The Grand Budapest Hotel Quotes

M. Gustave: It's quite a thing, winning the loyalty of a woman like that for nineteen consecutive seasons.
Zero: Um... yes, sir.
M. Gustave: She's very fond of me, you know.
Zero: Yes, sir.
M. Gustave: I've never seen her like that before.
Zero: No, sir.

M. Gustave: She was shaking like a shitting dog.
Zero: ...Truly.

M. Gustave: What is a lobby boy? A lobby boy is completely invisible, yet always in sight. A lobby boy remembers what people hate. A lobby boy anticipates the client's needs before the needs are needed. A lobby boy is, above all, discreet to a fault. Our guests know that their deepest secrets, some of which are frankly rather unseemly, will go with us to our graves. So keep your

mouth shut, Zero.

[first lines]
Author: It is an extremely common mistake. People think the writer's imagination is always at work, that he's constantly inventing an endless supply of incidents and episodes; that he simply dreams up his stories out of thin air. In point of fact, the opposite is true. Once the public knows you're a writer, they bring the characters and events to you. And as

long as you maintain your ability to look, and to carefully listen, these stories will continue to...
Author's Grandson: [shooting at him with a pellet gun]
Author: Stop it! Stop it! Don't! Don't do it!... Uh, will continue to seek you out, uh, over your lifetime. To him, who has often told the tales of others, many tales will be told.

Author's Grandson: Sorry.
Author: It's all right. The incidents that follow were described to me exactly as I present them here, and in a wholly unexpected way.

M. Gustave: [sees soldiers enter the hotel] The beginning of the end of the end of the beginning has begun. A sad finale played off-key on a broken-down saloon piano in the outskirts of a forgotten ghost town. I'd rather not bear witness to such blasphemy.
Zero: Me neither.
M. Gustave: The Grand Budapest has become a troops'

barracks. I shall never cross its threshold again in my lifetime.
Zero: Me neither.
M. Gustave: Never again shall I...
[Zero spots Agatha]
Zero: Actually I think we might be going in there right now after all!

Serge X.: Forgive me, Monsieur Gustave, I never meant to betray you. They threatened my life and now they've murdered my only family.
M. Gustave: No! Who'd they kill this time?
Serge X.: My dear sister.
M. Gustave: The girl with the club foot?
Serge X.: Yes.
M.

Gustave: Those fuckers!

Madame D.: Come with me.
M. Gustave: To... fucking Lutz?
Madame D.: Please!
M. Gustave: Give me your hand. You've nothing to fear. You're always anxious before you travel. I admit you appear to be suffering a more acute attack on this occasion, but truly and honestly... oh, dear God, what have you done to your

fingernails?
Madame D.: I beg your pardon?
M. Gustave: This diabolical varnish; the color is completely wrong!
Madame D.: Oh really? Don't you like it?
M. Gustave: It's not that I don't like it; I am physically repulsed.

[after having escaped from Checkpoint 19]
M. Gustave: How's our darling Agatha?
Zero: [Reciting] "'Twas first light, when I saw her face upon the heath, and hence did I return, day by day, entranced, though vinegar did brine my heart, never w..."
M. Gustave: Very good! I'm going to stop you there because the alarm has sounded,

but remember where we left off, because I insist you finish later!

M. Gustave: I'm not angry with Serge; you can't blame someone for their basic lack of moral fiber. He's a frightened little yellow-bellied coward. It's not his fault, is it?
Zero: I don't know, it depends.
M. Gustave: Well, you can say that about most anything, "it depends". Of course it depends.
Zero: Of

course it depends, of course it depends.
M. Gustave: Yes, I suppose you're right; of course it depends. However, that doesn't mean I'm not going to throttle the little swamp rat.

M. Gustave: Excuse me. Have you seen a pastry girl with a package under her arm in the last minute and a half?
Otto: Yep. She just got on the elevator with Mr. Desgoffe und Taxis.
M. Gustave: Thank you.
Zero: I'm sorry, who are you?
Otto: Otto, sir. The new lobby boy?

Zero: Well, you haven't been trained properly, Otto. A lobby boy never provides information of that kind. You're a stone wall. Understood?

M. Gustave: How does one come by front row aisle seats for a first night at the Opera Toscana with one day's notice? How does one arrange a private viewing of the tapestry collection at the Royal Saxon Gallery? How does one secure a corner table at Chez Dominique on a Thursday?
[to Ivan, on the telephone]
M. Gustave: Ivan, darling, it's Gustave,

hello!... Well, I was until about five minutes ago. We've taken it upon ourselves to clear out in a hurry, if you see what I mean... Well, through a sewer, as it happens... Exactly! Listen, Ivan, I'm sorry to cut you off, but we're in a bit of a bind. This is an official request. I'm formally calling on the special services of...
[Title card: THE SOCIETY OF THE CROSSED KEYS]

[Zero has just shown M. Gustave the newspaper article announcing Mme. Celine's death]
M. Gustave: Dear God!
Zero: I'm terribly sorry, sir.
M. Gustave: We must go to her.
Zero: We must?
M. Gustave: Tout de suite. She needs me, and I need you, to help me with my bags and so on.

[to a voice within his suite]
M. Gustave: Attendez-moi, darling.
[to Zero]
M. Gustave: How fast can you pack?
Zero: Five minutes.
M. Gustave: Do it. And bring a bottle of the Pouilly-Jouvet '26, in an ice bucket, with two glasses, so we don't have to drink the cat piss they serve on the dining

car.

Serge X.: There's more.
M. Gustave: Okay...
Serge X.: To the story.
M. Gustave: I get it, go on.
Serge X.: I was the official witness in Madame D's presence to the creation of a second will to be executed only in the event of her death by murder.
M. Gustave: A

second will?
Serge X.: Right.
M. Gustave: In case she got bumped off?
Serge X.: Right.
M. Gustave: Uh-huh...
Serge X.: But they destroyed it.
M. Gustave: Oh dear.
Serge X.: However...
M. Gustave: Uh-huh...

Serge X.: I pulled a copy.
M. Gustave: A second copy of the second will?
Serge X.: Right.
M. Gustave: Uh-huh...