Brideshead Revisited Quotes

Boy Markaster: What do you want to be an artist for? I mean, what's the point of it? Why don't you just buy a bloody camera and take a bloody photograph and stop giving yourself airs? That's what I want to know.
Charles Ryder: I don't give myself airs.
Boy Markaster: Uh, yes, you do. And anyway you haven't answered my question. Come on! Answer! Answer! Answer!
Charles Ryder: Because, a camera is a mechanical device which records a moment in time, but not what that moment means or the emotions that it evokes. Whereas, a painting, however imperfect it may be, is an expression of... feeling. An expression of love. Not just a copy of something.

Movie: Brideshead Revisited
[after many earlier warnings, Sebastian has got drunk yet again and has just been expelled from Oxford. Charles and Bridie are packing up his belongings to send them home]
Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': My mother believes Sebastian is a confirmed drunkard. Is he?
Charles Ryder: He's in danger of becoming one. [Charles opens a drawer to find it full of whisky bottles. He shuts it quickly]
Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': I believe God prefers drunkards to lot of repectable people.
Charles Ryder: [exasperated] For God's sake! Why do you have to bring God into everything?
Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': Oh I'm sorry, I forgot. But that's an extremely funny question.
Charles Ryder: Is it?
Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': Oh, to me, not to you.
Charles Ryder: No, not to me. It seems to me that without your religion, Sebastian might have had a chance to be a happy and a healthy man.
Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': [doubtfully] It's arguable, I suppose.

Movie: Brideshead Revisited
[First Lines]
Charles Ryder: [Internal monologue while walking out of Brideshead Castle] If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name: Charles Ryder. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be. On second thought, one emotion remains my own. Alone among the borrowed and the second-hand, as pure as that faith from which I am still in flight: Guilt.

Movie: Brideshead Revisited
[Lord Marchmain is now very close to death. Doctor Grant has said that the least little shock will kill him. Julia has sent for Father McKay to administer the Last Rites]
Charles Ryder: You said just now that the least shock would kill him. What could be worst for a man who fears death, as he does, than to have a priest brought to him? A priest he turned out when he had the strength.
Doctor Grant: I think it may kill him.
Charles Ryder: Then you will forbid it?
Doctor Grant: I have no authority to forbid anything. I can only give an opinion. [Doctor Grant is called away to attend to Lord Marchmain]
Charles Ryder: Cara, what do you think?
Cara: I don't want him made unhappy. That is all there is to hope for now: that he will die without knowing it. But I should like the priest there, all the same.
Charles Ryder: But will you try and persuade Julia to keep him away until the end? Then he can do no harm.
Cara: I will ask her to leave Alex happy, yes.

Movie: Brideshead Revisited