The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

Meryl Streep: Francesca Johnson

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Quotes 

• Francesca : You don't understand. Don't you see? Nobody understands when a woman makes a choice to marry and have children, in one way, her life begins, but in another way, it stops. You build a life of details and you just stop and stay steady so that your children can move and when they leave, they take your life of details with them. You're expected to move on again, but you don't even remember what it was that moved you because nobody's asked you in so long, not even yourself.

  [takes deep breath] 

  Francesca : But you never think... you never think love like this is going to happen to you.

  Robert Kincaid : But now that you have it...

  Francesca : Ah! Now what I want to keep it forever. I want to love you the way I do now for the rest of my life, but... if we leave, we lose it. And I can't make an entire life disappear to start a new one. All I can do is try to hold on to both of us somewhere inside of me. You have to help me.

  [She walks upto Robert and hugs him] 

• Francesca : I had thoughts about him I hardly knew what to do with, and he read every one. Whatever I felt, whatever I wanted, he gave himself up to, and in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.

• Francesca : I realized love won't obey our expectations, it's mystery is pure and absolute.

• Francesa : I was just going to have some iced tea and split the atom, but that can wait.

• Francesca : We are the choices that we have made, Robert.

• Robert : If you want me to stop, tell me now.

  Francesca : No one's asking you to.

• Francesca : But love won't obey our expectations. Its mystery is pure and absolute. What Robert and I had, could not continue if we were together. What Richard and I shared would vanish if we were apart. But how I wanted to share this. How would our lives have changed if I had? Could anyone else have seen the beauty of it?

• Francesa : I gave my life to my family, I wish to give Robert what is left of me.

• Francesca : They came home. And with them, my life of details.

• Francesca : So, do you want more eggs or should we just fuck on the linoleum one last time?

• Francesca : What were you like when you were younger?

  Robert Kincaid : Trouble.

• Francesca : But how can you live for just what you want?

• Robert Kincaid : You can kinda get lost when you're on the road a lot.

  Francesca : Hmm, so what happened?

  Robert Kincaid : I never got lost. I was more at home everywhere than just in one place. Kinda like a citizen of the world.

• Francesca : *It isn't human not to be lonely and it isn't human not to be afraid.*

• Francesca : I can't act like this is enough because it has to be. And I can't pretend not to feel what I feel because it's over tomorrow.