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The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) Quotes

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) is a TV program that debuted in 1970 . The Importance of Being Earnest completed its run in 1970.

It features Barnaby Thompson as producer, Charlie Mole in charge of musical score, and Tony Pierce-Roberts as head of cinematography.

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) is recorded in English and originally aired in United Kingdom. Each episode of The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) is 97 minutes long. The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) is distributed by Miramax Films.

The cast includes: Rupert Everett as Algy, Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell, Colin Firth as Jack, Anna Massey as Miss Prism, Reese Witherspoon as Cecily, Frances O'Connor as Gwendolyn, and Edward Fox as Lane.

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film) Quotes

Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell

  • (Judi Dench) "Do you smoke?"
  • (Colin Firth) "Well, Lady Bracknell, I am bound to say, yes, I do smoke."
  • (Judi Dench) "That is well. A man should always have an occupation."
  • (Judi Dench) "The unfashionable side. I thought there was something."
  • (Judi Dench) "However, that could easily be altered."
  • (Colin Firth) "Do you mean the fashion, or the side?"
  • (Judi Dench) "Well, both, if necessary, I presume."
  • (Judi Dench) "Come on, Gwendolyn, we have already missed five, if not six trains. To miss any more might expose us to comments on the platform."
  • (Judi Dench) "Mr. Worthing, sir, rise from this semi-recumbent posture, it is most indecorous."
  • (Judi Dench) "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delecate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did it would prove a serious threat to the upper classes, and probably lead ot acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
  • (Judi Dench) "35 is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained 35 for years."
  • (Judi Dench) "You seem to be displaying signs of triviality."
  • (Colin Firth) "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta. I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Ernest."
  • (Judi Dench) "Sorry if we are a little late, Algy. I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I have not been there since her husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered. She looks quite twenty years younger."
  • (Judi Dench) "I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?"
  • (Colin Firth) "I know nothing, Lady Bracknell."
  • (Judi Dench) "I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a very delicate exotic fruit. Touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor's Square."
  • (Judi Dench) "The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life."
  • (Judi Dench) "I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury decide whether he would like to live or die."
  • (Judi Dench) "I don't know whether there is anything particularly exciting about the air in this particular part of Hertfordshire, but the number of engagements that go on seem to me to be considerably above the proper average that statistics have laid down for our guidance."

Anna Massey as Miss Prism

  • (Anna Massey) "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."
  • (Anna Massey) "Do you mind if I take your picture?"
  • (Reese Witherspoon) "No, I often like to be looked at."
  • (Anna Massey) "What a lesson for him. I trust he will profit by it."

Colin Firth as Jack

  • (Colin Firth) "I think your high notes may have damaged our chances, old boy. You do want them to come down, don't you?"
  • (Rupert Everett) "Well, they're never going to come down while you're singing like that, you're completely out of tune."
  • (Colin Firth) "How dare you."
  • (Rupert Everett) "I'll take this next bit."
  • (Colin Firth) "You leave this one to me, you go and have a lie-down."
  • (Rupert Everett) "I'm doing it."
  • (Colin Firth) "Move out of my way, I'm coming through."
  • (Rupert Everett) "Go easy, my dear fellow --"
  • (Colin Firth) "COME DO-O-O-O-WN, LADY COME DOWN --"
  • (Rupert Everett) "Overdoing it, less is more."
  • (Colin Firth) "Algy. Algy. Algy."
  • (Colin Firth) "Ernest."
  • (Rupert Everett) "Ah, good morning, dear fellow."
  • (Colin Firth) "How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't make out. It seems to me to be perfectly heartless --"
  • (Rupert Everett) "I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs."
  • (Colin Firth) "I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister."
  • (Rupert Everett) "Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first."
  • (Colin Firth) "I don't actually know who I am by birth. I was -- well, I was found."
  • (Judi Dench) "Found?"
  • (Colin Firth) "Yes. The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentlemen of a kindly disposition found me and gave me the name of Worthing because he happened to have a first class ticket to Worthing at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It's a seaside resort."
  • (Judi Dench) "And where did this charitable gentlemen with the first class ticket to the seaside resort find you?"
  • (Colin Firth) "In a handbag."
  • (Judi Dench) "A handbag?"
  • (Colin Firth) "Yes, Lady Bracknell, I was in a hand bag. A somewhat large -- black -- leather handbag with handles -- to it."
  • (Judi Dench) "An ordinary handbag."
  • (Judi Dench) "And where did this Mr. James -- or, Thomas Cardew come across this ordinary handbag?"
  • (Colin Firth) "The cloak room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own --"
  • (Judi Dench) "The cloak room at Victoria Station?"
  • (Colin Firth) "Yes. The Brighton line."
  • (Judi Dench) "The line is immaterial."
  • (Judi Dench) "Mr. Worthing. I must confess that I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred in a handbag, whether it have handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life which reminds one of the worst excesses of the French revolution, and I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?"
  • (Colin Firth) "Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden."
  • (Rupert Everett) "But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins."
  • (Colin Firth) "I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing."
  • (Rupert Everett) "That may be, but the muffins are the same."
  • (Colin Firth) "Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to."
  • (Colin Firth) "Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?"

Frances O'Connor as Gwendolyn

  • (Frances O'Connor) "Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier. That is all."
  • (Frances O'Connor) "In matters of utmost importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."
  • (Frances O'Connor) "Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us."

Rupert Everett as Algy

  • (Rupert Everett) "Bunbury? He was quite exploded."
  • (Judi Dench) "Exploded?"
  • (Rupert Everett) "Mm."
  • (Judi Dench) "Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation."
  • (Rupert Everett) "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."
  • (Judi Dench) "He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians."
  • (Rupert Everett) "But why does your aunt call you her uncle?"
  • (Rupert Everett) ""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."
  • (Rupert Everett) "The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain."
  • (Rupert Everett) "Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?"
  • (Edward Fox) "I didn't think it polite to listen, Sir."
  • (Rupert Everett) "I don't seem to care about anything anymore -- I only care for you. I love you Cecily. Will you marry me?"
  • (Reese Witherspoon) "Why, of course. We've been engaged for the past 3 months."
  • (Rupert Everett) "-- 3 months?"

Reese Witherspoon as Cecily

  • (Reese Witherspoon) "You must not laugh at me, darling, but it has always been a girlish dream of mine to love a man named Ernest."

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