Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

Christopher Plummer: Ralph Nickleby

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Quotes 

• Lord Verisopht : If you had only told him who you were as he asked... I was wrong too, not to interfere. I did not sleep the night for thinking about it.

  Ralph Nickleby : Any mistakes that were made were made by the boy. I am his uncle and even I can see that he is no good.

  Lord Verisopht : He was defending the honor of his sister. That is the very definition of goodness. How can you not be proud of what he has done in defense of your own niece?

  Ralph Nickleby : You will be glad, my lord, that I possess such an unsentimental view when I am managing your investments.

  Lord Verisopht : Mr. Nickleby, I am no longer sure I can make an investment with you.

  Ralph Nickleby : Because of my nephew?

  Lord Verisopht : Because of your treatment of him. And his sister. When I think of her leaving the theatre that night, I feel sick to recall it. Surely there is another way for me to expand my fortune than to enrich the tormentor of these children.

• Ralph Nickleby : He was stolen, right from under you?

  Wackford Squeers : Not to be literal about it, and I'm not sure if this will dissipate your various strong emotions on the subject, but he was actually stolen right from over me.

• Ralph Nickleby : Stop parroting me.

  Newman Noggs : I wish I was a parrot. I'd fly away.

  Ralph Nickleby : I wish you were a parrot, too. I'd wring your neck.

• Mrs. Nickleby : We feel he died of a broken heart.

  Ralph Nickleby : Pooh, there's no such thing.

  Nicholas : [resentfully]  Indeed, if you have no heart to break.

• Ralph Nickleby : Are you threatening now to tell others of whatever you learned when you were my clerk? To be plain, Mr. Brooker, the world already knows what sort of man I am and I do not grow poorer. You cannot stain a black coat.

• Mrs. Nickleby : [Nicholas' father, Ralph's brother, died]  Mine was no common loss.

  Ralph Nickleby : I was no uncommon loss. Husbands die every day. And wives.

  Nicholas : Brothers also.

  Ralph Nickleby : Yes, and puppies, too.

• Ralph Nickleby : There he is! He's the man with one eye. Though popular prejudice runs in favor of two.

• Newman Noggs : Are you at home?

  Ralph Nickleby : Yes.

  Newman Noggs : To anybody?

  Ralph Nickleby : Yes.

  Newman Noggs : To the tax gatherer?

  Ralph Nickleby : No.

• Ralph Nickleby : I will put his ruin ahead of my own business! I will listen to every rumour, every rumble until I can strike him. And then I will strike him, until he can be struck no more.

• Ralph Nickleby : How is it, when a man dies without property of his own, he thinks he has the right to dispose of other peoples? What a feckless, inconsiderate man.

• Kate Nickleby : Uncle, I have been wounded past all healing - and by your friends.

  Ralph Nickleby : What can you mean? I have no friends.

• Ralph Nickleby : He might come after you again.

  Mr. Squeers : Surely he's been punished by you.

  Ralph Nickleby : Our ties have been cut. I'm not sure that he views that as a punishment.

• Ralph Nickleby : Ring on. For births that lead to early deaths, for marriages made in hell, and for the coming in of every year - that brings this cursed world closer to its end. Would that it had come - before tonight.