Veronika Voss Quotes

  • Veronika Voss: You've given me a great deal of happiness.

    Dr. Marianne Katz: I sold it to you.

  • Alter Mann: When you read a book to the end, it's time to close it.

  • Veronika Voss: Light and shadow; the two secrets of motion pictures.

  • Dr. Marianne Katz: Artists are different from ordinary people. They are wrapped up in themselves, or simply forgetful.

  • Veronika Voss: You're very kind, Mr. Krohn.

  • Robert Krohn: Shall we sit down? There are seats free at the front.

    Veronika Voss: No. Let's stay here! Please! People would recognize me, understand? They'd stare at me and talk about me. Some might even want to start a conversation. Do you understand?

  • Veronika Voss: Tell me about your triumphs.

    Robert Krohn: My life's pretty humdrum, you know. No victories. No defeats anymore.

  • Veronika Voss: I'm sure you felt bad.

    Robert Krohn: Felt bad?

    Veronika Voss: For not recognizing me. You didn't recognize me immediately, did you?

    Robert Krohn: No, not at once.

    Veronika Voss: You see! You can't fool me. Let me tell you, it was a joy for me that someone should take care of me without knowing I'm Veronika Voss, and how famous I am. I felt like a human being again. A human being!

  • Robert Krohn: Movies are not reality, of course.

  • Veronika Voss: Do you think I'm a beautiful woman?

    Robert Krohn: Yes, very beautiful. I think you're a very beautiful woman.

    Veronika Voss: [laughs] A woman with both light and dark sides.

  • Veronika Voss: When I want something, I have to have it.

  • Veronika Voss: Good-bye, Robert. You may call me Veronika.

    Robert Krohn: Good-bye, Veronika.

  • Grete: Actors are stupid, dishonest and vain.

  • Grete: What do you want from Voss? She's no good at soccer.

  • Grete: You'd make a good pair - at the bar.

    Robert Krohn: You mean she drinks?

    Grete: All actors drink. And when they don't have any work, they hit the bottle. It's the law of nature. Her marriage is finished, too.

    Robert Krohn: Is that true or just gossip?

    Grete: Another law of nature, my boy: the gossip you hear about an actor is always true.

  • Robert Krohn: Thanks, Grete. If I can do you a favor anytime...

    Grete: Not likely. Sports are always about the winners and I'm interested in the losers.

    Robert Krohn: You wouldn't have Voss' address, by any chance? She's one of your losers.

    Grete: I'm only interested in them as long as they're losing, not after they've lost.

  • Alte Frau: People sometimes change their addresses, young man, without informing those who might be looking for them. Perhaps they don't wish to be found. There are people who try to make their lives a mystery.

  • Alte Frau: We are old and you are young and old folks know all the secrets the young have yet to discover.

  • Veronika Voss: In the past, I would have smacked you one for your impertinence.

  • Filmproduzent: I wanted you for the part, but the director - You know how directors are today. They do what they like with you. He insisted on his floozy.

    Veronika Voss: [sees a young girl dressing in the Filmproduzent's office] Is that her?

    Filmproduzent: [races to close his office door] Yes.

    Veronika Voss: Very attractive. And much younger than me.

    Filmproduzent: Less talented, too. If it were up to me...

    Veronika Voss: Does she have a mother? In the movie, I mean.

    Filmproduzent: A mother? Yes. why?

    Veronika Voss: Let me play her mother. The mother of the flossy. Please. Let me.

    Filmproduzent: It's a tiny role, Veronika. Two or three days' shooting. I'd never have dared offer you something like that.

    Veronika Voss: That's why I have to ask.

  • Veronika Voss: This staircase lighting isn't very flattering for women.

  • Veronika Voss: When we go away, the furniture has to be covered, the shutters closed, and the electricity turned off.

    [laughs]

    Veronika Voss: It's like people who know they're dying and have to put everything in order first. Do you have idiosyncrasies like that?

    Robert Krohn: No. I don't think so. And you?

    Veronika Voss: Me? I like to seduce

    [opens her robe]

    Veronika Voss: defenseless men. You are a defenseless man, aren't you?

  • Veronika Voss: Turn off the light, please.

    Max Rehbein: It's always the same crap. You always have to be doing something, always setting something up. Can't we just be the way we are?

  • Veronika Voss: When an actress plays a woman who wants to please a man, she tries to be all the women in the world rolled into one.

  • Max Rehbein: There's a big difference between my drinking and yours. I drink to turn off. You drink to give yourself a boost. To make yourself big, beautiful, seductive, unique.

  • Alter Mann: Allow me to open the door to your world. My world is the world of dreams.

  • Max Rehbein: She'll be your downfall. There's nothing you can do about it. She'll destroy you, because she's a pitiful creature.

  • Dr. Marianne Katz: Your mind's confused, Mr. Krohn.

  • Veronika Voss: My name is Veronika Voss.

  • Veronika Voss: It must be strange to die. Nonsense. Life itself is strange.

  • Veronika Voss: [singing] Take one fresh and tender kiss, Add some stolen night of bliss, One girl, one boy, Some grief, some joy, Memories are made of this, Don't forget a small moon beam, Fold in lightly with a dream, Your lips and mine, Two sips of wine, Memories are made of this...

  • Veronika Voss: Farewells and arrivals are the nicest things in life.

  • Veronika Voss: Now I belong to you. All I have left to give you is my death.

    Dr. Marianne Katz: What was that?

    Veronika Voss: Nothing. Just a line from an old movie. From my old life.

  • Veronika Voss: Don't you think all artists should unite?

    Grete: You mean a kind of union?

    Veronika Voss: Good heavens, no. For the freedom of art. Art needs freedom. How should it liberate people otherwise?

  • Veronika Voss: Do you know what it's called over there? The dream factory. A factory in which dreams are made, not money. Just imagine. One can make dreams. Make them. Just like that.

  • Robert Krohn: Tomorrow is Good Friday.

    Veronika Voss: And the cross? Do you think I shall bear my cross, too?

    Robert Krohn: You've been bearing it the whole time.

Veronika Voss

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Language: German,English Release date: May 13, 1982