Quills

Madeleine LeClerc: How can we know who is good - and who is evil? Abbé du Coulmier: All we can do is guard against our own corruption.

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0

Abbé du Coulmier: It's not even a proper novel. It's nothing but an encyclopedia of perversions. Frankly, it even fails as an exercise in craft. The characters are wooden, the dialogue is inane. Not to mention the repetition of words like "nipple" and "pikestaff". Marquis de Sade: There I was taxed; it's true. Abbé du Coulmier: And such puny scope. Nothing but the worst in man's nature. Marquis de Sade: I write of the great, eternal truths that bind together all mankind. The whole world over, we eat, we shit, we fuck, we kill and we die. Abbé du Coulmier: But we also fall in love, we build cities, we compose symphonies, and we endure. Why not put that in your books as well?

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0

Madeleine LeClerc: Your publisher says I'm not to leave without another manuscript. Marquis de Sade: I've just the story. It's the unhappy tale... of a virginal laundry lass. The darling of the lower wards where they entomb the criminally insane. Madeleine LeClerc: Is it awfully violent? Marquis de Sade: Most assuredly. Madeleine LeClerc: Is it terribly erotic? Marquis de Sade: Fiendishly so. But it comes with a price. A kiss for each page...

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0

Abbé du Coulmier: There are certain things.... feelings.... we must not voice. Madeleine LeClerc: Why? Abbé du Coulmier: They incite us to act on what we should not.... cannot.

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0

Renee Pelagie: Desperation has driven me past etiquette, all the way to frenzy. Dr. Royer-Collard: My schedule is not the subject to the whims of lunatics. Renee Pelagie: I beg to differ, you work in a madhouse. Your every walking moment is governed by the insane.

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0

If you cure him, I mean really cure him, harness the beast that rages his soul.

Quills, CC BY-SA 4.0