- Lola Montes: When a man is attractive, and you are terribly attractive, it's easy to yield, to hold on, to go almost too far. Now we are embarrassed by all those follies. We are starting to watch each other. We are trying to find each other again, to recognize ourselves, and our answers become questions.
- Circus Master: Wanting to make a name for herself, Lola understood that keeping a good reputation was out of the question. Rumors, scandals, passion - that's what she chose in order to create a sensation.
- Franz Liszt: Don't you ever dream of an affair with no end?
- Lola Montes: Oh! Dreaming! Dreams are private. We can't share them with anybody, they are sometimes pretty embarrassing.
- Franz Liszt: Embarrassing! Why? Because they don't last?
- Lola Montes: Maybe!
- Franz Liszt: Because there's an awakening? You just have to cling to them, live them before it's too late, right?
- Lola Montes: Life for me is - a movement.
- Franz Liszt: Thank you for your lie, thank you for allowing me to believe that I'm the one leaving, not you.
- Circus Master: In Turkey, at the Sultan's request, she bathed in the nude. The guests were delighted, and so were the fish.
- [first lines]
- Circus Master: And now, Mesdames et Messieurs, the moment you've all been waiting for. The most sensational act of the century. Entertainment, emotion, action, history. Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen, meine Damen und Herren, a creature a hundred times more murderous than any beast in our menagerie. A bloodthirsty monster with the eyes of an angel. Ravaged hearts, squandered fortunes, the saraband of lovers, scepters, crowns, an authentic revolution.
- Female Circus Jugglers: Authentic!
- Circus Master: Passion and glory, passion et gloire. Triumph and downfall.
- Female Circus Jugglers: Downfall!
- Circus Master: Lola Montès, Countess Maria Dolores of Landsfeld. In the very flesh!
- Lola Montes: One night we'll be in the same town. I'll be dancing and you'll be giving a concert.
- Franz Liszt: It would have to be a really big town.
- Lola Montes: But we'll share the same public. I'll leave my theater in time to hear your encore. I'll applaud you and come backstage. Will you be pleased?
- Franz Liszt: Yes.
- Lola Montes: You'll have a date with another woman, and I with another man, and we won't go.
- Franz Liszt: No, we won't go.
- Lola Montes: For one night we'll hide together. We will be together as we are now. Won't it be wonderful?
- Franz Liszt: It will be wonderful.
- [kiss]
- Franz Liszt: Ravishing. So, Lola...
- Lola Montes: Goodbye. Goodbye, Franz.
- Franz Liszt: I see that you are true - to my music! Goodbye.
- Little Girl on Boat: [to Lola] Do you already go to bed? Were you naughty?
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: See? You'll have all that.
- Lola Montes: I don't care.
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: Oh! Yet! The dresses, the jewels, it matters! I would have doubts, if I didn't know the man, but the baron was an old friend of your father.
- Lola Montes: Well, he must be very old.
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: Old, old - it's a matter of taste.
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: I'm not forcing you, you know, you are always free to refuse. As for the baron, I danced with him when I was a girl.
- Lola Montes: Then you should marry him.
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: Oh! What insolence!
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: Come along! Come along now!
- Lola Montes: He doesn't know me. He'll be disappointed.
- Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother: I sent him your portrait. He won't be disappointed. You're not bad looking. Ah! If he asks if you play the piano, say yes. As a matter of fact, say "yes" to everything.
- Lieutenant Thomas James: It's true, I cheated on you. I ran after girls. It won't happen again, I promise. I'll never let you go. I'd sooner kill you!
- French Ambassador: For the women - twelve perfections. It's Lola that he created. Twelve perfect things, count them with us. Listen to the song.
- [singing]
- French Ambassador: Three sweet ones, The heart, the wrists and the hand...
- French Ambassador, Circus Master: [singing] Three mad ones, The eyes, the hair, the feet, Three soft ones, The arms, the ears and the nose, Three curved ones, The shoulder, the mouth and the breasts, You give your body, but you keep your soul, Men damn themselves, to offer you treasurers, Your look is so tender, and your knee so white, When you dance and you waltz, passing so near us.
- Lola Montes: He told me he was divorced, but this is not true. I don't appreciate married women much, but I hate cowardly men.
- Lola Montes: Send him in.
- Josephine, The maid: He is strange. He frightens me.
- Lola Montes: No one frightens me.
- Lola Montes: These committees, bureaucracies, chancellors, counselors, they choke me! Really! Always restraining, prohibiting. It's not in my nature. Your subjects must choke too, with all these laws, these regulations.
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: You can't abolish all laws and regulations.
- Lola Montes: That's too bad.
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: I wished to do you the courtesy of coming to see you, Madam. I must congratulate you. Your invigorating presence has accomplished a small revolution! And I must tell you that you have won.
- Circus Master: The painter takes his time. He doesn't like her dress. He doesn't like her gloves. One day he asks her if she dares pose for him - all in pink. She dares! And the king, enraptured by her pose, offers her a palace!
- Professor Jeppner: The will to hear, that is the main thing. The will, isn't it, Your Majesty?
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: Yes. But, there are things I would like to hear again. Things that would be a pleasure to hear. Music, for instance.
- Professor Jeppner: Music. Yes, but not Wagner. You could hear him from the bottom of a whale.
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: I was thinking of Mozart.
- Professor Jeppner: Oh, yes, Mozart, he's all tenderness and light. And then, there's the voice. Madam's wonderful voice.
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: Oh, I don't need to hear it. I read her lips.
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: I don't know what's the matter with them.
- Lola Montes: A revolution?
- Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: If they stop, it's a riot. If they continue, it's a revolution.
- Student: We want to save you. They will surely come for you. This revolt - this revolt is a work of reactionaries. You represent love, freedom, everything they detest. They want to imprison you, perhaps kill you. But we are for love and the pursuit of happiness. We want to help you escape the country. We want to come with you, defend you.
- Lola Montes: What have I to do with revolutions, whether they come from the right or the left?
- Student: What? What is the matter with you? Are you crying? Don't cry. There's always a revolution somewhere! Now it's their turn.
- Lola Montes: You're much too young for all this.
- Student: No, no, no, no! Don't say that. At 20, I'm not too young.
- Lola Montes: You are.
- Student: No! Let me explain. It's not true. I know one thing. I'm not old but the king was old and you see how that ended. Moreover, you didn't love him.
- Lola Montes: Whereas you?
- Student: You can't help but love me. I'm young enough to offer you a new start - a - a new life. I would fear nothing, no obstacles, no conflicts. There would be no more fame, no more fortune, of course. What I have to offer is something else. A simple life, love in a new land. You might be happy as just another woman.
- Student: I'll pass my final exams. I'll soon be teaching Latin. Latin is wonderful. It's always in demand. Not in everyday life, of course, but we'd have our choice of universities.
- Student: Listen to me. There is such a thing as coincidence. I'm the first man you met in Bavaria and the last. Do you remember? You had invited me, I answered, "I'm going the other way." "You'll do that later," you said. And here, I am again with you. We're set out together. It's fate. It was written. It's - it's - it's destiny. Destiny. One mustn't fight destiny!
- Lola Montes: Or mistake one's destiny.
- Lola Montes: Someday you'll learn that people can keep hoping for miracles. That's when you'll find happiness.