Blithe Spirit (1945)

Joyce Carey: Violet Bradman

Photos 

Quotes 

• Violet Bradman : Can you foretell the future?

  Madame Arcati : Certainly not. I disapprove of fortune-tellers most strongly.

  Violet Bradman : Oh, really - why?

  Madame Arcati : Too much guesswork and fake mixed up with it - even when the gift is genuine - and it only very occasionally is - you can't count on it.

  Ruth Condomine : Why not?

  Madame Arcati : Time again. Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked.

  Ruth Condomine : You mean because it has never yet been proved that the past and the present and the future are not one and the same thing?

  Madame Arcati : I long ago came to the conclusion that nothing has ever been definitely proved about anything.

• Violet Bradman : I must say I find bicycling very exhausting.

  Madame Arcati : Steady rhythm - that's what does it. Once you get the knack of it you needn't ever look back...

  Violet Bradman : But, the hills, Madame Arcati! Pushing up those awful hills.

  Madame Arcati : Just knack... Down with your head, up with your heart, and you're over the top like a flash and skimming down the other side like a dragonfly.

• Violet Bradman : Its funny, isn't it, I mean to think of people doing it as a profession?

  Dr. George Bradman : I believe it's very lucrative.