The Fire Within (1963)

Maurice Ronet: Alain Leroy

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Quotes 

• Alain Leroy : I'm killing myself because you didn't love me, because I didn't love you. Because our ties were loose, I'm killing myself to tighten them. I leave you with an indelible stain.

• Dubourg : How are you now?

  Alain Leroy : Feeling empty. With some atrocious moments.

• Dr. La Barbinais : You still have feelings of anxiety?

  Alain Leroy : It's not feelings of anxiety, Doctor. It's a single feeling of constant anxiety.

• Alain Leroy : Life flows too slowly on me. So I speed it up. I set it right.

• Alain Leroy : I left my youth for another life.

  Brancion : You turn your back. You reject adulthood. You're stuck in adolescence. Hence your anxiety. It's hard to be a man. You have to want to be one.

• Alain Leroy : Tomorrow, I kill myself.

• Alain Leroy : One day I realised I'd spent my life waiting. For women. Money. Action. So I drank myself stupid.

• Alain Leroy : I am patient. I've done nothing but wait. All my life. Waiting - for something to happen. For what, I don't know.

• Alain Leroy : The sensitivity was in my heart, not my hands.

• Dr. La Barbinais : Life's good.

  Alain Leroy : Good for what?

• Alain Leroy : The peace of mind of these people!

• Alain Leroy : To leave without having touched anything.

• Alain Leroy : You've spent the last ten years in gilded mediocrity.

• Alain Leroy : You and your mediocre certainties!

• Alain Leroy : I've had enough. I'm calling it a day. I refuse to grow old.

  Brancion : You miss your youth as if you'd lived it to the fullest.

  Alain Leroy : It was a promise. And a lie. I was the liar.

• Alain Leroy : It's not life itself I blame, but what's contemptible in it.

• Alain Leroy : The thing is... I can't reach out with my hands. I can't touch things. And when I do touch things, I feel nothing.

• Alain Leroy : I'd have liked to captivate people, hold on to them, bind them close.

• Alain Leroy : I don't find it funny to sleep on a tomb... when it's so easy to open it and sleep inside.

• Alain Leroy : I have no power over them. I was handsome at 20. They still find me fun and nice. But it's not enough. I have no hold on them. And yet, it's only through women... that I've felt some hold on life.

• Alain Leroy : A patient's life is ordered and simple. It shelters us. I'm not eager for a life again. Paris scares me.

• Alain Leroy : Do you like Françoise Hardy? Who then?

  Faveur, Dubourg's daughter : Sylvie Vartan.

  Dubourg : Who's that?

  Alain Leroy : A teen idol. You forgot population growth, old man.

  Dubourg : Young people today are hopeless. Good-looking, elegant, well-fed. They're all alike, like California oranges.

  Alain Leroy : But you know nothing about them.

• Alain Leroy : Don't go. Don't leave me. I need you. Don't leave, I'm begging you. It's serious.

• Dr. La Barbinais : It will gradually let up. A matter of willpower.

  Alain Leroy : A contradiction, Doctor. How can you talk about my willpower? That's where my sickness lies. That's what you're treating.

  Dr. La Barbinais : You weren't always this way.

  Alain Leroy : What do you mean?

• Alain Leroy : I'm drowning in debt.

• Maria : What's wrong, Alain? You're a bit tipsy. And so sad. What is it now?

  Alain Leroy : You're life itself. Yes, life. But I can't touch you. It's horrible. You're here in front of me, but there's no way.

• Alain Leroy : I'm not eager to face life again.

• Alain Leroy : So I'll try with death. She should be more accommodating.

• Alain Leroy : I drink because I'm a bad lover.

• Alain Leroy : Five minutes with her and l'd feel like an insect. l'd vanish into the woodwork.

• Dubourg : The cure was rough, especially after New York.

  Alain Leroy : It has nothing to do with New York.

  Dubourg : Yes it does. It's no place for us. It's like a crazy whirlpool.

  Alain Leroy : I love New York.

  Fanny : Fascinating, but hard to live in. It's intoxicating. People disappear into the city like drug addicts.

  Alain Leroy : I felt good there. It wasn't home. I always felt like a visitor.

  Fanny : And Paris?

  Alain Leroy : Pretty much the same, but I prefer New York. People leave you alone.

• Alain Leroy : It's all over for me. I'm leaving. Don't you understand?

  Dubourg : Life still has things to offer. You must have a sense of your life. That sense can't perish. I hate things that stay locked up. A man's got to show what he's made of. Doing something well is wonderful.

  Alain Leroy : I never knew what that meant. I've only run after money, like everybody else.

• Alain Leroy : François Mignac, a model Parisian. In bed at 3:00am. Riding from 9:00 to 11:00. Then off to the stock exchange, to win or lose a quick million. Business lunch. Some time at the office. A woman. A few drinks. Dinner out. A nightclub. Then he starts over again. Twenty years, and he still loves it!

• Alain Leroy : Ever been to America?

  Clinic Female Patient : No, it's hard enough getting to know our old Europe. And they're so brutal there, they might kill me.

• Brancion : You work in Versailles?

  Alain Leroy : I don't work.

  Brancion : Private income?

  Alain Leroy : I'm sick.

  Brancion : So that's why.

  Alain Leroy : What?

  Brancion : Why you look so pale. What's the problem?

  Alain Leroy : My heart.

• Frédéric : Congratulations on finding Maria. You have a woman.

  Alain Leroy : I have nothing.

  Frédéric : Come now!

  Alain Leroy : You don't know what it's like, being unable to touch anything. I'm incapable of wanting. I can't even desire. The women here tonight... I can't desire them. They scare me. Scare me!

• Alain Leroy : You can work miracles. Touch the leper.

• Alain Leroy : I'm awkward, inept.

• Dubourg : Funny lives we lead, clinging to women.

  Alain Leroy : You don't seem to cling to Fanny.

  Dubourg : I wallow in her warmth like a pig in a trough.

• Alain Leroy : Dubourg, what will you do tonight?

  Dubourg : Tonight, I'll write a few pages on my Egyptians, then make love to Fanny. I fall into her silence as into a well. At the bottom is a great sun that warms the earth.

• Eva : You look like death warmed over.

  Alain Leroy : You're no spring chicken yourself.

• Alain Leroy : The humiliation of it all.

• Black Café Patron : In St. Tropez, for the whole month of June! What a madhouse! It was ten years ago. The whole crowd was there, remember? It was something! We told Coppi, the cyclist, his girl had killed herself.

  Alain Leroy : It wasn't funny.

  Black Café Patron : Once he hijacked an American Express tourist bus and gave them a tour of the Ritz while talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald.

• Alain Leroy : We drunks are poor cousins, and we know it. Anyway, we fade away fast.

• Alain Leroy : When I get depressed, I do foolish things.

• Alain Leroy : Money. It slips right through your fingers.

• Alain Leroy : I feel at home here. You're my family.

• Dr. La Barbinais : I can't keep you here without reason.

  Alain Leroy : Doctor, I'll start again. If I leave, I'll start drinking again. Sooner or later.

• Alain Leroy : Don't worry. I'll be gone by the end of the week, come what may.

• Brancion : Where did all this start? If I knew, maybe I could help you.

  Alain Leroy : Alcohol was in my blood before I realized it.

• Alain Leroy : I'm not feeling well. I'm early. I fainted in the street.

• Alain Leroy : I'm a poor drunkard.

• Maria : Alain, you're too far gone.

  Alain Leroy : I'm not gone yet, but I'm going.

• Alain Leroy : Five minutes with her and I'd feel like an insect. I'd vanish into the woodwork.

• Alain Leroy : You're a beautiful woman. A good woman. You love making love. And yet... between the two of us nothing's possible.

• Dubourg : Let that mediocrity be enough. You'll recover some of your verve. You're spineless and weak... and lazy. Certainties frighten you. You defend the shadows, since the sun hurts your eyes.

  Alain Leroy : Are you my friend? If you are my friend, take me as I am. Not otherwise. Let me look at you. I wanted you to help me die... that's all.

• Alain Leroy : As it happens, I'm a man. But i've never had money or women. Yet I'm very active. The thing is... I can't reach out with my hands. I can't touch things. And when I do touch things... I feel nothing.