The English Patient (1996)

Willem Dafoe: Caravaggio

Photos 

Quotes 

• Caravaggio : You're in love with him, aren't you? Your poor patient. You think he's a saint because of the way he looks? I don't think he is.

  Hana : I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts.

• Muller : [interrogating Caravaggio]  Look here, for every name you give me, I'll let you keep a finger. You give me something, and you'll keep something.

  Caravaggio : Don't cut me.

  Muller : Are thumbs fingers?

  [to Lieutenant] 

  Muller : Ist ein Daumen ein Finger?

  Interrogation Room Soldier : [phone rings]  Telefon.

  Muller : I'm sick of this room. I'm sick of this heat! And I'm sick of this damn telephone!

  [hangs it up] 

• Caravaggio : In Italy, you get chickens, but no eggs. In Africa there were always eggs, but... never chickens. Who separated them?

• Caravaggio : l'm one of his ghosts and he wouldn't even know it.

  Hana : l don't know what that means.

  Caravaggio : Ask your saint who he is. Ask him who he's killed.

• Almásy : So, Caravaggio, Hana thinks you invented your name.

  Caravaggio : And you've forgotten yours.

  Almásy : l said that no one would ever invent such a preposterous name.

  Caravaggio : And l said you can forget everything but you never forget your name.

• Almásy : l understand you were in Africa. Whereabouts?

  Caravaggio : Oh, all over.

  Almásy : All over? l kept trying to cover a very modest portion and still failed.

• Caravaggio : [Fred Astaire's "Cheek to Cheek" on the Victrola]  No one should own music. The real question is, who wrote the song?

  Almásy : Irving Berlin.

  Caravaggio : For?

  Almásy : "Top Hat".

  Caravaggio : Is there a song you don't know?

• Caravaggio : l saw you - writing in that book, at the embassy in Cairo, when l had thumbs and you had a face - and a name.