Quotes

Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins: People may say I couldn't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing.

Cosmé McMoon: Mr. Bayfield, I am a serious pianist. I have ambition. I...
St Clair Bayfield: Oh, you think that I didn't have ambition? I was a good actor. But I was never going to be a great actor. It was very very hard to admit that to myself. But once I had, I felt free from the tyranny of ambition. I started to live. Is ours not a happy world, Cosmé? do we not have fun?

St Clair Bayfield: Are you fond of sandwiches?
Cosmé McMoon: Yes.
St Clair Bayfield: Good, good. Madam Florence is inordinately fond of sandwiches. And potato salad as well. When we throw parties we make mountains of the stuff. It would serve you well to consume both with enthusiasm.
Cosmé McMoon: I shall.

Florence Foster Jenkins: Now, I must warn you, I work very hard. I study an hour every day. Sometimes two. And my father didn't leave me as much money as everybody thinks, so I couldn't pay you more than a hundred and fifty.
Cosmé McMoon: A month?
Florence Foster Jenkins: A week. I'm not destitute!

St Clair Bayfield: In the hall, Madam Florence keeps a collection of chairs in which people of note have expired. They're not for practical use.

St Clair Bayfield: Singing at Carnegie Hall is her dream. And I am going to give it to her.

Cosmé McMoon: Oh! I played Carnegie Hall. I... God darn it, Mr. Bayfield, Cosmé McMoon from San Antonio, Texas, played Carnegie Hall.
St Clair Bayfield: And he was brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant.
Cosmé McMoon: We did it.
St Clair Bayfield: Yes, I think we did.
[both laugh and raise their glasses]
St Clair Bayfield: Mud in your eye.

St Clair Bayfield: If you can forgive Madam Florence her little eccentricities, you'll find her to be a most generous and delightful person. Ours is a very happy world.

Carlo Edwards: Obviously I'll do my utmost to attend the concert, but I'll be away in Florida at some point.
St Clair Bayfield: Oh, right. When?
Carlo Edwards: Let me know when you've fixed a date.

St Clair Bayfield: Is her instrument quite what it was? Perhaps not. But as Beethoven said, a few wrong notes may be forgiven, but singing without feeling cannot.

St Clair Bayfield: Will you be writing something?
Earl Wilson: Yes, and it will be the truth.
St Clair Bayfield: Isn't the truth that a lot of hurt people are having some fun?

Cosmé McMoon: I think Madam Florence might need a little more preparation before she sings in public.
St Clair Bayfield: Well, we've been rehearsing for a month.
Cosmé McMoon: I know. But, from time to time, she can be a little...
St Clair Bayfield: Mm?
Cosmé McMoon: Flat.
[chuckles]
St Clair Bayfield: Flat?
Cosmé McMoon: A tad. I'm - just a tad.
St Clair Bayfield: Carlo Edwards didn't mention any flatness and he is the leading vocal coach in the city.
Cosmé McMoon: Jeez, Mr. Bayfield, we can't be talking about the same singer. I mean, her vocal cords, they don't phonate freely. Her phrasing is haphazard. As for her sub-glottal pressure... it defies medical science.

Florence Foster Jenkins: You know, we are so looking forward to that concert. Are the preparations going well?
Arturo Toscanini: Very well. Though there are some financial matters that remain... problematico. Madam Florence, without your help there will be no concert.

Florence Foster Jenkins: He didn't understand about musicians. We'd rather go without bread than Mozart, wouldn't we?
Cosmé McMoon: It's not even a choice for us.

[First lines]
St Clair Bayfield: "Swounds I should take it, for it cannot be but I *am* pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal. Boody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O vengeance!"
[applause, takes a bow]
St Clair Bayfield: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. That was, of course, a speech of Hamlet's from a play I was lucky enough to perform in on several occasions, though not, as yet, in the principal role.

St Clair Bayfield: Giving Mr. McMoon pointers about Florence's quirks after he gets hired as her pianist: "She abhors all pointed objects. So don't smoke in her presence or hand her a knife or anything like that."

Florence Foster Jenkins: I got myself a little apartment in Philly and I made a living teaching piano to children. And we'd play The Swan and that was my favorite.
Cosmé McMoon: Wow. Great story.
Florence Foster Jenkins: Yeah, it is, isn't it?

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