The 400 Blows (1959)

Jean-Pierre Léaud: Antoine Doinel

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Psychiatrist : Your parents say you're always lying.

  Antoine Doinel : Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I'd tell them the truth and they still wouldn't believe me, so I prefer to lie.

• Antoine Doinel : Dad, I need some money.

  Julien Doinel : What?

  Antoine Doinel : I just need 1,000 francs.

  Julien Doinel : Which means you're hoping for 500, meaning you really need 300, so here's a hundred. All right, 500. But your mother should pay for that.

• Antoine Doinel : Sir, it's my mother.

  Petite Feuille : What about her?

  Antoine Doinel : She's just died.

• Antoine Doinel : [heard thinking aloud, as he is writing on a wall]  "Here lies poor Antoine Doinel, unjustly punished by Sourpuss for a pinup fallen from the sky. It will be an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!"

• Antoine Doinel : [to Rene]  After this I can't live with my parents anymore. I've got to disappear.

• Rene : You can sleep here. No one will know.

  Antoine Doinel : What about your parents?

  Rene : They never come in here. My mother drinks and my father spends all day at the races.

• Gilberte Doinel : Antoine! He saw me!

  The Lover : Which one's he?

  Gilberte Doinel : With dark hair. But he should be in school!

  Rene : You'll get it!

  Antoine Doinel : She won't dare tell Dad.

• Psychiatrist : Have you ever slept with a girl?

  Antoine Doinel : No, but some friends of mine have. They told me where the hookers hang out. So I went and tried to pick up some girls, but they all yelled at me so I got scared and I left. I went back a couple times. Once a man saw me and asked me what I was doing there. He was North African. So I told him. I guess he knew a lot of women, and he said he knew one who like guys my age. So he took me to her hotel, only she wasn't there that day. We waited an hour or two, but she didn't show up, so I left.

• Rene : First off, we've got to think of a way to make some money.

  Antoine Doinel : Right, that's the first thing to do.

  Rene : Right. Meanwhile, I'll take an advance on my inheritance.

• Antoine Doinel : Sourpuss is a real asshole.

  Rene : That's his job.

  Antoine Doinel : Still, I'm gonna smash his face in before I go to the army!

• Antoine Doinel : I want to quit school and earn a living.

  Gilberte Doinel : That's nonsense! Don't you understand? If you knew how sorry I am I stopped after high school! And your father never even finished! It's hurting his career now.

• Antoine Doinel : [after seeing the early French New Wave film "Paris Belongs to Us"]  I really liked the movie.

  Julien Doinel : It wasn't funny.

  Gilberte Doinel : But it had depth.

  Julien Doinel : What?

  Gilberte Doinel : It had depth. The movie.