Ninotchka quotes

View Quote Ninotchka: [looking at a map] Correct me if I'm wrong. We are facing north, aren't we?
Leon: Facing north? Well now, I'd have to commit myself without my compass. Pardon me, are you an explorer?
Ninotchka: No, I am looking for the Eiffel Tower.
Leon: Good heavens, is that thing lost again? Oh, are you interested in a view?
Ninotchka: I'm interested in the Eiffel Tower from a technical standpoint.
Leon: Technical? No, no, I'm afraid I couldn't be of much help from that angle. You see, a Parisian only goes to the Tower in moments of despair to jump off.
Ninotchka: How long does it take a man to land?
Leon: Now isn't that too bad. The last time I jumped, I forgot to time it. Let me see now, the Eiffel Tower - ah, your finger please?
Ninotchka: Why do you need my finger?
Leon: It's bad manners to point with your own. There, the Eiffel Tower.
Ninotchka: And where are we?
Leon: Where are we? Let me see. Where are we? Ah, here we are. There you are, and here am I. Feel it?
Ninotchka: I am interested only in the shortest distance between these two points. Must you flirt?
Leon: Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.
Ninotchka: Suppress it!
Leon: I'll try.
Ninotchka: For my own information, would you call your approach toward me typical of the local morale?
Leon: Mademoiselle, it is that approach which has made Paris what it is.
Ninotchka: You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?
Leon: Well, nothing's happened recently to shake my self-confidence.
Ninotchka: I have heard of the arrogant male in capitalistic society. It is having a superior earning power that makes you that way.
Leon: A Russian! I love Russians! Comrade. I've been fascinated by your Five-Year Plan for the last fifteen years.
Ninotchka: Your type will soon be extinct.

View Quote Ninotchka: [on a street corner] How long must we wait here?
Leon: Well, uh, until the policeman blows his whistle again.
Ninotchka: At what intervals does he whistle?
Leon: What?
Ninotchka: How many minutes between the first and second whistle?
Leon: You know that's very funny. I never thought of that before.
Ninotchka: You've never been caught in a similar situation?
Leon: Yes, I have, now that I've come to think about it. It's staggering. Good heavens. If I add it all up, I must have spent years waiting for signals. Imagine, an important part of my life wasted between whistles.
Ninotchka: In other words, you don't know.
Leon: No.
Ninotchka: Thank you.
Leon: You're welcome.

View Quote Ninotchka: [seeing the large size of her room] Which part of the room is mine?...If I stay here a week, I will cost the Russian people seven cows. Who am I to cost the Russian people seven cows?... [She loyally places a picture of Lenin on the desk] I'm ashamed to put the picture of Lenin in a room like this.
Iranoff: Do you want to be alone, comrade?
Ninotchka: No.

View Quote Ninotchka: Bring me something simple. I never think about food.
Mathieu: [horrified] Madame, if you don't think about food, what do you think about?
Ninotchka: The future of the common people.
Mathieu: That's also a question of food.
[Mathieu leaves]
Leon: You insulted him, you know that? You hurt his feelings. It was just like telling a musician that you don't like music. Why that good old man believes in food just as you believe in Karl Marx. You can't go around hurting people like that, Comrade Yakushova. But you can make it up to him. Do you know how? By eating everything that he brings you with relish, by drinking everything with gusto, by having a good time for the first time in your natural life!

View Quote Ninotchka: I don't look too foolish?
Leon: Foolish? If this dress were walking down the boulevard all by itself, I would follow it from one end of Paris to the other, and when I caught up with it, I would say, 'Wait a moment, you charming little dress. I want you to meet Ninotchka...you two were meant for each other.'

View Quote Ninotchka: I must ask you to leave.
Swana: Leave? That's exactly what I came here to ask you to do. Leave! I don't mean this hotel and I don't mean Paris...I mean France. There's a plane for Moscow at five-forty.
Ninotchka: Do you still think you're issuing orders from your palace in Petrograd?
Swana: My palace in Petrograd...yes, you took that away from me. You took away my Czar, my country, my people, everything I had...but nothing more.
Ninotchka: People cannot be taken away madame, neither a hundred and sixty million nor one. Not if you have their love. You hadn't. That's why you're not in Russia any longer, and that's why you came here this morning. Problems were never solved by bowing from a balcony.

View Quote Ninotchka: I must go.
Leon: Or should I say Special Envoy Yakushova?
Ninotchka: Let's forget we ever met.
Leon: No, no, no, I have a much better suggestion. Let's forget the telephone ever rang. I never heard that you're Yakushova. You're Ninotchka. My Ninotchka.
Ninotchka: I was sent here by my country to fight you.
Leon: All right, fight me. Fight me as much as you want, only fight me tomorrow morning. There's nothing sweeter than sharing a secret with an enemy.
Ninotchka: You represent white Russia and I represent Red Russia.
Leon: No, tonight, let's not represent anybody but ourselves.
Ninotchka: It's out of the question. If you wish to approach me...
Leon: You know I want to.
Ninotchka: Then do it through my lawyer.
Leon: But Ninotchka, you can't walk out like this. I'm crazy about you. I thought I'd made an impression on you. You liked the white of my eye.
Ninotchka: I must go.
Leon: Oh no, Ninotchka. I held you in my arms. You kissed me!
Ninotchka: [She lowers her eyes] I kissed the Polish lancer too, before he died.

View Quote Ninotchka: Let's form our own Party.
Leon: Right. 'Lovers of the World Unite!'
Ninotchka: And we won't stretch up our arms...
Leon: No! No!
Ninotchka: ...and we won't clench our fists...
Leon: No! No!
Ninotchka: Our salute will be a kiss.
Leon: Yes...a kiss. Salute! [She sinks into his arms and they kiss]
Ninotchka: I am so happy. Oh I'm so happy. No one can be so happy without being punished. I will be punished and I should be punished. Leon, I want to confess.
Leon: I know...it's the Russian soul.
Ninotchka: Well, everyone wants to confess and if they don't confess, they make them confess. I am a traitor. When I kissed you, I betrayed a Russian ideal. I should be stood up against the wall.
Leon: Would that make you any happier?
Ninotchka: Much happier.
Leon: All right.

View Quote Ninotchka: My father and mother wanted me to stay and work on the farm, but I preferred the bayonet.
Leon: The bayonet? Did you really?
Ninotchka: I was wounded before Warsaw.
Leon: Wounded? How?
Ninotchka: I was a sergeant in the Third Cavalry Brigade. Would you like to see my wound?
Leon: I'd love to.

View Quote Ninotchka: Radio. What's radio?
Leon: Radio is a little box that you buy on the installment plan and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out.

View Quote Ninotchka: That's how they live in the other world. Here, we dress to cover up our bodies, to keep warm.
Anna: And there?
Ninotchka: Sometimes they're not completely covered, but they don't freeze.

View Quote Ninotchka: The closest I ever came to champagne was in a newsreel. The wife of some president was throwing it at a battleship.
Leon: It's always good luck to launch something with champagne; a battleship...or an evening.
Ninotchka: It's funny to look back. I was brought up on goat's milk. I had a ration of vodka in the army, and now champagne.
Leon: From goats to grapes. That's drinking in the right direction.
Ninotchka: [After her first taste, her face grimaces but then breaks into a smile] It's good. [She drinks the whole glass down at once] From what I read I thought champagne was a strong drink. It's delicate. Does anyone ever get drunk on this?
Leon: Well, there have been cases...but the headache the next morning is worth while - if you drink it with the right toast. [They toast, raising their glasses] To us, Ninotchka!

View Quote Ninotchka: Why should you carry other people's bags?
Porter: Well, that's my business, Madame.
Ninotchka: That's no business. That's social injustice.
Porter: That depends on the tip.

View Quote Ninotchka: You are something we do not have in Russia.
Leon: Thank you.
Ninotchka: That's why I believe in the future of my country.
Leon: Yes. I'm beginning to believe in it myself since I met you. I still don't quite know what it's all about. Confuses me, frightens me. It fascinates me. Ninotchka, you like me just a little bit?
Ninotchka: Your general appearance is not distasteful.
Leon: Thank you.
Ninotchka: The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent.
Leon: Your cornea is terrific. Ninotchka, tell me, you're so expert on things: can it be that I'm falling in love with you?
Ninotchka: Why must you bring in wrong values? Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological - or, shall we say, chemical - process. A lot of nonsense is talked and written about it.
Leon: Oh I see. What do you use instead?
Ninotchka: I acknowledge the existence of a natural impulse common to all.
Leon: What can I possibly do to encourage such an impulse in you?
Ninotchka: You don't have to do a thing. Chemically, we're already quite sympathetic.
Leon: You're the most incredible creature I've ever met. Ninotchka. Ninotchka.
Ninotchka: You repeat yourself.
Leon: Yes, I'd like to say it a thousand times. You must forgive me when I seem a little old-fashioned. After all, I'm just a poor bourgeois.
Ninotchka: It's never too late to change. I used to belong to the petite bourgeoisie myself.

View Quote Swana: [about the jewels] They were given to me by my mother. They were given to her by her mother, in fact they're mine, you can't steal what belongs to you!
Ninotchka: They always belonged to the Russian people. They paid for them with their blood, their lives and you'll give them back!