The Decline of the American Empire (1986)

Dominique Michel: Dominique St. Arnaud

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Quotes 

• Dominique St. Arnaud : Is the frantic drive for personal happiness we see in society today, linked to the decline of the American empire as we are now experiencing it?

• Dominique St. Arnaud : It's my premise that the concept of personal happiness permeates the literature of a nation or civilization as its influence wanes.

• Diane Leonard : [describing her current relationship]  But I have to stop, because... it's getting dangerous.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : You're afraid of him?

  Diane Leonard : No, it's me I'm afraid of.

• Diane Leonard : Such simple souls, they shout 'Mamma' when they come.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : Yes, that's right. The first time a man shouted 'Mamma,' 'Mamma mia!', I thought his mother had come in. I wanted to hide under the bed.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : A civilization's decline is as inevitable as old age. We can try to slow down the process. That's all.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : Marx was your average middle-class German who fucked the maid behind his wife's back. His theories are rooted in his sense of guilt. Same for Freud. A latent homosexual... unable to lay his wife after age 40... hot and bothered over his female patients. His quarrels with Jung... were really about women... about sex.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : [referring to Canada]  We're fortunate here to be on the outskirts of the empire. The shocks are less violent. Life in these times can be very pleasant in some respects.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : People should speak about what they know, that's it.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : You should write a paper on that.

  Pierre : 17,000 scholarly articles are published every day. One more or less...

• Dominique St. Arnaud : [describing Rémy's sex life]  Anyone in a skirt at school... down to the last secretary. And then there are all the others. He told me he laid Louise's sister and really got off on it.

  Alain : But he's not that handsome.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : Doesn't mean a thing. He loves sex. That's irresistible. So many men don't really enjoy it.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : It's one thing I can't stomach.

  Alain : What?

  Dominique St. Arnaud : Blindness. People who are unable to see reality.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : Rémy's special... He's screwed all Montreal.

  Alain : He says he's like the Red Cross, a universal donor.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : I just can't take these middle-class housewives with their cute husbands and cute kids. I've watched so many men getting dressed at 2 a.m.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : [asking for comments on her theory]  You haven't said a word about the book.

  Louise : I bet they agree with me but are scared to say so.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : I think they feel superior.

  Pierre : Superior? Why?

  Dominique St. Arnaud : [referring to Pierre and Rémy]  Because you've both slept with me.

  Pierre : What does that have to do with it?

  Dominique St. Arnaud : I think that for men like you... love always entails a struggle for power. Rémy's often said he'd like to seduce a big intellectual... I don't know, say...

  Alain : Susan Sontag.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : Right. It's the urge to appropriate her. To dominate her, almost physically.

  Claude : Come on... it can also be the desire to share, to be with.

  Dominique St. Arnaud : Perhaps. But I can't trust the disdain of men who've made me come, who've had me.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : Words are cheap, baby.

• Dominique St. Arnaud : Don't listen to me... Touch me. Touch me, baby.