Cyrano de Bergerac Quotes

“Well in no particular order... I love you, I need you, I want you, I go to sleep thinking about you and wake up with your voice winding through my head, I look at you and I can't focus, the whole world shimmers, I'm ashamed, I'm angry, I'm in love, I'm mad, I'm happy, I'm dead, I'm alive, I'm stupid, I'm tongue-tied, I'm writing you letters, I'm tearing them up, I'm writing you letters again, I'm idealising you, I'm humiliating you, I'm undressing you, I'm looking into your eyes, I'm kissing your eyes, I'm pressing you against a wall, you're pushing back, your body wants mine, you kiss my mouth, you bite my lip, you draw blood, you're on fire, you're on fire, your eyes are flame, your hair is flame, the whole world shimmers and I burn and I burn with love -- the whole world shimmers - and the night - and the sky - and your voice shimmers - I've no wit, I've no mind, I've no brake, I've no self-control, I've no shame, I've no authority over myself, I can wait hours for just one glimpse of you then not speak to you at all, how can I speak, how can I speak to you, I can't speak, I can't stop speaking, I can't stop looking, I can't look, I make you an object, I desire you, I write to you, I write for you, I tear up everything I have ever written for you or about you, I burn myself alive for you, I worship you, I strip you, I clothe you, I do up the tiniest buttons at your sleeve, I embrace your wrist, I embrace your neck, I kiss the back of your neck, I embrace your wrist, I'm speechless, speechless, all I can say is I want - I want - I want - there is no poetry - there is no structure that can make any sense of this - only I want - I want - I want - I want you, Roxanne.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“Because I could not stop for death
he kindly stopped for me
I asked to see a photograph
confirming his identity

The faces matched - the eyes were warm -
the hair was long and grey -
both smiled but as I tried to move
death blocked my way.

No no, my sweetheart, what's the rush?
Come on, let's go to bed,
there's time for love, there's surely time
for happiness - death said.

His voice was soft, his skin was pale,
his fingers brushed my face -
Oh? time for love? I said - but where?
He said: I know a place.

He led me down a flowered track
and on a bank of earth
he loved me till my body screamed
from every living nerve.

I slept then for eternity
drugged as I was with love:
death bent down to my sleeping face
and on earth's pillow made a place
to leave his photograph.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“I look at you and I can't focus, the whole world shimmers.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“I love words, that's all.
And without this - (Holds up pen.)
human history would fall
into a black pit
and there'd be almost no trace of it.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“De Guiche: Alright - yes - I'm meeting a woman here for sex. Satisfied?

Cyrano: Yes, yes - very understandable:
you look like a man, but in fact you are an animal.

De Guiche: Do I know you?

Cyrano: Know me? Only if you've studied moon-life very closely.

De Guiche: Life? There's no life on the moon. Now leave.

Cyrano: No life? - really? - is that seriously what you believe?
Well yes - maybe there is no air -
but all the same there's moon-men everywhere -
the nights are ice
but in the day it's paradise:
trees, flowers, sparkling streams,
are what we see on waking from our dreams.
We drink hot coffee. Then look! - Earth rises! -
a haze of blue masks all its earthly vices -
war - lust - greed - the violence of the crowd -
are hidden by its spiral threads of cloud
and from the moon all that we moon men see's
a turning planet with no history.

De Guiche: You're mad.

Cyrano: Nobody starves. Women are respected.
Men are not animals. Nobody's infected
with hate - or fear - there are no slaves
or calculated massacres - no shallow graves.
No - seen from the moon the Earth's devoid of vice:
and this of course is why our morning coffee
tastes so nice.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“Cyrano: I'm sorry -

Christian: No you're not.
You love her - you want her -
now that's what you've got.
Shit-looking.

Cyrano: Christian.

Christian: Shit-looking. All this reading
she's done - this 'beauty evolves' - this needing
to quote your letters - this 'I don't care
what a man looks like'? Really? But of course that is where
you score so highly - the man with the nose.
And acres of highbrow wet-dream prose.

Cyrano: Wet-dream prose - that's not bad.

Christian: Yes, and I can do without the fucking writing lesson.

Both laugh a little, but tension remains.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation

“I love words, that's all.
And without this - (Holds up pen.)
human history would fall
into a black pit
and there'd be almost no trace of it.”
― Martin Crimp, Cyrano de Bergerac: in a free adaptation