Toni Servillo credited as playing...
Jep Gambardella
- [last lines]
- Jep Gambardella: This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life. Hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah. It's all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise. Silence and sentiment. Emotion and fear. The haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty. And then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world, blah, blah, blah... Beyond there is what lies beyond. I don't deal with what lies beyond. Therefore... let this novel begin. After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick.
- Jep Gambardella: We're all on the brink of despair. All we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little... Don't you agree?
- Jep Gambardella: The most important thing I discovered a few days after turning 65 is that I can't waste any more time doing things I don't want to do.
- Jep Gambardella: To this question, as kids, my friends always gave the same answer: "Pussy." Whereas I answered "The smell of old people's houses." The question was "What do you really like the most in life?" I was destined for sensibility. I was destined to become a writer. I was destined to become Jep Gambardella.
- Jep Gambardella: When I came to Rome at the age of 26, I fell pretty swiftly into what might be defined as the whirl of the high life, but I didn't just want to live the high life, i wanted to be the king of the high life. I didn't just want to attend parties, i wanted the power to make them fail.
- Jep Gambardella: The trains at our parties are the best in Rome. They're the best 'cause they go nowhere.
- Santa: Do you know why I only eat roots?
- Jep Gambardella: No, why?
- Santa: Because roots are important.
- Jep Gambardella: It was nice not making love.
- Ramona: It was nice loving each other.
- Jep Gambardella: I'd forgotten what loving someone was about. I'd forgotten that.
- Stefania: Rome is the only city in the world where Marxism has truly existed. You can't excel over others for more than a week, you're immediately brought back to mediocrity. Rome is pure collectivism.
- Jep Gambardella: Pure collectivism. Stefania, what utter nonsense! Do you know that Flaubert wanted to write a book about nothing? If he'd met you, we'd have had a great book, what a shame!
- Jep Gambardella: What's wrong with feeling nostalgic? It's the only distraction left for those who've no faith in the future.
- Jep Gambardella: Stefania, mother and woman. You're 53, with a life in tatters, like the rest of us. Instead of acting superior and treating us with contempt, you should look at us with affection. We're all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little. Don't you agree?
- Ramona: It must be very satisfying knowing so many people.
- Jep Gambardella: You're guaranteed to be unhappy.
- Ramona: Have people let you down?
- Jep Gambardella: I've let them down.