Youth

Lena Ballinger: "You know, he said the reason he couldn't conduct the Simple Songs was because my mother's the only person on Earth who could sing them."
Mick Boyle: "He said that?"
Lena Ballinger: "He said that to the queen's emissary."
Mick Boyle: "It took him eighty years to finally say something romantic, and he goes and says it to the queen's emissary."

"You've been watching too many movies, you idiot, you've forgotten what life is about."

"We only ever told each other the good things."

Queen's Emissary: "Why exactly do you find the monarchy endearing?"
Fred Ballinger: "Well, because it's so vulnerable. You eliminate one person... and all of a sudden the whole world changes. Like in a marriage."

"I have to believe in everything in order to make things up."

"I'm wondering what happens to your memory over time. I can't remember my family. I don't remember their faces or how they talked. Last night I was watching Lena while she was asleep. And I was thinking about all the thousands of little things that I done for her as her father. And I done them deliberately so that she would remember them. When she grows up. But in time. She won't remember a single thing."

Miss Universe: "I appreciate the irony, but when it is drenched in poison, it is drained of its force and reveals something else."
Jimmy Tree: "What?"
Miss Universe: "Frustration."

"Children, don't know their parents ordeals. Sure, they know certain details, striking elements. And they know what they need to know to be on one side or the other. They don't know that I trembled the first time I ever saw you on stage. All the orchestra behind my back were laughing at my falling in love. And my unexpected fragility. They don't know that you sold of your mother's jewellery in order to help me with my second piece. When everyone else was turning me down calling me presumptuous inelegant musician. They don't know that you too, and you were right that you thought I was a presumptuous, inelegant musician at that time. And you cried so hard. Not because you sold you mother's jewellery but because you sold your mother. They don't know that we were together. You and I. Despite all the exhaustion, and the pain, and hardship. Melanie. They must never know that you and I despite everything liked to think of ourselves as a simple song."