Antonius Block: We must make an idol of our fear, and call it god.
Antonius Block: Is it so terribly inconceivable to comprehend God with one's senses? Why does he hide in a cloud of half-promises and unseen miracles? How can we believe in the faithful when we lack faith? What will happen to us who want to believe, but can not? What about those who neither want to nor can believe? Why can't I kill God in me? Why does He live on in me in a
humiliating way - despite my wanting to evict Him from my heart? Why is He, despite all, a mocking reality I can't be rid of?
Antonius Block: I want knowledge! Not faith, not assumptions, but knowledge. I want God to stretch out His hand, uncover His face and speak to me.
Death: But He remains silent.
Antonius Block: I call out to Him in the darkness. But it's as if no one was there.
Death: Perhaps there isn't anyone.
Antonius Block: Then life is a preposterous horror. No man can live faced with Death, knowing everything's nothingness.
Death: Most people think neither of death nor nothingness.
Antonius Block: But one day you stand at the edge of life and face darkness.
Death: That day.
Antonius
Block: I understand what you mean.
Antonius Block: I shall remember this moment: the silence, the twilight, the bowl of strawberries, the bowl of milk. Your faces in the evening light. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lyre. I shall try to remember our talk. I shall carry this memory carefully in my hands as if it were a bowl brimful of fresh milk. It will be a sign to me, and a great sufficiency.
[Antonius Block lets Death choose which chess pieces to play]
Antonius Block: You drew black.
Death: Appropriate, don't you think?
Jöns: Love is as contagious as a cold. It eats away at your strength, morale... If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.
Blacksmith Plog: You're happy, you with your oily words. You believe your own twaddle.
Jöns: Believe it? Who said? But I love to give pieces of advice.
[the church painter explains why he is painting a mural about death]
Church Painter: Why should one always make people happy? It might be a good idea to scare them once in a while.
Jöns: Then they'll close their eyes and refuse to look.
Church Painter: They'll look. A skull is more interesting than a naked woman.
Jöns: If you do scare them...
Church Painter: Then they think.
Jöns: And then?
Church Painter: They'll become more scared.
Death: Don't you ever stop asking?
Antonius Block: No. I never stop.
Death: But you're not getting an answer.
[Death approaches Antonius Block]
Antonius Block: Wait a moment.
Death: You all say that. But I grant no reprieves.
Antonius Block: They say you have consorted with the devil?
Witch: Why do you ask that?
Antonius Block: It's not out of curiosity, but because of utterly personal reasons. I would also like to meet him.
Witch: Why?
Antonius Block: I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if
anyone.
Death: Ingenting undgår mig. Ingen undgår mig.
[Jonas Skat is in a tree which Death is cutting down]
Jonas Skat: Hey, you scurvy knave, what are you doing with my tree? You might at least answer. Who are you?
Death: I'm felling your tree. Your time is up.
Jonas Skat: You can't. I haven't time.
Death: So you haven't time?
Jonas
Skat: No. My performance...
Death: Cancelled... because of Death.