The Importance of Being Earnest
2002
Miss Prism: Do you mind if I take your picture? Cecily: No, I often like to be looked at.
(on hearing that Jack's wastrel brother died suddenly) Miss Prism: What a lesson for him. I trust he will profit by it.
Cecily: You must not laugh at me, darling, but it has always been a girlish dream of mine to love a man named Earnest.
Jack: Actually, I was found. Lady Bracknell: Found? Jack: Uh, yes, I was in... a handbag. Lady Bracknell: A handbag? Jack: Yes, it was... (makes gestures) an ordinary handbag.
Algy: But, what if I had some other name? Cecily: Another name? Algy: Well... Algy, for instance. Cecily: I would greatly respect you, but I wouldn't love you.
(while Algy is pretending to be Jack's brother) Jack: (whispering) Algy! Algy! Algy! (Algy looks around, as if wondering who Jack's calling) Jack: Ernest. Algy: Ah, good morning, dear fellow.
Gwendolyn: In matters of utmost importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
Gwendolyn: Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us!
Lady Bracknell: You seem to be displaying signs of triviality. Jack: On the contrary, Aunt Augusta. I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Ernest.
Jack: Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?
Gwendolyn: Let us preserve a dignified silence. Cecily: Certainly. It is the only thing to do now. (Jack and Algernon begin serenading them) Gwendolyn: This dignified silence seems to produce an unpleasant effect.
(in the end credits) Jack: Algy, you're always talking nonsense. Algy: It's better than listening to it.
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.
Cecily: What a charming boy, I like his hair so much!
Jack: Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden. Algy: But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins! Jack: I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing. Algy: That may be, but the muffins are the same!
Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
Cecily, Gwendolyn: (speaking together) Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier! That is all.
Jack: How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't understand! Algy: I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.
Algy: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane: I didn't think it polite to listen, Sir.
Algy: But why does your aunt call you her uncle? (Reading cigarette case) Algy: "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out.
(over the end credits, Algy and Jack rehearse their song to win back their girls) Jack: I think your high notes may have damaged our chances, old boy. You do want them to come down, don't you? Algy: Well, they're never going to come down while you're singing like that, you're completely out of tune. Jack: How dare you. Algy: I'll take this next bit. Jack: You leave this one to me, you go and have a lie-down. Algy: I'm doing it. Jack: Move out of my way, I'm coming through. Algy: Go easy, my dear fellow... Jack: (singing) COME DO-O-O-O-WN, LADY COME DOWN... Algy: Overdoing it, less is more.
(Jack tells Lady Bracknell his address in London) Lady Bracknell: The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. (she reaches for the bell, but reconsiders and pulls back) However, that could easily be altered. Jack: Do you mean the fashion, or the side? Lady Bracknell: Well, both, if necessary, I presume!
Algy: Bunbury? He was quite *exploded*. Lady Bracknell: Exploded? Algy: (pretending sadness) Mm. Lady Bracknell: Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr Bunbury was interested in social legislation. Algy: My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was *found out*. The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live - that is what I mean - so Bunbury died. Lady Bracknell: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.
Jack: Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to.
Lady Bracknell: Come on, Gwendolyn, we have already missed five, if not six trains! To miss any more might expose us to comments on the platform.