15 quotes
A Dream of Sunshine and Happiness
Grusinskaya
Then we’ll go to ]. I have a villa there. The sun will shine! We’ll be happy and lazy. It will be divine ! Divine ! Divine !
[[w:Tremezzo|Tremezzo; …; …]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Beauty and Longing in Despair
Baron
You're so beautiful. It tore my heart to see you in despair like that...Please don't cry any more...I'd no idea you were so beautiful. I'd like to take you in my arms, and not let anything happen to you, ever...I've never seen anything in my life as beautiful as you are....
Grusinskaya
You must go now.
[getting up]
Baron
I'm not going. You know I'm not going. Oh, please let me stay.
Grusinskaya
But I want to be alone.
Baron
That isn't true. You don't want to be alone. You were in despair just now. I can't leave you now. You, you musn't cry any more. You must forget. Let me stay just for a little while. Ah, please let me stay.
Grusinskaya
For just a minute, then.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Curiosity and Consequences in a Hotel Setting
Baron
You know, I've often wondered what'd happen to that old porter if somebody jumped on him from here.
[looking down from the sixth-floor balcony over the front desk]
Flaemmchen
I'm sure I don't know. Why don't you try it and find out?
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Importance of Companionship in Life
Dr. Otternschlag
Believe me, Mr. Kringelein, a man who is not with a woman is a dead man.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Conflict Over Authority and Class Inequality
Otto Kringelein
Mr. Preysing, I am not taking orders from you here.
Preysing
What is this insolence? Please go away.
Kringelein
You think you have free license to be insulting? Believe me, you have not. You think you're superior, but you're quite an ordinary man. Even if you did marry money, and people like me have got to slave for you for 320 marks a month!
Preysing
Will you go away, please! You are annoying!
Flaemmchen
Mr. Preysing, please!
Kringelein
You don't like to see me enjoying myself. When a man's working himself to death, that's what he's paid for. You don't care if a man can live on his wages or not.
Preysing
You have a very regular scale of wages, and there's the sick fund for you.
Kringelein
Oh, what a scale, and what a fund. When I was sick for four weeks, you wrote me a letter, telling me I'd be discharged if I was sick any longer. Did you write me that letter, or did you not?
[sarcastically]
Preysing
I have no idea of the letters that I write, Mr. Kringelein. I know that you're here in the Grand Hotel, living like a lord. You are probably an embezzler.
Kringelein
An embezzler?
[shocked]
Preysing
Yes, an embezzler!
Kringelein
You will take that back, right here in the presence of this young lady! Who do you think you're talking to? You think I'm dirt? Well, if I'm dirt, you're a lot dirtier, Mr. Industrial Magnate Preysing!
Preysing
You're discharged! Get out!
Flaemmchen
You can't do that to him...
Preysing
Oh, I don't know the man. I don't know what he wants. I never saw him before.
Kringelein
I know you! I've kept your books for you and I know all about you! If one of your employees was half as stupid in a small way as you are in a big way...
Preysing
What do you mean? You're discharged! You're discharged, you hear?
[lunges for Kringelein; tries to strangle him. When several people try to break them up, he finally lets go]
Kringelein
Wait! You can't discharge me. I am my own master for the first time in my life. You can't discharge me. I'm sick. I'm going to die, you understand? I'm going to die, and nobody can do anything to me anymore. Nothing can happen to me anymore. Before I can be discharged, I'll be dead!
[laughs proudly]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
A Meeting of Stenography and Curiosity
Baron
Oh, you're a little stenographess?
Flaemmchen
Yes, I'm a little stenographess.
Baron
Fascinating. I don't suppose you'd, uh, take some dictation from me sometime, would you?
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Illness Reflected in a Man's Collar Size
Dr. Otternschlag
When a man's collar is an inch too big for him I know he's ill.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Expression of Exhaustion and Weariness
Grusinskaya
I think Suzette, I've never been so tired in all my life..
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Life's Transience in the Grand Hotel
Dr. Otternschlag
What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little. Dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall, and no one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed, and that's the end.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Embracing the Beauty of Life's Impermanence
Otto Kringelein
To life! To the magnificent, dangerous, brief, brief, wonderful life...and the courage to live it! You know, Baron, I've only lived since last night, but that little while seems longer than all the time that's gone before.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Unchanging Nature of the Grand Hotel
Dr. Otternschlag
The Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go...nothing ever happens.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Understanding Women After 28 Years of Marriage
Preysing
I don't know much about women. I've been married for 28 years, you know.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Ambition and Identity in the Spotlight
Grusinskaya
Can you imagine a hundred girls in the ballet school, each thinking she would become the most famous dancer in all the world? I was ambitious then. We were drilled like little soldiers. No rest, no stopping. I was little, slim, but hard as a diamond. Then I became famous and - But why am I telling you all this? Last night, I didn't know you at all. Who are you, really?
Baron
What?
Grusinskaya
I don't even know your name.
Baron
I am Felix Benvenuto Freihern von Geigern. My mother called me "Flix".
[laughs]
Grusinskaya
No! Flix! Oh, that's sweet. And how do you live? And what kind of a person are you?
[joyously]
Baron
I'm a prodigal son, the black sheep of a white flock. I shall die on the gallows.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
A Moment of Unspoken Affection
Grusinskaya
Who are you?
Baron
Someone who could love you, that's all. Someone who's forgotten everything else but you.
Grusinskaya
You could love me?
Baron
I've never seen anything in my life as beautiful as you are.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
The Importance of Proper Introductions
Flaemmchen
You know I always say that nothing should be left hanging over. And names are like that. Suppose I met you next year and said, How do you do Mr. Preysing? And you said, That's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester. That's all quite proper. But supposing I saw you and yelled Hi baby. Remember Manchester. Yeah, and you were with your wife. How would you like that?
[to Preysing, after he tries to get 'familiar' with her by asking her to call him by his first name; he laughs]
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.