Memorable quotes for
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) More at IMDbPro »

Catherine Holly: Is that what love is? Using people? And maybe that's what hate is - not being able to use people.

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Mrs. Venable: Oh, Sebastian, what a lovely summer it's been. Just the two of us. Sebastian and Violet. Violet and Sebastian. Just the way it's always going to be. Oh, we are lucky, my darling, to have one another and need no one else ever.

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Mrs. Venable: Strictly speaking, his life was his occupation. Yes, yes, Sebastian was a poet. That's what I meant when I said his life was his work because the work of a poet is th elife of a poet, and vice versa, the life of a poet is the work of a poet. I mean, you can't separate them. I mean, a poet's life is his work, and his work is his life in a special sense.

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Mrs. Venable: Sebastian said, 'Truth is the bottom of a bottomless well.'

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Mrs. Venable: My son, Sebastian and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.

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[last lines]
Catherine Holly: She's here, Doctor. Miss Catherine's here.

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Dr. Cukrowicz: Mrs. Venable, loving your neice as you do, you must know there's great risk in this operation. Whenever you enter the brain with a foreign object...
Mrs. Venable: Yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Even a needle thin knife.
Mrs. Venable: Yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: In the hands of the most skilled surgeon...
Mrs. Venable: Yes, yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: There is a great deal of risk.
Mrs. Venable: But it does pacify them, I've read that, it quiets them down. It suddenly makes them peaceful.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Yes that that it does do, but...
Dr. Cukrowicz: But what?
Dr. Cukrowicz: Well it will be years before we know if the immediate benefits of the operation are lasting or maybe just passing or perhaps... there's a strong possibility that the patient will always be limited. Relieved of acute anxiety yes, but limited.
Mrs. Venable: But what a blessing Dr. to be just peaceful. To be just suddenly peaceful. After all that horror. After those nightmares. Just to be able to lift up their eyes to a sky not black with savage devouring birds.

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Dr. Cukrowicz: May I sit here?
Mrs. Venable: Sebastian's seat.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Oh! Well...
Mrs. Venable: Oh, no no please, please. It's a court jester's chair, a rare one, five-hundred years old. Please, sit on it. Say something funny; make me stop wanting to cry.

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Catherine Holly: Not even God can change the truth!

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