Green Mansions (1959)

Anthony Perkins: Abel

Photos 

Quotes 

• Nuflo : When I was a young man I fell in with bad companions. By the time I was 40 I had sunk to ranging the countryside with a gang of ruffians. Oh, I flattered myself I was the least offensive of the lot. I never killed anyone, never stole - except to live.

  Abel : Did you steal the gold from Riolama?

  Nuflo : It was to be simple theft and flight. It was a massacre. They killed... they killed, and pillaged, and raped...

• Priest : [On board a boat: Abel has escaped from the rebels]  Are you from Caracas?

  Abel : Why do you ask?

  Priest : I thought you might have seen something of the revolution. Yesterday we heard that the rebels were sacking the town and assassinating many government officials.

  Abel : [Jumps to his feet]  "Assassinating" doesn't seem like quite the right word. It's too dignified... They shoot them in their beds, and then they burn their houses down.

  Priest : We saw the glow in the sky. It seemed as if the whole horizon had caught fire. If you're running away, if you're looking for refuge...

  Abel : No, I'm not running away, Father. Yesterday I was, but today I'm not. Today I know *exactly* where I'm going and what I have to do and then I'll be back. They'll see me again.

• Abel : [as they come upon a rare, solitary flower in the forest]  What is it?

  Rima : It's called the Hata flower. It blooms for the space of a moon and then disappears. Yet it never dies. That very moment it blooms again at another place, in another part of the forest.

  Rima : If you look in this place tomorrow and it is gone, you must not be sad, because you know it still exists, not very far away.

  Abel : [looking a little skeptical]  That's a beautiful legend.

  Rima : A legend?

  Abel : A legend is a story that is handed down from generation to generation, until people come to believe it.

  Rima : You do not believe it? You do not believe anything, do you?

  Abel : I believe in what I have to do.

  [kisses her on the forehead and walks away] 

• Abel : [Strumming a guitar, singing a song for Rima]  They say that love is a fragile thing, a linnet's wing, a magic ring made of gold...

  Abel : They say that love is a bird in flight, a gleam of light, a star too bright to behold...

  Abel : Tell me, tell me, tell me, Oh child of the moon. Is it as they say? Must love slip away too soon?

  Abel : Tell me, Rima, where are the meadows of June? Speaking with her eyes, softly she replies,

  Abel : I know a place where green mansions are, as near or far as any star up above.

  Abel : And in this land of eternal spring, where hummingbirds can learn to sing, green grow the mansions of love.