Ivory Quotes

“Of course, I know that love is sometimes like that—some men love men, some women love women.”

“If I was an eccentric old spinster in a Merchant Ivory movie, I'd want to share my lovely cottage with Holly and that's the truth. I'd do the cooking and leave the decorating to her, and we'd be inseparable.”

“If you could have walked on the planet before humans lived here, maybe the Ivory Coast would have seemed more beautiful than La Côte d'Azur.”

“Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them.”

“I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything.”

“Why don't you tell me a story?”

“I open my eyes. I want to know:what is in the abyss of a kiss? Are stars born in these black caves that house bated breaths and unspoken words? Do our souls crawl on these tender cheeks to greet one another by ivory gates? What happens when we kiss?Where do you go?Don’t tell me. For I have lost my desire to know. Kiss me so that I forget myself. I close my eyes and fall in the abyss.”

“People missed things. People didn’t notice; people didn’t care. People’s own misperceptions made black into white, made grey into whatever they wanted it to be.”

“Very softly as he nuzzled her, his mouth near her ear, he began to sing: "I'm so happy with you, la, la...”