Billy Liar (1963)

Tom Courtenay: Billy Fisher

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Quotes 

• Billy Fisher : [voice over]  Today's a day of big decisions - going to start writing me novel - two thousand words every day, going to start getting up in the morning.

  Billy Fisher : [continued voice over as he looks at his overgrown thumb nail]  I'll cut that for a start. Yes... today's a day of big decisions.

• Billy Fisher : [wearing a monocle and speaking in a posh voice]  Cabinet change imminent I see.

  Geoffrey Fisher : You'll be bloody imminent if you don't start getting up in the morning.

• Billy Fisher : [to Liz]  I have a sort of... well, it's an imaginary country where I go. I'm supposed to be the prime minister and you're the foreign secretary. It will be a big room, and when we go in it through the door, that's it. That's our country. Nobody else will be allowed in at all.

• Billy Fisher : [voice over in his daydream]  It was a big for us, we had won the war in Ambrosia. Democracy was back once more in our beloved country.

• Emanuel Shadrack : So that's your ambition, is it? Scriptwriting?

  Billy Fisher : Oh, yes, it always has been.

  Emanuel Shadrack : Do you get a salary each week then, or do you get paid by the joke?

• Rita : [after Billy reopens the door]  You rotten. lying, crossed-eyed git. You're nothing else.

  Billy Fisher : [clearly not wanting her to come inside]  Hello, Rita. Sorry, I can't ask you in. We're havin' our chimney swept.

  Rita : They'll be havin' you swept before I finish.

• Geoffrey Fisher : You've start coming in at night, I'm not having you gallivanting about all hours!

  Billy Fisher : Who are you having gallivanting about, then?

• Arthur Crabtree : Hey, I got those things for you.

  Billy Fisher : What? What things?

  Arthur Crabtree : Passion pills - what I said I'd get you.

  Billy Fisher : Let's have a look. Where'd you get them?

  Arthur Crabtree : This mate of mine fetched them from Singapore.

  Billy Fisher : I bet they're bloody aspirins.

  Arthur Crabtree : What?

  Billy Fisher : [swallowing some]  Eh, steady on! They'll give yuh the screamin' abdabs. One of these, two two-and-nines at the Regal, bag of chips and you're away!

• Billy Fisher : You want to tell whoever saw me to mind their own fizzing business.

  Alice Fisher : It is our business, and don't you be so cheeky.

• Billy Fisher : Boon, Danny Boon, the television comedian. He's in town today opening the new supermarkets. I sent him some of me scripts. He's read 'em. He's read 'em and he likes 'em. Sent me this letter. Look. He's offered me a job in London. Scriptwriting. He likes my material.

  Alice Fisher : How do you mean, he likes your material?

• Billy Fisher : Look. Do you want to know or don't you? Because if you want to know, I'll tell you, and if you don't want to know, I'll shut up.

• Billy Fisher : I've got something unpleasant to say to our Mr. Shadrack today.

  Arthur Crabtree : You've got something unpleasant to say to our Mr. Shadrack today?

  Billy Fisher : Anything I say would be unpleasant.

  Arthur Crabtree : Kindly leave the undertakers.

• Rita : Dream about me while I'm gone.

  Billy Fisher : Sure thing, baby.

• Arthur Crabtree : Hey. I say, is that that bird?

  Billy Fisher : What bird?

  Arthur Crabtree : There. Getting a lift in that lorry. That bird that wanted you to go to France with her.

  Billy Fisher : Do you mean Liz?

  Arthur Crabtree : Yes, where's she been this time, then?

  Billy Fisher : I don't know. She goes where she feels like. She's crazy. She just enjoys herself.

• Barbara : Promise me one thing.

  Billy Fisher : That I'll never lie to you again? I'll never lie to you again. Never. I promise.

• Alice Fisher : You're idle and scruffy and you have no manners.

  Billy Fisher : What are manners?

• Billy Fisher : You know that I've got a fairly vivid imagination, don't you, darling?

• Barbara : Billy! Are you feeling all right?

  Billy Fisher : Of course, darling. Why?

  Barbara : Well, look where your hand is.

  Billy Fisher : [removing his hand from Barbara's thigh]  Oh. Don't you want me to touch you?

  Barbara : Well, it - seems indecent somehow.

  Billy Fisher : You know you're making me ill, don't you?

  Barbara : Oh, poor pet. Why am I making you ill?

  Billy Fisher : Surely you've heard of, well, of repressions. The nervous reactions of a man who's not...

  Barbara : I know what you mean, pet, but we must be patient. We must! I mean, we'd only regret it.

  Billy Fisher : Well, just have one more energy tablet.

• Duxbury : I went up to the third floor into the soft furnishings department. Oh, Billy, they've got some lovely materials. I saw some lovely stuff for the curtains. Honestly, pet, you'll love it. It's sort of, um, well, a turquoise, really. And it's got lovely little squiggles, sort of, well, like wine glasses.

  Billy Fisher : Oh, yes, very nice, hmm.

  Duxbury : The only trouble is, if we get that yellow carpet, it won't match. Still, that's my department, pet.

• Duxbury : Ah, but they're all coming down, all the old buildings. Trams, they've gone. City centre, that's all new.

  Billy Fisher : Aye, you could get a glass of beer, meat pie, cigarettes, matches and change out of four pence. Aye.

• Duxbury : What's you got there, then? Crown jewels?

  Billy Fisher : No, gramophone records, LPs.

  Duxbury : There were nowt like that when I were a lad. No record players. We had to make us own music if we wanted it.

• Rita : Oh, I don't know where I am with you, Billy. We're supposed to be engaged if you did but know it!

  Billy Fisher : You said you didn't want to marry me.

  Rita : I did not! I said I wasn't going to live in a rotten cottage in rotten Devon.

• Danny Boon : [signing autographs]  What's your name, son?

  Billy Fisher : I'm Billy Fisher.

  Danny Boon : "To Billy". I haven't put "with love". You know, people might get the wrong idea.

• Billy Fisher : It's neither muckling nor mickling, is it?

• Duxbury : Listen, can you take a bit of advice?

  Billy Fisher : Yes, sir.

  Duxbury : Now, you're a young man. You've got a long way to go; but, you can't do it by yourself. Now, think on.

• Billy Fisher : Where have you been?

  Liz : Here and there.

  Billy Fisher : Up and down.

  Liz : Round and about.

• Billy Fisher : There's been a bit of a mix-up, Rita.

  Rita : Yes, there has. You don't handle the goods unless you intend to buy. Ooh, you're rotten!

• Billy Fisher : I think I owe you a word of explanation.

  Rita : A word of explanation? Well, just get back in the cheese with the other maggots.

• Liz : Why don't you go to London? I'll come with you.

  Billy Fisher : Oh, it'd be marvelous if we could.

  Liz : But we can, Billy. We can! What's there to stop us?

  Billy Fisher : Well, I mean, there are all sorts of arrangements to make.

  Liz : No, there's not. You just buy a ticket. You buy a ticket and get on a train. That's all you have to do.

  Billy Fisher : You can't just go.

  Liz : Yes, you can! We could go tonight! There's a midnight train. It gets into London at seven o'clock.

• Liz : Sometimes I want to go away. It's not you, Billy. It's this town. It's the people we know. I don't like knowing everybody, becoming a part of things. Don't you know what I mean?

  Billy Fisher : Yes, I do, Liz. I do.

  Liz : What I'd like to be is invisible. I'd like to be able to move around without having to explain anything.

• Billy Fisher : Liz, do you find life difficult? Oh, I wish it was something you could tear up and start again. You know, like starting a new page in an exercise book.

  Liz : It's been done. Turning over a new leaf.

  Billy Fisher : I turn over a new leaf every day, but the blots show through.