- Toulouse-Lautrec: Christian, you may see me only as a drunken, vice-ridden gnome whose friends are just pimps and girls from the brothels. But I know about art and love, if only because I long for it with every fiber of my being.
- Satine: Besides, I can't fall in love with anyone
- Christian: Can't... fall... in love? But, a life without love, that's... terrible...
- Satine: No, being on the street, that's terrible.
- Christian: No! Love is like oxygen!
- Satine: What?
- Christian: Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!
- Christian: [bursts out into song]
- Satine: I don't need you anymore! All my life you made believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me! But Christian loves me. He loves me! He loves me, Harold. And that is worth everything! We're going away from you, away from the Duke, away from the Moulin Rouge!
- Argentinean: We have a dance in the brothels of Buenos Aires. It tells the story of the prostitute and a man who falls in love with her. First, there is desire. Then, passion. Then, suspicion. Jealousy. Anger. Betrayal. When love is for the highest bidder, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no love. Jealousy, yes, jealousy will drive you mad.
- Satine: [singing] Never knew I could feel like this. Like I've never seen the sky before. Want to vanish inside your kiss, every day I'm loving you more and more. Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Come back to me- and forgive everything.
- [gasp]
- Satine: Seasons may change, winter to spring... I love you 'til the end of time.
- Satine: I'm sorry, Christian, I'm dying.
- Christian: No, you'll be alright
- Satine: I'm so sorry, Christian. I'm sorry.
- [brief pause]
- Satine: I'm cold. Hold me.
- [long pause]
- Satine: You've got to carry on without me, Christian.
- Christian: I can't carry on without you.
- Satine: You have so much to give.
- Christian: No.
- Satine: Ye. Tell our story, Christian.
- Christian: I love you.
- Satine: [smiles] Tell our story, Christian, that way I'll always be with you.
- Christian: Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and then on not-so very special day, I sat down at my type-writer and I wrote down our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But most importantly, a story about love. A love that will live forever. The end.
- Argentinean: Never fall in love with a woman who sells herself. It always ends...
- Argentinean: [screams] BAD!
- [last lines]
- Christian: [voiceover and typing] Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever. The End.
- Christian: [voiceover, singing] The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
- Christian: [singing] Why does my heart cry? Feelings I can't fight... you're free to leave me, but just don't deceive me, and please believe me when I say I love you!
- Satine: A little supper? Maybe some champagne?
- Christian: I'd rather, um, just get it over and done with.
- Satine: Hmph. Oh. Very well. Then why don't you come down here and let's get it over and done with.
- Christian: I prefer to do it standing.
- Satine: Oh.
- [starts to stand]
- Christian: You don't have to stand, I mean. It's sometimes that... It's quite long and I'd like you to be comfortable. It's quite modern what I do and it may feel a little strange at first, but I think, if you're open, then you might enjoy it.
- Christian: It's a little bit funny.
- Satine: What?
- Christian: This feeling inside. I'm not one of those who can easily hide. Is this ok? Is this what you want?
- Satine: Ah, poetry. Yes, this it what I want naughty words.
- Christian: I don't have much money but boy if I did, I'd buy a big house where we both could live. If I were a sculptor, but then again, no. Or a man who makes potions a traveling show. I know it's not much...
- Satine: Oh Naughty, don't stop, don't stop.
- Christian: But it's the best I can do.
- [sings]
- Christian: My gift is my song. And this one's for you. And you can tell everybody that this is your song. It may be quite simple but now that it's done. I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words... how wonderful life is now you're in the world.
- The Duke: I don't like this ending...
- Zidler: Don't like the ending, my dear Duke?
- The Duke: Why should the courtesan chose the penniless sitar player over the maharajah who is offering her a lifetime of security? That's real love. Once the sitar player has satisfied his lust he will leave her with nothing. I suggest that the courtesan chose the maharajah.
- Toulouse-Lautrec: But, but tell me, that ending does not uphold the Bohemian ideals of truth, beauty, freedom, and...
- The Duke: [shouts] I don't care about your ridiculous dogma! Why shouldn't the courtesan chose the maharajah?
- Christian: [shouts] Because she doesn't love you!... Him... Hi-him, she doesn't love... she doesn't love him.
- The Duke: Oh, I see... Monsieur Zidler, the play will be rewritten with the courtesan choosing the maharajah and without the lovers' secret song. It will be rehearsed in the morning, ready for the opening tomorrow night...
- Zidler: But, my dear Duke, that will be quite impossible.
- Satine: Harold, the Duke is being treated appallingly. These silly writers let their imaginations run away with themselves. Why don't you and I have a little supper, and then we can tell Monsieur Zidler how we would like the story to end.
- Christian: Wait. No, please wait. Before, when we were... when you thought I was the Duke, you said that you loved me, a- and I wondered if...
- Satine: It was just an act?
- Christian: Yes.
- Satine: Of course.
- Christian: Oh. It just felt real.
- Satine: Christian, I'm a courtesan. I'm paid to make men believe what they want to believe.
- Zidler: Send Christian away.
- Satine: He will fight for me.
- Zidler: Unless he believes that you don't love him.
- Satine: What?
- Zidler: You're a great actress, Satine. Make him believe that you don't love him.
- Satine: No!
- Zidler: Use your talent to save him! Hurt him, Satine. Hurt him to save him. There is no other way. The show must go on. We are creatures of the underworld. We can't afford to love.
- Christian: Then I'll write a song and we'll put it in the show and whenever you sing it or hear it. Or whistle or hum it then you'll know. It'll mean that we love one another.
- Nini Legs-In-The-Air: This ending's silly. Why would the courtesan go for the penniless writer? Whoops. I mean sitar player.
- The Duke: You expect me to believe that scantily clad, in the arms of another man, in the middle of the night, inside an elephant you were rehearsing?
- Christian: Mademaiselle Satine, I haven't quite finished writing that new scene. The "Will The Lovers Be Meeting at the Sitar Player's Humble Abode" scene. And I wondered if I could work on it with you later tonight.
- The Duke: But, my dear, I've arranged a magnificent supper for us in the Gothic Tower.
- Christian: It's not important. We could work on it tomorrow.
- Satine: Oh, how dare you! It cannot wait until tomorrow. The "Lovers Will Be Meeting in the Sitar Player's Humble Abode" scene is the most important in the production. We will work on it tonight until I am completely satisfied.
- The Duke: B-But my dear...
- Satine: Dear Duke. Excuse me.
- Christian: [smiles] I'm sorry.
- Christian: India! India! It's set in India! And there's a courtesan, the most beautiful courtesan in all the world.
- [Turns to the Duke]
- Christian: But her kingdom's invaded by an evil Maharaja! Now, in order to save her kingdom, she has to seduce the evil Maharaja. But on the night of the seduction, she mistakes a penniless po- a penniless- a penniless sitar player for the evil Maharaja and she falls in love with him!
- [turns to Satine]
- Christian: He wasn't trying to trick her or anything, but he was dressed as a Maharaja because... he's appearing in a play!
- Christian: The Moulin Rouge. A night club, a dance hall and a bordello. Ruled over by Harold Zidler. A kingdom of night time pleasures. Where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld. The most beautiful of these was the one I loved. Satine. A courtesan. She sold her love to men. They called her the "Sparkling Diamond", and she was the star... of the Moulin rouge. The woman I loved is... dead.
- Satine: The French are glad to die for love. They delight in fighting duels. But I prefer a man who lives... and gives expensive... jewels.
- [the bohemians are rehearsing a play that resembles a certain musical that begins with a nun singing atop a hill]
- Toulouse-Lautrec: [singing] The hills are made with the euphonious symphonies of descant...
- Doctor: I don't think a nun would say that about a hill.
- Satine: [to herself, singing] When will I begin to live again? One day I'll fly away... leave all this to yesterday. Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day when dreaming ends.
- Cast of Spectacular, Spectacular: [singing] So exciting, we'll make them laugh, we'll make them cry. So delighting...
- The Duke: And in the end, should someone die?
- Argentinean: The boy has talent.
- [Grabs Christian's crotch]
- Argentinean: [Christian gasps]
- Argentinean: Nothing funny, I just like talent.
- Toulouse-Lautrec: I got it, I got it. Christian.
- [shouts]
- Toulouse-Lautrec: The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
- Satine: [enters Christian's loft in hysterics] Oh, thank goodness!
- [she hugs Christian and begins crying]
- Satine: I couldn't! I couldn't go through with it! I saw you there and I felt differently! I couldn't pretend!
- [sobbing]
- Satine: And the Duke he saw! He saw and he-Christian, I love you.
- [continues to hug him]
- Christian: [quietly] It's okay.
- Satine: [sobbing] I couldn't deal with it! I don't want to pretend anymore! I didn't want to lie! I don't -
- [takes a breath and calms down]
- Satine: And he knows! He knows and he saw you!
- Christian: That's all right. You don't have to pretend anymore. We'll leave. We'll leave tonight.
- Satine: Leave? Wh-the show wh-?
- Christian: I don't care. I don't care about the show. We have each other. That's all that matters.
- Satine: Yes. As long as we have each other. We have each other.
- [they kiss]
- Christian: [turns to Chocolat] Chocolat. Take Miss Satine to her dressing room and get the things she needs. No one must see you. Do you understand?
- Le Chocolat: I understand.
- Christian: [to Satine] Now darling you go and pack, and I'll be waiting.
- [he wraps his coat around Satine and gives her a final kiss]
- Zidler: The Duke holds the deeds to the Moulin Rouge, he's spending a fortune on you, he's giving you a beautiful new dressing room, he wants to make you a star, and YOU'RE DALLYING WITH THE WRITER!
- Satine: Harold, that's ridic...
- Zidler: I SAW YOU TOGETHER.
- Satine: It's nothing. It's just an infatuation... it's nothing.
- Zidler: The infatuation will end. Go to the boy; tell him it's over, and the Duke is expecting you in the tower at eight.
- Zidler: A magnificent, opulent, tremendous, stupendous, gargantuan, bedazzlement, a sensual ravishment. It will be: Spectacular Spectacular.
- Satine: The difference between you and I is that you can leave anytime you choose. But this is my home.
- Satine: Please tell me you're not one of Toulouse's oh so talented, charmingly bohemian, tragically impoverished writers?
- Nini Legs-In-The-Air: Don't worry Shakespeare, you'll get your ending. Once the Duke gets his end-in.
- Zidler: You know it is. The show must go on. And now my bride it is time to raise your voice to the heavens and say your wedding vows.
- Zidler: [singing] If life's an awful bore, and living's just a chore that we do caus' death's not much fun. I just have the antidote, and though I mustn't gloat at the Moulin Rouge. You'll have fun... Scratch that little niggle, have a little wiggle, you know that you can... Because we can can can.