Quills (2000)

Madeleine: You can't be a proper writer without a touch of madness, can you?

The Marquis de Sade: I didn't create this world of ours! I merely recorded it!

Dr. Royer-Collard: I won't sully my hands with him. The Marquis de Sade: Nor should you. That's the first rule of politics, isn't it? The man who orders the execution never drops the blade!

The Marquis de Sade: You've already stolen my heart... as well as another more prominent organ, south of the Equator.

Marquis De Sade: Ah, you've come to read my trousers.

Marquis de Sade: I write what I see, the endless procession to the guillotine. We're all lined up, waiting for the crunch of the blade... the rivers of blood are flowing beneath our feet... I've been to hell young man, you've only read about it.

Madeleine: Some things belong on paper, others in life. It's a blessed fool who can't tell the difference.

Madeleine: If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, I couldn't be such a good woman in life.

Madeleine: How can we know who is good -- and who is evil? Coulmier: All we can do is guard against our own corruption.

The Marquis de Sade: Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

Madeleine: He's a writer, not a madman.

Coulmier: It's nothing but an encyclopedia of perversions. One man killed his wife after reading them. The Marquis de Sade: It's a fiction, not a moral treatise.

Royer-Collard: If you're going to martyr yourself Abbe, do it for God, not the chambermaid.

Madeleine: Don't come any closer Abbe, God's watching.

Dr. Royer-Collard: You know how I define idealism, Monsieur Delbenet? Youth's final luxury.

The Marquis de Sade: I've been to Hell. You've only read about it.

Coulmier: You're not the anti-Christ. You're only a malcontent who knows how to spell.

Madeleine: Your publisher says I'm not to leave without another manuscript. Marquis De Sade: I've just the story. It's the unhappy tale... of a virginal laundry lass. The darling of the lower wards where they entomb the criminally insane. Madeleine: Is it awfully violent? Marquis De Sade: Most assuredly. Madeleine: Is it terribly erotic? Marquis De Sade: Fiendishly so! But it comes with a price. A kiss for each page.

Marquis de Sade: Why should I love God? He strung up his only son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he'd do to me.

Marquis de Sade: In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.