A Good Woman (2004)

Tom Wilkinson: Tuppy

Photos 

Quotes 

• Tuppy : Every saint has past, every sinner has a future.

• Dumby : Do you think she'd look at you if you were poor?

  Tuppy : Do you think I'd look at her if she were ugly? Fair's fair, exchange rates and so forth. Well I know she's had her this and her that... but if a man can tolerate his own past... why not a past in his wife?

• Tuppy : Every experience is of value and whatever you say about marriage it certainly is an experience.

  Mrs. Erlynne : People call something an experience they usually mean it was a mistake.

• Tuppy : Aren't you clever?

  Mrs. Erlynne : I read it somewhere.

  Tuppy : I like a good read myself. Nothing too laborious. I don't want to tamper with natural ignorance.

• Mrs. Erlynne : Keep him out all night. Get him drunk if you have to. Just don't let him come home.

  Tuppy : Why? What? What?

  Mrs. Erlynne : I like you, I do. But if this is going to work between us, you can't do that.

  Tuppy : Do what?

  Mrs. Erlynne : "Where? What? Why?" I can't always explain myself to myself let alone anyone else.

  Tuppy : Good for you - takes the pressure off. Nine times out of ten, men don't give two pins about why they just feel obliged to take an interest.

• Tuppy : We've all got a couple of skeleton in the closet.

  Mrs. Erlynne : If they are going to rattle, they may as well dance.

• Contessa Lucchino : And another thing, your Mrs. Erlynne has no principles at all.

  Tuppy : I like people more than principles.

• Tuppy : No, I think I'll do very well to marry you.

  Mrs. Erlynne : How very practical.

  Tuppy : Oh, I've begun too many romances out of sentiment. They always end in settlement.

• Mrs. Erlynne : I was married - I didn't take to it.

  Tuppy : People change. You might feel differently.

  Mrs. Erlynne : When I think of it, I think of a room where you can't open a window, where there is no window. Every day you wake up and the room is smaller. You don't notice, not at first. It happens slowly. In inches. Then one morning, you open your eyes and the room is so small you... you can't move. You can't take a breath. You have to get out. You can't think of anything else. Or anyone else.

  Tuppy : You married the wrong man, that's all.

  Mrs. Erlynne : He married the wrong woman.

• Tuppy : I'm going to ask her to marry me if she'll have me.

  Dumby : You know... you know why they call it an altar, Tuppy? It's where they make human sacrifices.

• Tuppy : I don't need to be the first, Stella. Just the last.

• Lord Darlington : I like America. Name me another society that's gone from barbarism to decadence without bothering to create a civilization in between.

  Tuppy : A tribute to American efficiency.

• Tuppy : You're so fond of gossip you don't give the truth a chance to put its pants on.

  Contessa Lucchino : It's not the truth that's going around without pants, caro Tuppy.