The Nun's Story (1959)

Audrey Hepburn: Sister Luke (Gabrielle van der Mal)

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sister Luke : You can cheat your sisters, but you cannot cheat yourself or God.

  Rev. Mother Emmanuel : Have you struggled long enough to say surely that you've come to the end?

  Sister Luke : I think I've been struggling all these years, Reverend Mother. In the beginning each struggle seemed different from the one before it. But then they began to repeat, and I saw they all had the same core: obedience. Without question, without inner murmuring. Perfect obedience as Christ practiced it. As I no longer can.

  Rev. Mother Emmanuel : Yes?

  Sister Luke : There are times when my conscience asks which has priority. It or the Holy Rule? When the bell calls me to chapel, I often have to sacrifice what might be the decisive moment in a spiritual talk with a patient. I'm late every day for chapel or refectory or both. When I have night duty I break the Grand Silence because I can no longer cut short a talk with a patient who seems to need me. Mother, why must God's helpers be struck dumb by five bells in the very hours when men in trouble want to talk about their souls?

• [kneeling in prayer after offering to help the Belgian Underground] 

  Sister Luke : Dear Lord, forgive me, I cannot obey anymore. What I do from now on is between You and me alone.

• [after a nun has been beaten to death by a crazed native] 

  Illunga : If such a death happened with us, Mama Luke, we would tie the murderer to a pole and cut his body for fish bait.

  Sister Luke : But we would not. We have been taught to forgive.

• Sister Luke : Pride has not been burned out of me. When I succeed in obeying the rule, I fail at the same time by having pride in obeying.

• Sister Luke : I thought one would reach some sort of resting place where obedience would be natural and struggle would end.

  Mother Christophe (Sanatorium) : [smiling, in understanding]  There is no resting place. Ever. But you must have patience with yourself.