to put on a blindfold?