Out of Africa (1985)
Meryl Streep: Karen
Photos
Quotes
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Karen Blixen : When you go away... you don't always go on safari, do you? Just want to be away.
Denys : It's not meant to hurt you.
Karen Blixen : It does.
Denys : I'm with you because I choose to be with you. I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life.
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Karen Blixen : It's an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.
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Karen Blixen : Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.
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Baron Bror Blixen : That's a fine kiss goodbye.
Karen Blixen : I'm better at hello.
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[last lines]
Karen Blixen : The mail has come today, and a friend writes this to me.
[Quoting from the letter:]
Karen Blixen : "The Masai have reported to the district commissioner at Ngong, that many times, at sunrise and sunset, they have seen lions on Finch-Hatton's grave. A lion and a lioness have come there, and stood or lain on the grave for a long time. After you went away, the ground around the grave was leveled out into a sort of terrace. I suppose that the level place makes a good site for the lions. From there, they have a view over the plain, and the cattle and the game on it."... Denys will like that. I must remember to tell him.
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Karen Blixen : If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?
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[about to leave Africa, Karen Blixen gives Denys' compass to Farah]
Karen Blixen : This is very dear to me. It has helped me to find my way.
Farah : Thank you, Msabu.
[She goes to board the train. Looks back at him]
Karen Blixen : I want to hear you say my name.
Farah : You are Karin, Msabu.
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Karen Blixen : He even took the gramophone on safari. Three rifles, supplies for a month, and Mozart.
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Denys : This tribe, we think we can tame them but we won't. They die in prison.
Karen Blixen : Why?
Denys : They live now. They have no concept of the future; that one day they will be let out. They think it's permanent and so they die.
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Baron Bror Blixen : You're not going to fall in love, are you?
Karen Blixen : Not with someone who's always leaving.
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Denys : [to Karen, whose horse has run away, leaving her at the mercy of an approaching lion] I wouldn't run. If you do, she'll think you're something good to eat.
Karen Blixen : [staring at lion] Have you - Do you have a gun?
Denys : She won't like the smell of you.
Karen Blixen : Shoot - shoot it.
Denys : She's had breakfast.
Karen Blixen : Please shoot her.
Denys : Well, let's give her a moment.
Karen Blixen : [as lion comes closer] Oh my God, shoot her!
[Lion approaches Karen then wanders off into brush]
Karen Blixen : Just how much closer did you expect to let her come?
Denys : A bit. It wanted to see if you'd run. That's how they decide. A lot like people that way.
Karen Blixen : She almost had me for lunch!
Denys : Well, it wasn't her fault, Baroness. She's a lion.
Karen Blixen : Well, it wasn't mine.
Denys : Doesn't that outfit come with a rifle?
Karen Blixen : Ye-ah, uh.
[looks around]
Karen Blixen : On my saddle.
Denys : Better keep it with you. Your horse isn't much of a shot.
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Karen Blixen : What's wrong with marriage anyway?
Denys : Have you ever seen one you admire?
Karen Blixen : Yes, I have, many. Belfield's, for one.
Denys : He sent her home for the rains in 1910. Didn't tell her they were over until 1913.
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Karen Blixen : [Voiceover] I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.
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Karen Blixen : Forget it. This water lives in Mombassa anyway.
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Karen Blixen : If you say anything now... I'll believe it.
[to Denys, immediately after they kiss in her tent]
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Karen Blixen : [After Bror has agreed they can divorce] I suppose I should accuse you of something.
Baron Bror Blixen : Say what you like.
[laughs]
Baron Bror Blixen : Whatever it is, I've probably done it.
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Karen Blixen : Now take back the soul of Denys George Finch-Hatton whom you have shared with us. He brought us joy, and we loved him well. He was not ours. He was not mine.
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Karen Blixen : Oh! Get away from there! Shoo! Shoo!
Denys : Shoo?
Karen Blixen : Oh! That's all my crystal, my Limoges.
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Karen Blixen : [Denys lands his two-seater aircraft, and Karen runs to greet him] Where did you get it?
Denys : Mombasa. Get in!
Karen Blixen : [as they take off] When did you learn to fly?
Denys : Yesterday!
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Karen Blixen : Is there a prince in there?
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Karen Blixen : "The time you won your town the race, we chaired you through the marketplace; man and boy stood cheering by, as home we brought you shoulder-high. Smart lad, to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay. Early though the laurel grows, It withers quicker than a rose. Now you will not swell the rout of lads that wore their honors out. Runners whom renown outran, and the name died 'fore the man. And round that early-laureled head will flock to gaze the strengthless dead and find unwithered on its curls a garland briefer than a girl's."
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Karen Blixen : Offers this as a drink toast: "Rose-lipped maidens, Lightfoot lads."
