Emma Thompson credited as playing...
Miss Kenton
- Miss Kenton: [teasing] Why won't you show me your book?
- Stevens: This is my private time. You're invading it.
- Miss Kenton: Oh, is that so?
- Stevens: Yes.
- Miss Kenton: I'm invading your private time, am I?
- Stevens: Yes.
- Miss Kenton: Look at it! Is that or is it not the wrong Chinaman?
- Stevens: Miss Kenton, I'm very busy. I am surprised that you have nothing better to do than stand around all day...
- Miss Kenton: Mr. Stevens, look at that Chinaman and tell me the truth!
- Stevens: Miss Kenton, I would ask you to keep your voice down. What would the other servants think to hear us shouting at the top of our voices about... Chinamen?
- Miss Kenton: And I would ask you, Mr. Stevens, to turn around and look at the Chinaman.
- [after telling Stevens she intends to accept Benn's marriage proposal]
- Miss Kenton: Mister Stevens! Am I to take it that after all the years I have been in this house you have nothing else to say to me?
- Stevens: You have my warmest congratulations.
- Miss Kenton: [about a new housemaid] You don't like having pretty girls on the staff, I've noticed.
- [teasing]
- Miss Kenton: Might it be that our Mr Stevens fears distraction? Can it be that our Mr Stevens is flesh and blood after all and doesn't trust himself?
- Stevens: [with the faintest trace of a smile] You know what I'm doing, Miss Kenton? I'm placing my thoughts elsewhere as you chatter away.
- Miss Kenton: ...then why is that guilty smile still on your face?
- Stevens: Oh it's not a guilty smile. I'm simply amused by the sheer nonsense you sometimes talk.
- Miss Kenton: It *is* a guilty smile. You can hardly bear to look at her. That's why you didn't want to take her on, she's too pretty.
- Stevens: Well, you must be right Miss Kenton, you always are.
- Miss Kenton: I am a coward. I'm frightened of leaving and that's the truth. All I see out in the world is loneliness and it frightens me. That's all my high principals are worth, Mr. Stevens. I'm ashamed of myself.
- Stevens: Miss Kenton, you mean a great deal to this house. You're extremely important to this house. Miss Kenton.
- Miss Kenton: Am I?
- Miss Kenton: People always cheer when they turn the lights on in the evening. Every time.
- Stevens: I wonder why?
- Miss Kenton: They do say, that for a great many people the evening's the best part of the day. The part they most look forward to.
- Stevens: I regard this room as my private place of work and I - I prefer to keep distractions to a minimum.
- Miss Kenton: Would you call flowers a distraction, then, Mr. Stevens?
- Stevens: I appreciate your kindness, Miss Kenton, but I prefer to keep things as they are.
- Miss Kenton: You're saying that Elsa and Irma are being dismissed because they're Jewish?
- Stevens: His Lordship has made his decision. There is nothing for you and I to discuss.
- Miss Kenton: You realize if those girls have no work, they could be sent back to Germany.
- Stevens: It is out of our hands.
- Miss Kenton: I'm telling you, Mr. Stevens, if you dismiss my girls tomorrow, it will be *wrong*. A sin! As any sin ever was one.
- Stevens: Miss Kenton, there are many things you and I don't understand in this world of today; whereas, his Lordship, understands fully and has studied the larger issues at stake concerning, say, the nature of the Jewry.
- Miss Kenton: Are you shy about your book?
- Stevens: No.
- Miss Kenton: What is it? Is it racy?
- Stevens: Racy?
- Miss Kenton: Are you reading a racy book?
- Stevens: Do you think racy books are to be found on his Lordship's shelves?
- Miss Kenton: How do I know?
- Benn: I'm glad to be out of it, I can tell you. There was something about Sir Geoffery and his blackshirts. They gave me the creeps.
- Miss Kenton: Mr. Stevens always says its up to us to run the house and leave the rest where it belongs. You don't agree, Mr. Benn?
- Benn: No.
- Miss Kenton: Neither do I, really.
- Benn: Well, if I don't like something, I want to be in the position to say, "stuff it." If you will pardon the expression, Miss Kenton. But, I suppose I'm not a real professional, like Mr. Stevens.
- Miss Kenton: It's Mr. Stevens whole life.
- Miss Kenton: There are times when I think what a terrible mistake I've made with my life.
- Stevens: Yes. I'm sure we all have these thoughts, from time to time.
- Miss Kenton: I so often think of the good old days when I was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall. It was certainly hard work and I've certainly known butlers easier to please than our Mr. Stevens; but, I remember those years as among the happiest of my life.
- Miss Kenton: I don't know what my future is. Ever since Katherine, my daughter, got married last year, my life has been empty. The years stretch before me and if only I knew how to fill them. But, I would like to be useful again.
- Miss Kenton: What's in that book? Come on, let me see. Or, are you protecting me? Is that what you're doing? Would I be shocked? Would it ruin my character. Let me see it.
- Miss Kenton: [Miss Kenton has just pried Mr. Stevens' book from his hands.] Well. Oh, dear. It's not scandalous at all. It's just a sentimental old love story.