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Nina Blount: Oh, dear. Have I been sold again?
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Race Steward: I'm terribly sorry, but only mechanics, judges, and family are allowed beyond this point.
Miles: We're family. That one's my husband.
Race Steward: Your what?
Agatha: Only joking. He means he's my husband, don't you, darling?
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[after a car crashes on the racetrack]
Agatha: [deadpan] Was that car supposed to explode?
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Miles: Oh my dears, listen. This is the this-most of them all.
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Adam Fenwick-Symes: I say, this could be rather fun. I could even make up fashions. If I can't get Archie Shwert to wear suede shoes within a month, you can call me Diedre in public.
Nina Blount: Yellow suede shoes.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Oh, Nina darling! You are a genius! And green bowler hats.
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Adam Fenwick-Symes: Nina, I'm afraid I shan't be able to marry you after all.
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Simon Balcairn: [Telling his fake news story] The most shocking orgy since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah rocked society last night.
Typist: Hold the presses, get down to compositing. Now.
Simon Balcairn: The vulgar evangelist, Mrs. Melrose Ape, proudly revealed that her angels were no more than underage adornments on sale to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, tears coursing down her face, the honorable Agatha... , whose repulsive liason with the Prime Minister shocked the nation this week, bewailed her, quote: "Ruined, bogus, vapid, bogus, and worthless life," unquote.
[pause]
Simon Balcairn: Yes, two boguses. Lady Maitland, shrieking of her terrible dependence upon cocaine powder, threw off her Schiaparelli ball gown and stood naked upon the dance floor, an example quickly followed by old and young alike until only the servants remained clothed. And grotesquely hairy Archie Schwert, swinging naked from the chandelier, screamed that all his money derived from prostitution and the opium trade. Lady Maitland's son Miles howled and howled and confessed to an intimate beastliness involving five guardsmen of the royal household, two marines, and a brick layer from Hattersfield. Nina Blount... Nina Blount grasped her stomach, screamed she was a whore, and misquoted several lines of Lady MacBeth whilst Adam Fenwick-Symes cried on heaven to bear witness to his talentless penury and hopeless illiteracy.
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Simon Balcairn: [Telling his fake news story] Never, never, never have such scenes been witnessed in high society, that uneasy alliance between Bright Young Things and old survivors. Perhaps this was the defining moment of our epoch of speed and syncopation. This so-called 20th century of angst, neurosis and panic. Reader be glad that you have nothing to do with this world. Its glamour is a delusion, its speed a snare, its music a scream of fear. Faster and faster they swirl, sickening themselves with every turn. The faster the ride, the greater the nausea, the terror, and the shame.
[pause]
Simon Balcairn: Stop. Yes, that's it. Good night.
-
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Oh Nina, what a lot of parties... Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Circus parties, parties where you have to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St. John's Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs, in swimming baths and windmills. Dances in London so dull. Comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in the suburbs. All that succession and repetition of massed humanity. All those vile bodies. And now a party in a mental hospital...
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Ginger Littlejohn: What I'm about to say is that what I'm about to say may sound unpleasant, y'know, and all that, but look here, y'know, dammit. I mean, the better man has won. Not, um, that I'm saying that I'm the better man, I wouldn't say that for a moment, awful bad luck on you and all but still, when you come to think of it I mean look here, y'know. Dammit. Do you see what I mean?
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Adam Fenwick-Symes: Good afternoon. Is Mr Blount in?
Colonel Blount: There's no Mr Blount here. This is Colonel Blount's house.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: I'm sorry. I think the colonel is expecting me to lunch.
Colonel Blount: Nonsense! I'm Colonel Blount.
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Colonel Blount: Don't think me discourteous, but I'm afraid it's impossible for me to ask you to luncheon. I have a guest coming on intimate family business. It's some young rascal who wants to marry my daughter.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Well, I want to marry your daughter too.
Colonel Blount: What an extraordinary thing. Are you sure?
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Colonel Blount: So you're the young fool who's going to marry my daughter.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: I very much hope so, Sir.
Colonel Blount: How much money have you got?
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Well... I had a thousand pounds last night. I gave to all to a drunken major.
Colonel Blount: What did you do that for?
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Well, I... I hoped he'd put it on Indian Runner... In the November handicap.
Colonel Blount: Never heard of the animal. When will you next have some money?
Adam Fenwick-Symes: Well, when I've written some book. You see, I owe Lord Monomark. For an advance. And until I get it written I rather hoped... *we* rather hoped that you might... help us.
Colonel Blount: How could *I* help you? I have never written a book in my life. Worte a letter to the Times once. Never published.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: We thought that... well, that you might give us some money.
Colonel Blount: You thought *that*, did you?... I think that's an admirable idea. I don't see any reason shy I shouldn't. How much do you want?
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Adam Fenwick-Symes: Lottie, where is the major?
Lottie Crump: What major? I never saw a major.
Adam Fenwick-Symes: The one you introduced me to.
Lottie Crump: How do you know he is a major?
Adam Fenwick-Symes: You said he was.
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Lottie Crump: Let me introduce you. That's Mr What's-his-name, and over there in the corner, that's the major... that's an American judge, and there's the King of Pomerania.
King of Anatolia: Anatolia, actually. But, alas, no more.
-
Miles: [crying] It's so unbearably... unbearable.
Bright Young Things Quotes
Extended Reading
