MovieChat Forums > The Jewel in the Crown (1984) Discussion > Memorable Quotes: A Call to Action

Memorable Quotes: A Call to Action

posted 17 years ago by bejasus
21 replies | jump to latest

Okay, the Jewel in the Crown message board is quite a tribute to its fans! Thoughtful posts, interesting debates, no naming calling or patriotic attacks and counterattacks.

But why no memorable quotes in the database? The movie is full of them! I'm going to transcribe some of my favorites and submit them, and I encourage other fans to do the same with their favorites! It's full of great lines, wonderfully delivered. Let's get them submitted for posterity!

Clementine: I'm a vindictive little bitch, truth be told!

[–] melj 17 years ago

You are right that there are so many. One that springs to mind is from episode seven:

Mr Maybrick: 'I don't think that Captain Coley thinks that you...'

Barbie: 'Captain Coley doesn't think at all; that's God's blessing on him.'

I shall return with more when I can think of some.

[–] gaelicguy 17 years ago

A horrid Mildred to poor Barbie: "India's been bad for you and Rose Cottage, a disaster!"

If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

[–] murph24 17 years ago

For me, the classic quote comes from Barbie Batchelor; she utters it when she's showing Sarah Layton (and the other women) the "Jewel In The Crown" painting at Rose Cottage -

But you must admit, the artist got everything in: Princes, generals, paupers, children, statesmen, and old Victoria in the middle on her throne in the open air - quite absurd, of course, because she never came to India. But it's allegorical, because the jewel ISN'T the one the prince is offering to his sovereign; the jewel is India - Disraeli's empire.

Yes, the jewel is India.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] calmeilles 7 years ago

The memory of Barbie saying that has stayed with me since it was first broadcast on UK tv in 1984.

However, having just watched it, the explanation of the picture is first given by Edwina Crane to Daphne when Miss Crane is in hospital towards the end of episode one.

[–] pmcraver 17 years ago

How about this one in the first episode. "Aunt" Lilli is talking to Daphne while they are playing a board game.

"The English have always revered saints, but hated them to be shrewd. To a Hindu of course life is a struggle toward oblivion -- the material world being a delusion. Drinks, Ramaswami?"

She continues: "So if Mr. Gandhi chooses to ignore reality, even when it's as unlikely and unpleasant as an invasion by the Japanese, I really do have to admire his shrewdness in striving for personal salvation by putting the cat so thoroughly among the pigeons. Whereas for western mores, getting to heaven only requires an act we're all capable of -- dying, I mean."

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] bejasus 17 years ago

Thank you all -- I am re-watching the series, and making my (verbatim) list to submit to the database. I'll get them submitted shortly.

Some of my favorites are from "Sophie" Dixon . . . . like the one where Merrick is trying to poke holes in his queeny act and says that he's heard reports that Dixon should have earned a medal for bravery and Dixon says something like "Yes, but where would they pin it? Cheeky devils."

Clementine: I'm a vindictive little bitch, truth be told!

[–] DBloodnok 17 years ago

I've added one

"Someone has been tampering with Hank's memories."

[–] androphile 16 years ago

The most haunting and poignant quote perhaps is Hari Kumar's when, after a few years of imprisonment, he undergoes questioning by Nigel Rowan. All have assumed that Hari was told of Daphne's death while giving birth to his child, but in fact he hasn't ever been told. When he pieces it together thanks to this questioning and has his suspicions confirmed, he simply says, "I should have been told," as his tears well up.

I too can never hold back tears when I watch this scene. Art Malik's performance is understated yet so deeply moving.

"Tell you what . . . the truth is . . . sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it." --Jack Twist

[–] vivlin999 15 years ago

One of my favourite's is in the first episode, when Hari goes to a party at Lady Chatterjie's, a party he doesn't want to go to, and when he meets and speaks with Daphne for the first time, Daphne's exclaims "where did you learn to speak such good english?" and Hari replies with a sarcastic grin, "England".

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] snu_grad 15 years ago

There are so many wonderful lines. I have watched this series 3 times and love it. The book is excellent as well. I'm very fond of this exchange:

Merrick: Are you one of those people who think that if you teach an Indian the rules of cricket he'll become a perfect English gentleman?

Perron: Hardly, sir. Since I know quite a few Englishmen who play brilliantly and are absolute *beep*

^_^

P.S. Oops! Sorry for the bad word. Keep me in line, all right? (It's not my fault; it's Perron's.) :P

[–] hugh1971 13 years ago

After Teddy has been speaking to a lower-middle class junior officer straight out from England and temporarily attached to the Indian Army, he says something like 'who on earth was that - he was the sort of chap you meet in pubs on the Kingston bypass!'

[–] melj 13 years ago

Here are a few more:

Merrick to Sophie Dixon: 'So what's the truth, Dixon? Are you a hero, or a bloody pansy?'
Sophie: 'I don't think, Captain Merrick, that's the kind of question we ought to ask ourselves; do you, sir?'

Daphne: 'For all I know, the men who raped me could have been British soldiers with their faces blacked.'

Daphne: 'If you think of the history of us and India - the British, I mean - there must be ghosts; hundreds of thousands, probably.'
Hari: 'And I hate it.'
Daphne: 'What?'
Hari: 'India. I hate all the beggars, and the crowds, and the heat, and the bugs, and most of all, myself, for being black and English.'

[–] melj 13 years ago

Here's another one between Merrick and Sarah:

Sarah: 'What are we talking about, Ronald? The social pressure that keeps the ruled at arm's length from the rulers, or the biological pressure that makes a white girl afraid of being touched by an Indian?'
Merrick: 'I think they're connected. A white man, I or Teddie, for example, if one's tastes ran that way, could marry an Indian woman, or live with her; he'd have the dominant role, whatever the colour of his skin; but an Indian man touching a white-skinned woman would always be conscious that he's... what's the word?... diminishing her... and she'd be conscious of it, too. Sorry, I've put it very badly, and I've broken one of the sacred rules: one isn't supposed to talk about that kind of thing; one isn't supposed to talk about anything very much.'
Sarah: 'I know. It's how we hide our prejudices and go on living with them.'

[–] airproofing 9 years ago

Sarah: Moral courage is often the excuse people make for having rigid minds.

[–] airproofing 9 years ago

About Aunt Fenny: "She is perfectly predictable... you can depend upon her to be rude at any time."

[–] Flora_Poste 9 years ago

The end of the newspaper column that Guy Perron finds called "Alma Mater," by "Philoctetes":

"I walk home, thinking of another place, of seemingly long endless summers and the shade of different kinds of trees; and then of winters when the branches of the trees were bare, so bare that, recalling them now, it seems inconceivable to me that i looked at them and did not think of the summer just gone, and the spring soon to come, as illusions; as dreams, never fulfilled, never to be fulfilled."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOrEbznxLRA

Without Guy Perron in the story, we would never have heard Hari's parting thoughts nor his vision of the future, when the people who had shunned him would turn out to need him after all.

Guy: Who was Philoctetes?

Nigel: The great archer...Friend of Hercules. One of the heroes of the Trojan War. Sophocles wrote a play about him, but it's one I never read. They had to set him ashore, abandon him on the way out...

Guy: Why?

Nigel: Hurt in some way. Wounded by one of his own poisoned arrows. Or perhaps he just developed boils and suppurating sores from a vitamin deficiency. Anyway, he stank, and the others couldn't stand the smell. So they set him ashore, and went on.

Guy: Yes. That fitted. Did he ever get to Troy?

Nigel: Eventually. If I remember rightly, they decided they needed him after all. [my emphasis]

[–] Flora_Poste 9 years ago

More than once, Merrick's creepy Pathan henchman is referred to by Miss Sophie Dixon as "Miss Khyber Pass of 1935." I loved that.

[–] airproofing 9 years ago

I thought that was pretty good too.