You may keep one of your children.
You are a Polack, not a Yid. That gives you a privilege, a choice.
This was not judgement day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.
Stingo, you look... you look very nice, you're wearing your ****.
Stingo
That's my "seersucker."
Stingo
Don't you see? We are dying. I longed desperately to escape, to pack my bags and free, but I did not.
Stingo
Leslie Lapidus could say ****, but she could not do it.
My mother, she's very sick, you know. And I can't do anything. But I think — if only I could have got — that meat for my mother it would make her strong. So I go to the country and er... the peasants were selling ham and I buy it with the black market money and I bring it back. But it's forbidden, you know, because all the meat goes to the Germans. So I sat on the train and I hid it under my skirt, I am pretending that I am pregnant, you know? Oh I was so afraid. I was shaking. And then the German, was in front of the train and he saw me. So he come over and take under my skirt that ham and... So they sent me Auschwitz.
Stingo
You were sent to Auschwitz because you stole a ham?
No, I was sent to Auschwitz because they saw that I was afraid.
Stingo
This was not judgement day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.
Quotes about Sophie's Choice[edit]
Stingo
I bet your father is a - very interesting man.
Yeah, my father was - a civilized man. That's a word, yeah? "Civilized"?
Nathan Landau
A very good word.
Yeah? My father was a civilized man living in a uncivilized time. The civilized, they was the first to die.
Stingo
You tried to commit suicide in Auschwitz?
No, it was after that. After that, I was in, um... After liberation.
Stingo
After you were safe?
Yes, safe, yeah. I was safe, I was in Sweden. I was in that, uh, refugee camp. I mean, that was good. They try to help you, you know? They try to... they try... but... I knew that... Christ had turned his face away from me... and that only a Jesus who no longer cared for me could... kill those people that I love, but... leave me alive... with my shame? Oh, God. So I went to that church... and I took the glass. I knelt down and I... cut my wrist. But I didn't die, of course! Of course not. Stingo... there's so many things you don't understand. There's so many things that I can't... that I cannot... tell you.
Stingo
Sophie, I want to understand. I'd like to know the truth.
The truth does not make it easier to understand, you know. I mean, you think that you find out the truth about me, and then you'll understand me. And then you would forgive me for all those... for all my lies.
Stingo
I promise, I'll never leave you.
You must never promise that. No one, no one should ever promise that. Ah, the truth, ah, the truth, I don't even know what is the truth - after all these lies I have told.
Stingo
Well, I love you very much, Sophie. And I want to marry you. I want you to live down there on that farm with me. When I write my books there, I want you to help me and I want you to help me raise a family because I love you very, very much. Is it too much to hope that you might love me, too?
Listen, Stingo, I'm beyond 30 years now, you know. What are you going to do with an old Polish lady like me?
Stingo
Manage. I'll Manage. "Old woman". Don't talk that way. You're always going to be my number one.
