Amadeus (film) Quotes

Amadeus (film) is a TV program that first aired in 1970 . Amadeus ended in 1970.

It features Saul Zaentz as producer, and Miroslav Ondříček as head of cinematography.

Amadeus (film) is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of Amadeus (film) is 161 minutes long. Amadeus (film) is distributed by Orion Pictures.

The cast includes: F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri, Richard Frank as Father Vogler, Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart, Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Roderick Cook as Count Von Strack, Simon Callow as Emanuel Schikaneder, Charles Kay as Count Orsini-Rosenberg, Roy Dotrice as Leopold Mozart, Jonathan Moore as Baron Van Swieten, and Christine Ebersole as Katerina Cavalieri.

Amadeus (film) Quotes

Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• (Tom Hulce) ""Confutatis maledictis"; when the wicked are confounded. "Flammis Acribus Adictis." How would you translate that?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Consigned to flames of woe."
• (Tom Hulce) "Do you believe in it?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "What?"
• (Tom Hulce) "A fire which never dies, burning you forever?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Oh yes."

• (Tom Hulce) "My music -- they started without me."

• (Tom Hulce) "I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes. Old dead legends. Why must we go on forever writing about gods and legends?"
• (Jonathan Moore) "Because they do. They go on forever. Or at least what they represent. The eternal in us. Opera is here to enoble us. You and me, just the same as His Majesty."

• (Tom Hulce) "Sire, only opera can do this. In a play if more than one person speaks at the same time, it's just noise, no one can understand a word. But with opera, with music -- with music you can have twenty individuals all talking at the same time, and it's not noise, it's a perfect harmony."

• (Tom Hulce) "Forgive me, Majesty. I am a vulgar man. But I assure you, my music is not."
• (Emperor Joseph II) "You are passionate, Mozart, but you do not persuade --"

• (Emperor Joseph II) "My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect."
• (Tom Hulce) "Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?"

• (Tom Hulce) "I actually threw the score on the fire, he made me so angry."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "You burned the score?"
• (Tom Hulce) "No, no. My wife took it out in time."

• (Tom Hulce) "Come on now, be honest. Which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than Hercules? Or Horatius, or Orpheus -- people so lofty they sound as if they s*** marble."

• (Tom Hulce) "They're all so beautiful. Why don't have three heads?"

• (Tom Hulce) "The whole thing is set in a harem, Majesty. In a seraglio."
• (Charles Kay) "You mean in Turkey?"
• (Tom Hulce) "Yes, exactly."
• (Charles Kay) "Then why especially does it have to be in German?"
• (Tom Hulce) "It doesn't, especially. It could be in Turkish if you really want."

• (Tom Hulce) "Nine performances. Nine, that's all it's had. And withdrawn."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "I know, I know, it's outrageous. Still, if the public doesn't like one's work, one has to accept the fact gracefully."
• (Tom Hulce) "But what is it that they don't like?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "I can speak for the Emperor. You make too many demands on the royal ear. The poor man can't concentrate for more than an hour -- you gave him four."
• (Tom Hulce) "What did you think of it yourself? Did you like it at all?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "I thought it was marvelous."
• (Tom Hulce) "Of course. It's the best opera yet written, I know it -- why didn't they come?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "I think you overestimate our dear Viennese, my friend. You know you didn't even give them a good bang at the end of songs, to let them know when to clap?"
• (Tom Hulce) "I know, I know -- maybe you should give me some lessons in that."

• (Tom Hulce) "Say I'm sick. Say I'm sick."
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Yes, you are. You are very sick."
• (Tom Hulce) "No-ho-ho. Say it backwards, s***-wit."

• (Tom Hulce) "Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl?"
• (Roderick Cook) "Because His Majesty wishes it."
• (Tom Hulce) "Is the emperor angry with me?"
• (Roderick Cook) "Quite the contrary."
• (Tom Hulce) "Then why doesn't he simply appoint me to the post?"
• (Roderick Cook) "Mozart, you are not the only composer in Vienna."
• (Tom Hulce) "No, but I'm the best."

• (Tom Hulce) "Whom did they choose?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Herr Zummer."
• (Tom Hulce) "Herr Zummer? But the man's a fool, he's a total mediocrity."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "No, no, he has yet to achieve mediocrity."

• (Tom Hulce) "It's unbelievable, the director has actually torn up a huge section of my music. They say I have to rewrite the opera. But it's perfect as it is. I can't rewrite what's perfect."

F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri

• (F. Murray Abraham) "From now, we are enemies -- You and I. Because You choose for Your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only to recognize the incarnation. Because You are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block You, I swear it. I will hinder and harm Your creature as far as I am able. I will ruin Your incarnation."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "But why? Why would God choose an obscene child to be His instrument? It was not to be believed. This piece had to be an accident. It had to be."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "-- It better be."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "He was my idol. Mozart, I can't think of a time when I didn't know his name. I was still playing childish games and he was playing music for kings and emperors. Even the Pope in Rome. I admit I was jealous when I heard the tales they told about him. Not of the brilliant little prodigy himself, but of his father, who had taught him everything."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "That was not Mozart laughing, Father -- that was God. That was God laughing at me through that obscene giggle --"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Mozart. Mozart, forgive your assassin. I confess, I killed you --"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "My plan was so simple. It terrified me. First I must get the death mass and then, I must achieve his death."
• (Richard Frank) "What?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "His funeral. Imagine it, the cathedral, all Vienna sitting there, his coffin, Mozart's little coffin in the middle, and then, in that silence, music. A divine music bursts out over them all. A great mass of death. Requiem mass for Wolfgang Mozart, composed by his devoted friend, Antonio Salieri. Oh what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the music. Salieri has been touched by God at last. And God is forced to listen. Powerless, powerless to stop it. I, for once in the end, laughing at him."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "The only thing that worried me was the actual killing. How does one do that? Hmmm? How does one kill a man? It's one thing to dream about it; very different when, when you, when you have to do it with your own hands."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing -- and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body. And then deny me the talent?"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "My father, he did not care for music. When I told him how I wished I could be like Mozart, he would say; "Why? Do you want to be a trained monkey? Would you like me to drag you around Europe, doing tricks like a circus freak?""
• (F. Murray Abraham) "How could I tell him -- what music meant to me?"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Actually, the man had no ear at all. But what did it matter. He adored my music."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Leave me alone."
• (Richard Frank) "I cannot leave alone a soul in pain."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Do you know who I am?"
• (Richard Frank) "It makes no difference. All men are equal in God's eyes."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Are they?"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "The restored third act was bold, brilliant. The fourth -- was astounding."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Mediocrities everywhere -- I absolve you -- I absolve you -- I absolve you -- I absolve you -- I absolve you all."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Are you sure you can't leave these and, and come back again?"
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "It's very tempting sir, but it's impossible, I'm afraid. Wolfgang would be frantic if he found those were missing, you see they're all originals."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Originals?"
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Yes, sir, he doesn't make copies."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "These, are originals?"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Mozart, it was good of you to come."
• (Tom Hulce) "How could I not?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "How -- Did my work please you?"
• (Tom Hulce) "I never knew that music like that was possible."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "You flatter me."
• (Tom Hulce) "No, no. One hears such sounds, and what can one say but -- Salieri."

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Your merciful God. He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture. 32 years of torture. 32 years of slowly watching myself become extinct. My music growing fainter, all the fainter till no one plays it at all, and his --"

• (F. Murray Abraham) "Can you remember no melody of mine? I was the most famous composer in Europe. I wrote 40 operas alone."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Here, what about this one?"
• (Richard Frank) "Yes, I know that. Oh, that's charming. I'm sorry, I didn't know you wrote what."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "I didn't. That was Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."
• (Richard Frank) "The man you accuse yourself of killing."

Elizabeth Berridge as Constanze Mozart

• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Wolfie, I think you really are going mad. You work like a slave for that idiot actor who won't give you a penny. And here, this is not a ghost. This is a real man who puts down real money. Why on earth won't you finish it? Can you give me one reason I can understand?"
• (Tom Hulce) "It's killing me."

• (Elizabeth Berridge) "What are you doing here?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Your husband took sick. I brought him home."
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "But why you?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Because, madam, I was at hand."

• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Stop it."
• (Tom Hulce) "I am stopping it. Slowly. There? See? I've stopped. Now we're going back."
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "No."
• (Tom Hulce) "Yes, yes. You don't know where you are. Here, everything goes backwards. People walk backwards, dance backwards, sing backwards, and even talk backwards."
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "That's stupid."
• (Tom Hulce) "Why? People fart backwards."

Charles Kay as Count Orsini-Rosenberg

• (Charles Kay) "A young man trying to impress beyond his abilities."

• (Charles Kay) "Italian is the proper language for opera. All educated people agree on that."

Christine Ebersole as Katerina Cavalieri

• (Christine Ebersole) "I heard you met Herr Mozart."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "News travels fast in Vienna."
• (Christine Ebersole) "And he's been commissioned to write an opera. Is it true?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Yes."
• (Christine Ebersole) "Is there a part in it for me?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "No."
• (Christine Ebersole) "How do you know?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Do you know where it's set, my dear?"
• (Christine Ebersole) "No."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "In a harem."
• (Christine Ebersole) "What's that?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "A brothel."
• (Christine Ebersole) "Oh-h-h-h."
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Come. Let's begin."
• (Christine Ebersole) "What does he look like?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Mozart? You might be disappointed."
• (Christine Ebersole) "Why?"
• (F. Murray Abraham) "Looks and talent don't always go together, Katerina"
• (Christine Ebersole) "Looks don't concern me, maestro. Only talent interests a woman of taste."

Simon Callow as Emanuel Schikaneder

• (Simon Callow) "Herr Mozart, why don't you name your son's penalty?"
• (Tom Hulce) "Yes, Papa. Name it. Name it, I'll do anything you say. Anything."
• (Roy Dotrice) "I want you to come back to Salzburg with me, my son."
• (Tom Hulce) "Papa, the rule is you can only give a penalty that can be performed in the room."
• (Roy Dotrice) "I'm tired of this game, I don't want to play anymore."
• (Tom Hulce) "But my penalty."
• (Tom Hulce) "I've got to have a penalty."

• (Simon Callow) "Look, I asked you if we could start rehearsals next week and you said yes."
• (Tom Hulce) "Well, we can."
• (Simon Callow) "So let me see it. Where is it?"
• (Tom Hulce) "Here. It's all right here in my noodle. The rest is just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling, bibbling and scribbling."

• (Simon Callow) "Look, you little clown, do you know how many people I've hired for you? Do you know how many people are waiting?"
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Leave him alone. He's doing his best."
• (Simon Callow) "I'm paying these people, don't you understand? I'm paying these people to wait while you do nothing. It's ridiculous."
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "You know what's ridiculous? Your libretto, that's what's ridiculous. Only an idiot would ask Wolfie to work on that stuff. 12-foot snakes, magic flutes?"
• (Simon Callow) "What's so intelligent about writing a Requiem mass?"
• (Elizabeth Berridge) "Money. Money."
• (Simon Callow) "She's mad, Wolfie. Write it down please. Just write it down on paper. It's no good to anybody in your head. To hell with your death mass."

Add or Update Quotes

If you have a quote to add or change and want to let us know, please fill in the form below. Include the time in the film/video if possible so we can find it.