Jeremy Irons credited as playing...
Charles Swann
- Charles Swann: Why do I subject myself to such humiliation? I used to think Odette was ugly! I had to fall in love with her because she reminded me of a Botticelli. Now I've decided to fall out of love with her and I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't! Tonight - tonight, I finally understand that her love for me - which I rejected at first - that the feelings she had for me will never be revived. But without her I will cease to exist. It's an illness that could prove fatal. And yet I'm afraid of being cured.
- Charles Swann: May I straighten the orchids on your bodice? Like that. Tucking them in myself. What if I smelled them?
- Charles Swann: My love for Odette goes beyond physical desire. It is so caught up in my actions, my thoughts, my sleep, my life, that without it I'd cease to exist.
- Charles Swann: My love is an illness that has reached the stage where it cannot be removed without destroying me. As surgeons say, it's inoperable.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Will you stay a while today?
- Charles Swann: Of course.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: You left in such a rush last time. If you were 20 years older and had a weak bladder, I'd understand.
- Charles Swann: I hear your cousin Gilbert is dying.
- Duke de Guermantes: He wouldn't die now and spoil our day.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Pity I never see you anymore. Life is a dreadful business.
- Charles Swann: Oh, dreadful.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Some days you'd like to die. But death may be just as boring, since we don't know what it is.
- Charles Swann: What I like about you is that you're not cheerful. Let's spend an evening together.
- Charles Swann: She looks like you, don't you think? The high cheekbones, the shape of the neck, the heavy eyelids. The sad eyes.
- Odette de Crecy: Who is she?
- Charles Swann: Zephora, Jethro's daughter. It's by Botticelli. He did it as a fresco in the 15th Century on the wall of the Sistine Chapel.
- Odette de Crecy: I'm not a museum piece.
- Charles Swann: You've put substance in my life - and grace in my heart. Thanks to you, the whole world is bathed in a mysterious light. If you only knew how dry my life was before you.
- Charles Swann: To think that I wasted years of my life - that I wanted to die - that the love of my life - was a woman I didn't like - who wasn't my type.
- Charles Swann: I loved life. I loved the arts. Now I treasure all those old feelings. They're like a collection. I open up my own heart as if it were a display cabinet.