- [first lines]
- Récitante: It's often said you're "up against the wall" when you have to show your mettle, your true face - as if the rest of the time you hid your gut feelings behind a phony face, as extra head for putting up a false front. Me, that's all I see -- faces. They seem real, more real than what's conveyed by words. I feel lost in everything around words, I feel lost in everything around faces. Where I am, there's nothing but words and faces.
- Martin Cooper: I want you to buy me a fishing pole with a reel.
- Emilie Cooper: I thought fishing disgusted you.
- Martin Cooper: I'd like to be a fisherman who doesn't catch any fish.
- Récitante: They say everyone's a fisherman, angling for something. I remember a pastor in Poissy who said in a sermon, "All men are sinners, and when I say all men, I embrace all women too." By "embrace" he meant include, encompass, unite. To embrace doesn't always mean to be united.
- Emilie Cooper: What can be said about the body of a man I loved? Except that pain can be soft and sweet.
- Martin Cooper: I'm afraid of critters. Not the ones we know, like snails, dogs, cats, or lions. Well, maybe lions a little bit, but the beasts that come out at night, the ones we don't know, the ones we never see. The ones that live in the dark. I'm afraid of the dark too. I'm afraid when I don't know what I'm afraid of.
- Récitante: Make breakfast. Make coffee. Make and unmake. Make merry. Make both ends meet. Make love.
- Récitante: I know nothing about them, not even if they close their eyes when they make love. Or if they've just made love. Are they about to? Do they want to? When? How do they do it? And what if they don't? They make. To make. What can we make? Make children. Make a mistake. Make merry. Give pleasure. Pleasure. Love. Secret.
- Emilie Cooper: Listen, give me your hand. We can play marbles, or have a bite to eat, or go out in the yard and skip around and dance the polka.
- Martin Cooper: I like it when we're sad and then we say we'll go outside and dance. Don't you?
- Martin Cooper: I love it when you laugh. Why don't you laugh more often.
- Emilie Cooper: Sometimes I forget.
- Martin Cooper: You remember that book about the owl?
- Emilie Cooper: Yes, I read it to you.
- Martin Cooper: He made tea out of his tears.
- Emilie Cooper: Yes.
- Martin Cooper: He'd calmly think about very sad things - and it would make him cry into his teapot. Sad things like...
- Emilie Cooper: Like a pencil too small to write with.
- Martin Cooper: Yes, and leftover oatmeal that's gone cold.
- Emilie Cooper: Or a letter written but never answered.
- Martin Cooper: Have you ever sent a letter and then it made you cry because it never got there?
- Emilie Cooper: Yes, because I never got an answer. The owl would also cry into his teapot over the words "never again."
- Martin Cooper: I don't want to sleep alone.
- Emilie Cooper: My bed is too small. You'll sleep much better alone in your new room.
- Martin Cooper: We could at least move my mattress by your bed.
- Emilie Cooper: No, we'll each sleep better in our own room. It's true. Give it a try. Go on. Sleep well, sweetie.