55 Days at Peking (1963)

Elizabeth Sellars: Lady Sarah Robertson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Lady Sarah Robertson : [Unannounced, entering her husband's study]  I'm sorry, Arthur. Are you busy?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Of course I am. I *always* am.

  Lady Sarah Robertson : Busier than usual? Or just busy?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Both.

• Sir Arthur Robertson : Well, what's the pressing female problem?

  Lady Sarah Robertson : Just this: am I to pack or am I not to pack? Are going to England? Do we take our leave this year or not?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : I don't know.

  Lady Sarah Robertson : You don't know?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : So, why don't you just pack and then if we don't go, all you'll have to do is to unpack.

  Lady Sarah Robertson : If the men had to do the packing and unpacking, the world would be a very different place.

• Lady Sarah Robertson : Do you remember what Napoleon said about China?

  Sir Arthur Robertson : I never forget it: "Let China sleep. For when she awakens, the world will tremble."

  Lady Sarah Robertson : He did say an awful lot, didn't he?

• Lady Sarah Robertson : Do you think that if a child dies in a foreign place without ever having seen home that its soul doesn't rest? I think it goes into limbo - an enormous, empty Chinese limbo. And it wanders there, lost and crying...

• Lady Sarah Robertson : No! No, you can't have them.

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Sarah, we agreed. We need the books for the barricades. I thought you'd be the first to understand.

  Sir Arthur Robertson : Not the complete set of the Napoleonic Wars! Mother just sent them to you for your birthday.

  Sir Arthur Robertson : I have a confession to make. French history bores me.

• Lady Sarah Robertson : Why? Why? How did he sin? Against whom? What's he doing in this foreign place? Who's ambition is he serving? Does a child die to serve the ends of ambitions of powerful men? Who will gain from his death? Who will be happier for it? How many children must die? How many people must suffer before there's an end to all this? Don't you see that even the life of one child is too great a price to pay? It's too great a price to pay!