Becoming Jane (2007)

James McAvoy: Tom Lefroy

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Quotes 

• Tom Lefroy : What value will there ever be in life, if we are not together?

• Tom Lefroy : I have no money, no property, I am entirely dependent upon that bizarre old lunatic, my uncle. I cannot yet offer marriage, but you must know what I feel. Jane, I'm yours. God, I'm yours. I'm yours, heart and soul. Much good that is.

  Jane Austen : Let me decide that.

  Tom Lefroy : What will we do?

  Jane Austen : What we must.

• Tom Lefroy : You dance with passion.

  Jane Austen : No sensible woman would demonstrate passion, if the purpose were to attract a husband.

  Tom Lefroy : As opposed to a lover?

• Tom Lefroy : How can you, of all people, dispose of yourself without affection?

  Jane Austen : How can I dispose of myself with it?

• Tom Lefroy : [reading from Mr. White's Natural History]  Swifts, on a fine morning in May, flying this way, that way, sailing around at a great hight, perfectly happily. Then -

  [checks he has her attention and nods to let her know this is what he meant] 

  Tom Lefroy : Then, one leaps onto the back of another, grasps tightly and forgetting to fly they both sink down and down, in a great dying fall, fathom after fathom, until the female utters...

  Jane Austen : [breaking out of trance]  Yes?

  Tom Lefroy : [looks at her for a moment, then continues reading]  The female utters a loud, piercing cry...

  [he looks up at her again] 

  Tom Lefroy : ... of ecstasy.

  [smiles tantalisingly] 

  Tom Lefroy : Is this conduct commonplace in the natural history of Hampshire?

• Tom Lefroy : Good God. There's writing on both sides of those pages.

• Tom Lefroy : I am yours. Heart and soul, I am yours. Much good that is.

  Jane Austen : I will decide that.

• Tom Lefroy : Miss Austen...

  Jane Austen : Yes?

  Tom Lefroy : Goodnight.

• Jane Austen : Could I really have this?

  Tom Lefroy : What, precisely?

  Jane Austen : You.

  Tom Lefroy : Me, how?

  Jane Austen : This life with you.

  Tom Lefroy : Yes.

• Tom Lefroy : If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

  Jane Austen : I see. And what qualifies you to offer this advice?

  Tom Lefroy : I know more of the world.

  Jane Austen : A great deal more, I gather.

  Tom Lefroy : Enough to know that your horizons must be... widened.

• Tom Lefroy : A metropolitan mind may be less susceptible to extended juvenile self-regard.

• Wine Whore : [comes to sit on Tom's lap]  Glass of wine?

  Tom Lefroy : Yes, thank you.

  [lifts the glass] 

  Tom Lefroy : A toast from one member of the profession to another.

• Tom Lefroy : I have been told there is much to see upon a walk, but all I've detected so far is a general tendency to green above and brown below.

  Jane Austen : Yes, well, others have detected more. It is celebrated. There's even a book about Selborne Wood.

  Tom Lefroy : Oh. A novel, perhaps?

  Jane Austen : Novels? Being poor, insipid things, read by mere women, even, God forbid, written by mere women?.

  Tom Lefroy : I see, we're talking of your reading.

  Jane Austen : As if the writing of women did not display the greatest powers of mind, knowledge of human nature, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour and the best-chosen language imaginable?

• Jane Austen : This, by the way, is called a country dance, after the French, contredanse. Not because it is exhibited at an uncouth rural assembly with glutinous pies, execrable Madeira, and truly anarchic dancing.

  Tom Lefroy : You judge the company severely, madam.

  Jane Austen : I was describing what you'd be thinking.

  Tom Lefroy : Allow me to think for myself.

  Jane Austen : Gives me leave to do the same, sir, and come to a different conclusion.

• Tom Lefroy : Vice leads to difficulty, virtue to reward. Bad characters come to bad ends.

  Jane Austen : Exactly. But in life, bad characters often thrive. Take yourself.

• Tom Lefroy : What rules of conduct apply in this rural situation? We have been introduced, have we not?

  Jane Austen : What value is there in an introduction when you cannot even remember my name? Indeed, can barely stay awake in my presence.

• Tom Lefroy : I think that you, Miss Austen, consider yourself a cut above the company.

  Jane Austen : Me?

  Tom Lefroy : You, ma'am. Secretly.

• Henry Austen : What do you make of Mr. Lefroy?

  Jane Austen : We're honoured by his presence.

  Eliza De Feuillide : You think?

  Jane Austen : He does, with his preening, prancing, Irish-cum-Bond-Street airs.

  Henry Austen : Jane.

  Jane Austen : Well, I call it very high indeed, refusing to dance when there are so few gentleman. Henry, are all your friends so disagreeable?

  Henry Austen : Jane.

  Jane Austen : Where exactly in Ireland does he come from, anyway?

  Tom Lefroy : [coming up behind Jane]  Limerick, Miss Austen.

• Jane Austen : [after Tom loses a boxing match]  Forgive me if I suspect in you a sense of justice.

  Tom Lefroy : I am a lawyer. Justice plays no part in the law.

  Jane Austen : Is that what you believe?

  Tom Lefroy : I believe it. I must.

• Tom Lefroy : I would regard it as a mark of extreme favour if you would stoop to honour me with this next dance.

• Jane Austen : I have read your book. I have read your book and disapprove.

  Tom Lefroy : Of course you do.

• Jane Austen : [she has just kissed him]  Did I do that well?

  Tom Lefroy : Very. Very well.

  Jane Austen : I wanted, just once, to do it well.

• Tom Lefroy : Miss? Miss? Miss...

  Jane Austen : Austen.

  Tom Lefroy : Mr. Lefroy.

  Jane Austen : Yes, I know, but I am alone.

  Tom Lefroy : Except for me.

  Jane Austen : Exactly.

• Tom Lefroy : [to Jane]  Do you love me?

• Tom Lefroy : Was I deficient in rapture?

  Jane Austen : In consciousness!

• Tom Lefroy : If there is a shred of truth or justice inside of you, you cannot marry him.

  Jane Austen : Oh no, Mr. Lefroy. Justice, by your own admission, you know little of, truth even less.

  Tom Lefroy : Jane, I have tried. I have tried and I cannot live this lie. Can you?

  Tom Lefroy : [turns Jane's head towards himself]  Jane, can you?

• Jane Austen : [at Laverton Fair]  Trouble here enough.

  Tom Lefroy : And freedom, the freedom of men. Do not you envy it?

  Jane Austen : But I have the intense pleasure of observing it so closely.

• Tom Lefroy : If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be considered the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

• Tom Lefroy : Was I deficient in propriety?

  Jane Austen : Why did you do that?

  Tom Lefroy : Couldn't waste all those expensive boxing lessons.

• Tom Lefroy : Was I deficient in rapture?

  Jane Austen : Inconsciousness!

  Tom Lefroy : It was... It was accomplished.

  Jane Austen : It was ironic.

• Tom Lefroy : [after reading an excerpt about swifts]  Your ignorance is understandable since you lack... What shall we call it? The history?

  Jane Austen : Propriety commands me to ignorance.

  Tom Lefroy : Condemns you to it and your writing to the status of female accomplishment. If you wish to practice the art of fiction, to be the equal of a masculine author, experience is vital.

• Tom Lefroy : I... I depend entirely upon...

  Jane Austen : Upon your Uncle. And I depend on you. So what will you do?

  Tom Lefroy : What I must. I have a duty to my family, Jane. I must think of them as well as...

  Jane Austen : Tom... Is that... Is that all you have to say to me?

  Jane Austen : Goodbye, Mr. Lefroy.

• Tom Lefroy : I depend entirely upon...

  Jane Austen : Upon your uncle. And I depend on you. What will you do?

  Tom Lefroy : What I must.

• Judge Langlois : Wild companions, gambling, running around St James's like a neck-or-nothing young blood of the fancy. What kind of lawyer will that make?

  Tom Lefroy : Typical.

• Tom Lefroy : Good morning, sir.

  Judge Langlois : Good morning? Has the world turned topsy?

• Judge Langlois : Welcome...

  Tom Lefroy : [walks in a circle and discreetly reminds his uncle]  Madame le Comtesse.

  Judge Langlois : Madame le Comtesse. Seldom, too seldom, my house receives the presence of nobility. And, of course, its friends. Please.

• Jane Austen : Tell me about your lady, Mr. Lefroy. From where does she come?

  Tom Lefroy : She's from County Wexford.

  Jane Austen : Your own country. Excellent. What was it that won her?. Your manner, smiles and pleasing address?

• Jane Austen : How many brothers and sisters do you have in Limerick, Tom?

  Tom Lefroy : Enough. Why?

  Jane Austen : What are the names of your brothers and sisters?

  Tom Lefroy : They...

  Jane Austen : On whom do they depend?

• Tom Lefroy : Jane, an old friend. Late as ever.

• Tom Lefroy : Hampshire, your home county.

  Jane Austen : It was.

• Lucy Lefroy : Laverton Fair. Vastly entertaining. Monstrous good idea, Jane.

  Tom Lefroy : Yes, Miss Austen, not exactly your usual society, I'd say.

  Jane Austen : Show a little imagination, Mr. Lefroy.

• Tom Lefroy : ...your horizons must be... widened, by an extraordinary young man.

  Jane Austen : By a very dangerous young man, one who has, no doubt, infected the hearts of many a young... young woman with the soft corrup...

  Tom Lefroy : Read this

  [hands Jane a book] 

  Jane Austen : -tion...

  Tom Lefroy : and you will understand.

• Judge Langlois : [Tom just joked about lawyers]  Humour? Well, you're going to need that because I'm teaching you a lesson. I'm sending you to stay with your other relations, the Lefroys.

  Tom Lefroy : Uncle, they live in the country.

  Judge Langlois : Deep in the country.

  [chuckles]