Doctor Zhivago quotes

View Quote Engineer: If they were to give me two more excavators, I'd be a year ahead with the plan by now.
Yevraf: You're an impatient generation.
Engineer: Weren't you?
Yevgraf: Yes, we were. Very. Oh, don't be too impatient, Comrade Engineer; we've come very far, very fast.
Engineer: Yes, I know that Comrade General.
Yevgraf: Yes, but do you know what it cost..? There were children in those days who lived off human flesh, did you know that?

View Quote Komarovsky: [speaking of Pasha Antipov] Lara, I am determined to save you from a dreadful error. There are two kinds of men, and only two, and that young man is one kind. He is high-minded. He is pure. He is the kind of man that the world pretends to look up to and in fact despises. He is the kind of man who breeds unhappiness; particularly in women. Now, do you understand?
Lara: No.
Komarovsky: I think you do. There's another kind. Not high-minded. Not pure. But alive. Now that your taste at this time should incline towards the juvenile is understandable. But for you to marry that boy would be a disaster. Because there's two kinds of women. [Lara puts her hands to her ears; he snatches them away] There are two kinds of women and you - as we well know - are not the first kind. [Lara slaps him. He slaps her back, harder] You, my dear, are a slut.
Lara: I am not!
Komarovsky: We'll see.

View Quote Lara: I-I'm going now, Viktor.
Komarosvsky: Whenever you like dear. You see, you'll always come back.

View Quote Lara: You know, you often look at me as if you knew me.
Yuri: I have seen you before. Four years ago. Christmas Eve. [when Lara shot Komarovsky at a party which Zhivago was attending]
Lara: Were you there? No wonder you look at me. Did you know Viktor Komarovsky?
Yuri: Yes I did. That young man who took you away -
Lara: My husband.
Yuri: Lot of courage. He made the rest of us look very feeble. As a matter of fact, I thought you both did. Good man to shoot at.
Lara: I'd give anything never to have met him.

View Quote Partisan Commander: I command this unit!
Commissar: We command jointly! The party bulletin expressly states-
[The Commander knocks the Commissar's papers off the table.]
Partisan Commander: Bah! I could have you taken out and shot!
Commissar: And could you have the party taken out and shot?

View Quote Sergei: This Lenin - will he be the new Czar, then?
Kuril: Listen Daddy - no more Czars! No more masters! Only workers in a workers' state! How about that?!

View Quote The Girl: I'm not your neice, Comrade General.
Yevgraf: Well, I'm nobody's idea of an uncle, but if this man were my father, I should want to know.

View Quote Yevgraf: This is a new edition of the Lara poems.
Engineer: Yes, I know. We admire your brother very much.
Yevgraf: Yes, everybody seems to.. now.
Engineer: Well, we couldn't admire him when we weren't allowed to read him...
Yevgraf: ...No.

View Quote Yevgraf: This man was your father. Why won't you believe it? Don't you want to believe it?
The Girl: Not if it isn't true.
Yevgraf: That's inherited...

View Quote Yevgraf: Tonya - can you play the balalaika?
David: [her boyfriend] Can she play?! She's an artist!
Yevgraf: And who taught you?
David: No-one taught her!
Yevgraf: Ah.. then it's a gift.

View Quote [Komarovsky arrives in Yuriatin.]
Zhivago: I think you'd better go.
Komarovsky: Your rarified selfishness is intolerable. Larissa's in danger too.
Zhivago: By association with me?!
Komarovsky: No, not by association with you; you're small fry. By association with Strelnikov.
Lara: I've never met Strelnikov.
Komarovsky: You're married to Strelnikov! They know that.
Lara: I was married to Pasha Antipov.
Komarovsky: I understand, I understand… but they don't.

View Quote [Komarovsky meets Lara's future husband.]
Komarovsky: Pavel Pavlovich; my chief impression - and I mean no offence - is that you're very young.
Pasha Antipov: Monsieur Komarovsky; I hope I don't offend you. Do people improve with age?
Komarovsky: They grow a little more tolerant.
Pasha Antipov: Because they have more to tolerate in themselves. If people don't marry young, what do they bring to their marriage?
Komarovsky: A little experience.

View Quote [Komarovsky returns.]
Komarovsky: Strelnikov is dead.
Zhivago: What?!
Komarovsky: Spare me your expressions of regret. He was a murderous neurotic of no use to anyone. Do you see how this affects Larissa? You don't. You're a fool. She's Strelnikov's wife. Why do you think they haven't arrested her – is this the usual practice? Why do you think they had her watched at Yuriatin? They were waiting for Strelnikov.
Zhivago: If they thought Strelnikov would come running to his wife, they didn't know him…
Komarovsky: They knew him well enough. He was only five miles from here when they caught him. He was arrested on the open road. He didn't conceal his identity – indeed throughout the interview he insisted they call him Pavel Antipov, which is his right name, and refused to answer to the name Strelnikov. On his way to execution he took a pistol from one of the guards and blew his own brains out.
Zhivago: Oh my god… don't tell Lara this.
Komarovsky: I think I know Lara at least as well as you. But don't you see how this affects her position? She's served her purpose. These men that came with me today as an escort will come for her and the child tomorrow as a firing squad! Now, I know exactly what you think of me, and why, but if you're not coming with me she's not coming with me. So – are you coming with me? Do you accept the protection of this ignoble Caliban on any terms that Caliban cares to make.. or is your.. delicacy.. so exorbitant that you would sacrifice a woman and a child to it?

View Quote [Yevgraf meets Yuri and his family. Whilst Yevgraf appears on the screen, we never hear his on-screen words but his voice-over instead.]
Yevgraf: "I told them who I was. The old man was hostile, the girl, cautious. My brother.. seemed very pleased. I think the girl was the only one who guessed at their position."
Yuri: You're just as I imagined you. You're my political conscience.
Yevgraf: "I asked him - hadn't he one of his own? [laughs] And so he talked about the revolution."
Yuri: You lay life on a table and you cut out all the tumours of injustice. Marvellous.
Yevgraf: "I told him if he felt like that he should join the party."
Yuri: Ah, but cutting out the tumours of injustice - that's a deep operation. Someone must keep life alive while you do it. By living. Isn't that right?
Yevgraf: "I thought then it was wrong. He told me what he thought about the party and I trembled for him. He approved of us, but for reasons which were subtle, like his verse. Approval such as his could vanish overnight. I told him so."
Yuri: Well, of course I can't approve this evening something you may do tomorrow.
Yevgraf: "He was walking about with a noose round his neck and didn't know. So I told him what I'd heard about his poems."
Yuri: Not.. liked? Not liked by whom? Why not liked?
Yevgraf: "So I told him that."
Yuri: Do you think it's "personal, petit-bourgeoise and self-indulgent"?
[On the screen, Yevgraf nods and says "yes".]
Yevgraf: "I lied. But he believed me, and it struck me through to see that my opinion mattered. The girl knew what it meant, what it was going to mean. They couldn't survive what was coming in the city. I urged them to leave and live obscurely somewhere in the country where they could keep themselves alive."
Tonya: We have - used to have - an estate at Varykino, near Yuriatin. People know us there.
Yevgraf: "He didn't resist. I offered to obtain permits, passes, warrants; I told them what to take, and what to leave behind. I had the impertinence to ask him for a volume of his poems. And so we parted. I think I even told him that we would meet again in better times... but perhaps I didn't."

View Quote [Zhivago has been captured by Partisans.]
Partisan Commander: Comrade Doctor, I need a medical officer.
Zhivago: I'm sorry, I have a wife and child in Varykino-
Commissar: And a mistress in Yuriatin.
[The commander laughs.]
Partisan Commander: Comrade Medical Officer, we are Red Partisans, and we shoot deserters.