Javier Bardem credited as playing...
Florentino Ariza
- Florentino Ariza: Please allow me to wipe the slate clean. Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.
- Florentino Ariza: [closing scene, in bed together, but clothed] I love you, my crowned goddess. We're going to stay like this.
- Fermina Urbino: You can't mean it.
- Florentino Ariza: From the moment I was born, I have never said anything I did not mean.
- Fermina Urbino: [exhales, almost trembling] And how long do you... you think we can... stay like this?
- Florentino Ariza: Forever.
- Fermina Urbino: Forever?
- Florentino Ariza: [cut to view of the sun-lit boat anchored in the midst of the river] After 53 years, seven months and 11 days and night, my heart was at last fulfilled. And I discovered, to my joy, that it is life and not death that has no limits.
- Florentino Ariza: [Surprising her in her house] Fermina I have waited for this opportunity for 51 years, nine months and four days. That is... how long I have loved you from the first moment I cast eyes on you un... until now.
- Fermina Urbino: Florentino Ariza... get out of here! Get out!
- Fermina Urbino: [cut to Ariza reading a letter from Fermina while we hear her words:] Florentino Ariza, you are a dreadful, insensitive human being. How dare you enter my house on the day my beloved husband died and utter such monstrous, ridiculous sentiments? You have put me in a mortal rage, which has caused me to think about you without wanting to. Do you understand? I do not want to think about you. Stay out of my life.
- Ricardo Lighthouse: Why are you so successful with women?
- Florentino Ariza: Um... because they see in me someone... guilty. In need of love. Someone who will not harm them. Hmmph. My heart has more rooms than a whore house, Ricardo.
- Ricardo Lighthouse: What number are you on now?
- Florentino Ariza: Prepare yourself for a shock. I'm on number 622.
- Ricardo Lighthouse: Impossible.
- Florentino Ariza: I speak the truth - 622.
- Florentino Ariza: [updating his diary of conquests] Number 2: The widow Nazareth... Wouldn't stop talking about her dead husband... Very disturbing !
- Florentino Ariza: Someone has died.
- America Vicuña: [naked, in a hammock] It's Pentecost.
- Florentino Ariza: No no, it must be a very big fish if they are ringing the cathedral bells.
- America Vicuña: Florentino, lay down. Let's do it again. Please?
- Florentino Ariza: I am nothing. I will not heal - not for all time. I'm struck by the lightning of love and burned beyond repair. She's a splinter that cannot be pulled out. She's part of me, everywhere I go. Everywhere, she is.
- Florentino Ariza: Women. Number one - unknown lady in boat: the first wondrous explosion. Number two - the Widow Nazaret: while doing it, only talks of her dead husband. Number three - Esmeralda Arau: a skinny, wiggling tadpole who'd walk me through the ferns. Number four - Maria Estevez: very dangerous. We were so close to the street, anyone could have heard us. This is the cure for the pain of Fermina.
- Don Leo: You take after your father. You never knew him, my brother Pius. You know what his last words were? He said, "The only regret I have in dying is that I do not die for love."
- Florentino Ariza: He said that? He really said that?
- Don Leo: On his deathbed. Nevertheless, all his life he fucked everything in sight.
- Don Leo: This is not a business letter. This is a love letter.
- Florentino Ariza: Love is the only thing that interests me.
- Don Leo: Why do you want to be rich?
- Florentino Ariza: So that I can be someone in society, I need - I need to be worthy of a great lady I cannot stop loving.
- Don Leo: Who is she? Married?
- Florentino Ariza: Yes, but I'm waiting for her husband to die.
- Don Leo: Is he old?
- Florentino Ariza: No, but I'll wait for however long it takes.
- Dr. Juvenal Urbino: Do you like music?
- Florentino Ariza: I like the music of Carlos Gardel.
- Dr. Juvenal Urbino: I see. Popular music. Yes, but we must keep performing the best music in our city. We must import the greatest artists from Europe.
- Florentino Ariza: Maybe you should loosen your bodice. It will help you to feel more... comfortable, you know? May I help?
- [he helps]
- Sara Noriega: Tomorrow we do it in bed!
- Tránsito Ariza: The only disease you ever had was cholera.
- Florentino Ariza: No, Mama. You confused cholera with love.
- Florentino Ariza: Tell me, how would you define love?
- Sara Noriega: Love? Love is - love is everything we do naked. Spiritual love from the waist up, physical love from the waist down.
- Florentino Ariza: Yes, divided love.
- Sara Noriega: That could be a poem: "Divided Love."
- Florentino Ariza: Yes, it could be.
- Sara Noriega: Let's write it together, a poem on divided love.
- Florentino Ariza: It's been over a year and not a whisper, not a hint. Nobody knows where she is. I have made myself believe that if she were dead I would have heard. All I can do to keep myself sane is to follow my routine: 472 - Maria Florida: sells flowers in the market. 499 - Josephine Triola: I - I don't exactly know who she was. 544 -Galetia Fernandez: nothing memorable to report. Routine is like rust.