The Magus

[Nicholas hands a book to Conchis]

Nicholas Urfe:
I came to return this.

Maurice Conchis:
You came here to meet me. Please, life is short. My name is Conchis.

Nicholas Urfe:
My name is Urfe. From the school. I find life long.

Nicholas Urfe:
I've missed you.

Anne:
Careful. You'll be in love next.

Nicholas Urfe:
I never use four-letter words.

Nicholas Urfe:
This thing, it's like being halfway through a book. You can't just throw it in the dustbin.

Anne:
So you throw me instead?

Nicholas Urfe:
I'm trying to be honest.

Anne:
Honest? It's just like in London. You haven't changed. I'll always be that French girl who slept around. A human boomerang. Throw her away and she'll always come back for another week of duty-free sex.

Nicholas Urfe:
That's below the belt!

Anne:
Your natural territory.

Maurice Conchis:
[to Nicholas] Now, I will show you something. The ultimate reality. Not the hammer and sickle, not the stars and stripes, not lysergic acid, not the sun, not gold, not yin and yang. But [reveals smile statue] The Smile.

Anne:
You're running away. That's all it is.

Nicholas Urfe:
Look, in this country I am the typical nowhere man - belonging nowhere, going nowhere and wanted nowhere.

Anne:
Oh, Nicko, this is life, not an existentialist novel.

Meli:
[splashed by boy in pool] Ah, I think when I marry I shall pray for daughters. And You?

Nicholas Urfe:
I'll just pray for myself.

Nicholas Urfe:
You know what's wrong with marriage, Meli? It kills the fun in life. [bites affair liaison apple] It's the timid little people who can't gamble; who always want to know where they are. It's for mice, Meli, not for men.

Maurice Conchis:
[after describing Nazi atrocity] What would you have done?

Nicholas Urfe:
God Knows.

Maurice Conchis:
God never has to choose. You and I do.

Maurice Conchis:
All men feel the need to risk death at least once in their life. War is a very unscientific answer to that need.