Rowing with the Wind (1988)

Hugh Grant: Lord Byron

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lord Byron : The rivers, lakes and ocean. The tides were in their grave. The moon their mistress, had expired before. The winds were withered in the stagnant air... why are you limping Polidori?

  John Polidori : I have twisted my ankle, my Lord.

  Lord Byron : Well, congratulations. At last you've managed to be like me. Although, in precisely the way I would least liker to be like Lord Byron. Vanity leads men to imitate other men, and poetry to imitate itself. Do you know what the finest poem would be? It would be the poem that gave life to matter, by force of imagination alone.

  Mary Shelley : It would be horrible!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley : Do you know that the best our scientists can do, is to make a dead worm wriggle in a glass jar.

  Claire Clairmont : And what does our doctor think about all this?

  John Polidori : That the imagination only creates things that are dead, although they may sometimes be beautiful. And that science only discovers new ways of killing.

  Claire Clairmont : Good heavens, my Lord! Where did you find your bedside doctor?

  Lord Byron : Queen of England recommended him to me.

  John Polidori : My dramatic works had a certain curative effect on her, but my medical prescriptions made her vomit.

  [laughing] 

• Percy Bysshe Shelley : But it is only a castle. The horror is in the minds of men that make it a symbol of oppression.

  Lord Byron : [chuckles]  Do you really believe that men invented horror? I believe it is rather that men are a horrifying invention. What existed before men? Horror. What will still exist when men are gone? Horror. Believe me, my dear Shelley; horror is the only reality which sustains our existence.

• Lord Byron : Yesterday I said something to Claire, which I would like to say to you personally.

  Mary Shelley : I know, Claire told me. But I would not mind hearing it again.

  Lord Byron : I merely wished to say how much I like you, Mary. And Shelley.

  John Polidori : I was just saying to Mr. Shelley that it would be a good idea to read horror stories during the evenings. Fiction is by far the best vaccine against reality.

  Lord Byron : It is a very good idea, Polidori. But I propose that in honor of Shelley, instead of vaccinating ourselves against reality, we should invent it anew. Mary was just promising me that she is going to write a horror story. Each one of us will write the most horrifying tale that he or she can imagine. And we shall demonstrate that reality is always even more horrifying.

  Claire Clairmont : Letters are the most horrifying for me, and sometimes they can be more appalling than reality.

  John Polidori : Right. When do we start, tomorrow?

  Lord Byron : Tomorrow. Shelley I feel certain that you will want to go to the Castle of Chillon, and there we shall really be able to contemplate the horror of this world.

• Lord Byron : I had a dream, which was not at all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space; rayless and pathless. And the icy Earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Morn came and went,,, and came... and brought no day.