Kevin Kline: Luc Teyssier

French Kiss

Luc Teyssier

Kate: Happy, smile. Sad, frown. Use the corresponding face with the corresponding emotion. But no. You want this mysterious...
Luc: Non. No no no. It is not me who wants it. I don't want it.
Kate: Well what do you want?
Luc: I want you... I want you...
Kate: You want me...
Luc: I want you... to... make Charlie suffer. To make him feel like even though you are right there in front of him, he can't have you.
[he realizes then that he is talking about himself]

Kate: Do you believe in love? The kind that lasts forever?
Luc: I loved my mother.
Kate: No, everybody loves their mother. Even people who hate their mothers love their mothers. The question is, one man meant for one woman. That is the question.
Luc: But it is not an interesting question. It is the question of a little girl who believes in fairy tales.

Luc: [about Luc's brother, Antoine] One night, he got me very drunk. You must understand, I owed him a lot of money. But he knew what he was doing.
Kate: What was he doing?
Luc: I lost all of it. One hand of poker.
[starts to laugh]
Kate: You lost your birthright... in one hand of poker.
Luc: I'm an asshole, what can I tell you?
Kate: Uh-huh. So that's why he hates you and you hate him.
Luc: Oui... that and I slept with his wife.

Kate: You know, all men are bastards.
Luc: Well, not all. I mean, some are just trying to help.
Kate: You know, I never thought I'd be the kind of woman to say this, but it's true. All men are bastards.
Luc: The guy who was talking to you, he was...
Kate: A bastard. A Eurotrash-in-Armani kind of bastard.
Luc: He was wearing a black suit? With a yellow shirt?
Kate: Yeah.
[Luc groans, then pulls Kate up from the sofa]
Kate: You know him?
Luc: Come on.
Kate: Of course you know him. All you bastards know each other.
[Luc pulls Kate toward the hotel exit]
Kate: [to the conierge] Bastard!

Luc: Why are you chasing after him after what he's done to you?
Kate: Because I love him! And I'm afraid that if he doesn't come back that I'll... it'll hurt so much that I'll just shrivel up and I'll never be able to love anyone ever again.
Luc: You say that now, but... after a time, you would forget. First, you would forget his chin, and then his nose, and after a while, you would struggle to remember the exact color of his eyes, and one day you wake up and, pfft, he's gone: his voice, his smell, his face. He will have left you. And then you can begin again.

[an announcement is made in French]
Kate: What was that? That sounded important.
Luc: The pilot said there is a crack in the engine, but not to worry, he'll take off anyway.

Kate: Did you know that there are 452 official government cheeses in this country? Don't you think that's incredible? To come up with 452 ways of classifying what is basically a bacterial process?
Luc: You would prefer one cheese? One cheeseburger to put it on and one restaurant to eat it in?
Kate: I'm saying I *like* the cheese. God! What side of the train did you wake up on?

Kate: A healthy person is someone who expresses what they're feeling inside. Express, not repress.
Luc: In that case, you must be one of the healthiest people in the world.

Luc: You know, I am feeling some very strange emotions right now. Guilt, remorse, my self-esteem is rock bottom. I am trying to think, what can I possibly do to say I'm sorry?
Kate: Shut up! You haven't spent sixty seconds with me when you weren't after something, so what is it this time? Buy, sell, or trade?
Luc: Oui, it is so true. I used you... a lot. You helped me to get my vine and I left you with nothing. So now, I ask myself what I can possibly do to make it up to you.
[sees the police waiting for him]
Luc: And so now, I am here for you.
[runs away]

Luc: First, you must take some wine.
[Kate sips from her glass]
Luc: Can you describe it, the taste?
Kate: It's a nice, red wine.
Luc: I think you can do better.
Kate: A bold wine with a hint of sophistication and lacking in pretension.
[beat]
Kate: Actually, I was just talking about myself. I...
Luc: No, no, you are not wrong. Wine is like people. The vine takes all the influences in life all around it, it absorbs them, and it gets its personality. Here.
[uncorks a small bottle]
Luc: Smell.
Kate: Rosemary.
[another bottle]
Kate: Some kind of mushroom?
Luc: Very good.
[pointing to other bottles]
Luc: Currant, cassis, mint, lavender. They are all in the ground here, and in the air. Now, taste the wine again. Close your eyes.
Kate: [does so] Hmm... the currant, I can taste that right away. And, uh, from the brown bottle... lavender?
[Luc nods, smiling]
Kate: Incredible.

Luc: Kate.
Kate: [hopefully] Yes?
Luc: You are not afraid to fly any more? You are thinking of your little stone cottage?
Kate: It's on a hillside next to a beautiful vineyard. But that's not really what I'm thinking about.
Luc: What are you thinking about?
Kate: You.

Luc: Meanwhile, his lover...
Kate: Don't ever use that word again.
Luc: This bastard woman, she's feeling something else, maybe?
Kate: Once he saw me, myself, moi, everything would change, the spell would be broken.

Luc: [on Kate's fear of flying] I'm curious how you got around your whole life, or do you just stay in your house with the doors locked?
Kate: I get around as nature intended: in a car.

Luc: [in French] I love the sea. So beautiful, so mysterious... so full of fish.