- Luisa Contini: Thank you.
- Guido Contini: What for?
- Luisa Contini: Thank you for reminding me I'm not special. You don't even see what you do, do you? Even the moments I think are ours, it's just you working to get what you want.
- Saraghina: So, you little Italian devils, you want to know about love? Saraghina will tell you: if you want to make a woman happy, you rely on what you were born with. Because it is in your blood!
- [singing]
- Saraghina: Be - Italian, Be Italian, Take a chance and try to steal a fiery kiss, Be Italian, Be Italian, When you hold me, Don't just hold me, But - hold - this! Please - be gentle, Sentimental, Go ahead and try to give my cheek a pat, But be daring, And uncaring, When you pinch me, Try to pinch me where there's fat! Be a singer!
- Chorus: Be a singer!
- Saraghina: Be a lover!
- Chorus: Be a lover!
- Saraghina: Pick the flower now before the chance is past!
- Chorus: Before it's past!
- Saraghina: Be Italian!
- Chorus: Be Italian!
- Saraghina: Be Italian!
- Chorus: Be Italian!
- Saraghina: Live today as if it may become - your - last!
- Liliane La Fleur: Directing a movie is a very overrated job, we all know it. You just have to say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing. "Maestro, should this be red?" Yes. "Green?" No. "More extras?" Yes. "More lipstick?" No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. That's directing.
- Stephanie: I was wondering if you think there's a limit to what you can show in a movie.
- Guido Contini: What would you like to see that I haven't already shown you?
- Liliane La Fleur: [adjusting the collar of Guido's suit] You're a world class liar, darling. Go out there and lie for Italy. Lie for Italia.
- Guido Contini: [singing] Nothing holds together, nothing makes a bit of sense now. Impossible to grasp or understand. How can I go on to watch the whole of my existence end up being nothing that I planned?
- Luisa Contini: You're just an appetite and if you stopped being greedy you'd die. You take everything, and I'm empty! You know, I'm glad I came. I can see now - it's hopeless.
- Guido Contini: [singing] I would like the universe to get down On it's knees And say, "Guido, whatever you please, It's okay. Even if it's impossible, we'll Arrange it." That's all that I want.
- [first lines]
- Guido Contini: You kill your film several times, mostly by talking about it. A film is a dream. You kill it writing it down, you kill it with a camera; the film might come to life for a moment or two when your actors breathe life back into it - but then it dies again, buried in film cans. Mysteriously, sometimes, in the editing room, a miracle happens when you place one image next to another so that when, finally, an audience sits in the dark, if you're lucky - very lucky - and sometimes I've been lucky - the dream flickers back to life again.
- Guido Contini: Maestro, Maestro, Maestro. Maestro Contini. How do you begin? How do you begin this thing? Page 1. Page 1. Page 1. Page - nothing.
- Fausto: It's not my intention to be difficult. Maestro, I am a huge admirer of Maestro Contini's movies, your early films are - everybody loves them and - I consider it a great honor for me to be here now. None the less, I need a script and a budget.
- Guido Contini: Am I dying, Mamma? I owe you flowers, I know. I'll come to the cemetery at the weekend. You should have let me bury you in Roma, Mamma, I could visit you every week.
- Guido Contini: I need a cigarette.
- Dante: He needs a shirt and tie, Lilli.
- Guido Contini: I need a coffee and a cigarette.
- Liliane La Fleur: Answer a question, I'll give you a coffee. Answer another question, I'll give you a cigarette. And so on.
- Guido Contini: Actually and an aspirin.
- Guido Contini: [singing] I am lusting for more, Should I settle for less? I ask you, What's a good thing for, If not for taking it to excess?
- Guido Contini: [singing] Guido, Guido; Guido, Guido; Me, me, ME! I want to be Proust, Or, the Marquis de Sade, I would like to be Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, But, not have to believe in God...
- Stephanie: Could you tell the fashionable women of America who your favorite designer is this year?
- Guido Contini: I'm less interested in the wrapping than what might be inside it.
- Dinardo: Might you tell the press what the film is about?
- Guido Contini: Why? I still don't know what my last film was about.
- Leopardi: That was the problem. Nobody else did.
- Carla: [singing] Who's not wearing any clothes? I'm not! My darling, who's afraid to kiss your toes? I'm not! Your Mamma, dear, Is blowing into your ear, So, you'll get it loud and clear, I need you to squeeze me here, And here, And here...
- Carla: [singing] Coochie, coochie, coochie coo, I've got, A plan for what I'm gonna do to you, So hot! You're gonna steam, And scream, And vibrate like a string, I'm plucking, Kiss your fevered little brow, Pinch your cheeks till you say "Ow!" And I can hardly wait to show you how...
- Liliane La Fleur: [singing] To your modern ideas, I compare, One derriere! At the Folies Bergere! The answer to what you are after: The music, The lights, And the laughter...
- Cardinal: Are you a Catholic?
- Guido Contini: Oh yes, very much so. Not as much as I would like to be, not as much as you would like me to be, I'm sure, but certainly yes, I'm trying.
- Cardinal: Try harder!
- Cardinal: You think people need to see so much sex? It's not necessary. We can all imagine.
- Guido Contini: Excuse me - but, my films are what I imagine.
- Cardinal: Then your imagination has no moral training.
- Guido Contini: How do you train the imagination?
- Cardinal: The imagination is God's garden; don't let the Devil play in it. Teach our Italian women to be wives, not whores. Don't make us look at filth and debauchery. Make us proud to be Italian.
- Guido Contini: What are you laughing about?
- Luisa Contini: Nothing. If you could see yourself. I couldn't live with it - the absurdity of being you, the effort of having to hide and lie and cheat. It's exhausting. No wonder you've got no script, you're too busy inventing your own life.
- Luisa Contini: [singing] My husband makes movies, To make them he lives a kind of dream, In which his actions aren't always what they seem...
- Guido Contini: I can't believe you came.
- Luisa Contini: The jungle drums said it was an emergency.
- Guido Contini: The jungle drums exaggerated - just a tiny bit.
- Stephanie: I've seen all your movies.
- Guido Contini: Really?
- Stephanie: Like a million times. They're the only movies that tell the truth about the modern world.
- Guido Contini: And what truth is that?
- Stephanie: Death of religion. Sexual revolution.
- Guido Contini: I don't think religion is dead. And what exactly is the sexual revolution?
- Stephanie: That we can talk about later.
- Mamma: [singing] How the moon glows, As it smiles over you, When you're dreaming, Blissfully! Dreaming, Flying free!
- Stephanie: [singing] Dark and handsome guys, Skinny little ties, Shades in the middle of the night, Speedy little cars, Hip coffee bars, Sleek women in Positano...
- Stephanie: Style is the new content! It's what my readers love. They want to dress like Claudia Jenssen. They want to undress like Claudia Jenssen. They want to ride on a Vespa down the Via Veneto. They want to live in an Italian movie.
- Guido Contini: I need help.
- Dante: You've had help. You've seen the doctors, you've seen the priests, you've taken the cure.
- Guido Contini: I'm not cured.
- Dante: That's enough! The movie calls, your star has landed.
- Guido Contini: You're the muses - the incredible women who made Italy what it is today: a country run by men - who are themselves run by women.
- Guido Contini: I need more time.
- Dante: Forget the script. Claudia's here now. She'll inspire you to do what you do best, write with your camera.
- Claudia: [singing] How could I ever forget you, Once you had touched my soul, In a very unusual way...
- Guido Contini: You look ravishing.
- Claudia: You're not seeing me, you're seeing Lilli's wigs and makeup, I'm somewhere hidden underneath.
- Guido Contini: It's good to see you.
- Claudia: I'm assuming that's code for there's no script.
- Guido Contini: Why is everybody so suddenly obsessed with the script? Talk to the people who love you in our films, they're not interested in my script! They're interested in the way you turn your head, the way the camera looks past you to the moon, the way you smile a little as you cry, the way you really do blush for the camera. How? Who even knows, but, whatever else it is, it's not my script.
- Guido Contini: We'll just keep asking each other questions - and don't look to me for the answers, okay?
- Luisa Contini: [singing] You want my love? Take it all! You want to watch it all come off? Take it all!