- Tsar Nicholas II: Taking someone's life, no man should have that power.
- Yurovsky: You had it.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Yes. And I have learned that a strong man needs no power, and a weak man is destroyed by it. He's like a child. You don't shoot children, do you? In your new world, are there penalties for innocence?
- Yurovsky: Sometimes. It takes a wise judge to know who is innocent and who is guilty. I wish I knew.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Mama's off to England in a month or so. She says the spring was late this year but very beautiful. Lord, but it's good to be alive! The world is like a field in summer, bursting with good things. One day, when all the wars are over, someone young will lead us to the harvest. As long as there are children, anything is possible.
- Tsarevich Alexei: Why did you abdicate for me? Why? You didn't even ask.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I didn't want you to pay for my mistakes.
- Tsarevich Alexei: Am I not paying for them now? Aren't all of us? I should have had a chance. The right to live my own life, make my own decisions. I could have tried to help Russia, help Mother and my sisters, and perhaps even you. I could have been a Romanov. A czar.
- Tsar Nicholas II: It all went wrong. I hardly know why or how.
- Tsarevich Alexei: Instead, I just bleed. It's my fate. I bleed.
- Tsar Nicholas II: What are our chances?
- Yakovlev: Of what?
- Tsar Nicholas II: Of living til Christmas?
- Yakovlev: I haven't thought about it.
- Tsar Nicholas II: You puzzle me. You'd be happy to see us dead, and yet you help us get away.
- Yakovlev: I haven't your taste for murder, Bloody Nicholas. I've never had a chance to get used to it. How many men have you killed? Have you the least idea? God knows how many peasants died. Nobody counted children. You only know the number of soldiers because somebody counted them for you. Seven million. Six quarts a man times seven million. It's an ocean. Have you ever seen a battle? I'm wrong. You're not Bloody Nicholas. You're a man of no imagination.
- Count Witte: None of you will be here when this war ends. Everything we've fought for will be lost. Everything they've loved will be broken. The victors will be as cursed as the defeated. The world will grow old, and men will wander about lost in the ruins and go mad. Tradition, virtue, restraint, they'll all go. I'm not mourning for myself but for the people who will come after me. They will live without hope. And all they will have will be guilt, revenge, and terror. And the world will be full of fanatics and trivial fools.
- The German Consul: We are here in Zürich and, if I understand you, you want the German government, which is at war with Russia, to take you across Germany to Sweden because you can get to Russia from there.
- Vladimir Lenin: I'm offering to stop the war.
- The German Consul: I didn't know you had so much authority.
- Vladimir Lenin: If there was a Bolshevik government in Russia, we'd immediately make peace with Germany. Then how many German divisions could you transfer to the Western Front?
- The German Consul: And now you're asking me for classified information. Do you know my government has locked up more Bolsheviks than anyone else? How can you expect us to help you make a revolution? You have no sense of proportion.
- Vladimir Lenin: All I'm interested in is power in Russia, and it's lying there in the streets waiting to be picked up. Kerensky won't last. He's still fighting the war, and the people are desperate for peace. I shall offer them peace. Then you'll see the real revolution.
- The German Consul: I see your jokes are very subtle. A Marxist wants to use the Kaiser, and perhaps the Kaiser can use the Marxist.
- Queen Mother Maria Fedorova: I wish your father were alive.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Don't throw him at me!
- Queen Mother Maria Fedorova: He knew how to be a czar. He'd have burned Vienna down, stomped on the Germans, and shot the strikers. Anything to give Russia peace. And he'd certainly have known how to deal with Rasputin.
- The Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna: [while confined in Yekaterinburg, a guard opens the door and peeks inside the room] Go away! What do you want? Do you want to see me?
- [she opens her robe and exposes herself to him]
- The Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna: Is that what you want?
- [he looks her over then leaves]
- The Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna: I'm twenty one, and I'm pretty! Everyone says I'm pretty! And that's the only man who's ever seen me.
- The Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna: [she embraces her sister] I know, I know. It's alright, my dear. He's gone, he's gone.
- The Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna: You know what's funny? I wanted to ask him in. Just once... I wanted somebody.
- Rasputin: I see blood when I shut my eyes. A lot of blood. I saw blood once before, when I was in Jerusalem. And then my father died. In Kazan, there is an ivory Christ whose wounds bleed. Someone told me there's a Madonna in Kharkov that sheds real tears. Matushka, I see things. I have power. I cure the sick. Holy men kneel to me and kiss my hands. I am a vessel of the Lord. I have spoken with God. It must be so. How else can I do these things? I save souls and bring peace. God leads me. He brought me here. He speaks through me. I am the voice of God. It is His will. I have been sent to do great things.
- Rasputin: I started late to be a starets. I was twenty when this vision came. We peasants get them all the time. The Virgin comes and tells them when to sell their sheep if they want to make a profit. She told me to become a pilgrim, so I started to walk. I waited for Her to tell me when to stop, but she didn't. I walked two thousand miles, and when I got to Greece, I couldn't walk any further, so I stopped. I spent two years in a monastery, and then I walked home again. Sometimes, people say to me, "What do I need to become a starets?" And I say, "Good feet."
- Father Gapon: [after the events of Bloody Sunday] He didn't come. He never came. Nicholas, the murderer. The bloody, bloody murderer.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I want a good life for my people.
- Count Witte: On your terms.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a czar. They need tradition, not this. They're the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented. And don't tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they're in.
- Count Witte: I see. So, they talk, pray, march, plead, petition, and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police spies! And now, after today, they will be shot! Is this God's will? Are these His methods? So, make war on your own people. How long do you think they're going to stand and let you shoot them? You ask me who's responsible! You ask!
- [as a wagon of peasant girls rides by]
- Nun: Good day, and the Lord be with you.
- [Rasputin rises naked out of the wagon with a bottle of vodka]
- Rasputin: And the Lord be with you! Ha ha!
- Nikolasha: Here is some wonderful news. A telegram from the Kaiser. Just what we wanted. Offering to mediate between us and Austria.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I knew I could count on Willy. You see? He signed it, "Your very sincere and devoted friend and cousin, Willy."
- Count Witte: With due respect to your cousin, sire, the Kaiser is a deceitful megalomaniac. If he is offering to help, then it is time to pray.
- Tsarevich Alexei: I've never known a heart without some murder in it. I made these men. They are our Russians. I am responsible for what they are. I let them starve. I put them in prisons, and I shot them. If there's hatred in them now, I put it there. But they are filled with love. And with mercy, too. We must remember that.
- Tsar Nicholas II: They are all murderers. I'd like to kill them all.
- Tsarevich Alexei: Alexei, Alexei, mustn't run and mustn't play, mustn't jump and mustn't climb, must be careful all the time.
- Trotsky: I'll never understand you. You hate anyone who's not your kind of Bolshevik more than you hate the czar.
- Martov: No wonder they call you Robespierre. Everybody's got to think like you, or they're out.
- Trotsky: He thinks freedom is something you write on a wall. You don't actually practice it.
- Vladimir Lenin: That's not true. Of course, I agree you're free to say what you like, and you must agree I'm free to shoot you for saying it. Murder, arson, terror. I'll agree to anything that gives us power. Power! And we can't have power if we compromise. Even though it takes years, terror and power.
- Tsarina Alexandra: May I say something intimate?
- Tsar Nicholas II: In public?
- Tsarina Alexandra: I'll whisper it.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Well, if you must.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Nicky, I adore you.
- [imprisoned in Ekaterinburg]
- Tsar Nicholas II: I suddenly thought of the yacht this morning. Do you remember how the band used to play all the time?
- Tsarina Alexandra: And out of tune. Do you think they drank?
- Tsar Nicholas II: How did that waltz go? Hmm-Hmm-Hmmmm Hmm-*Hmm*-Hmm-Humm.
- Tsarina Alexandra: You're no better than the band.
- Tsar Nicholas II: [Nicholas gets off the bed and places a chair against the door and returns] You're beautiful hands.
- Tsarina Alexandra: The girls?
- Tsar Nicholas II: They won't come in. We're alone.
- [he lies down with her]
- Tsar Nicholas II: I still want you so much. Nothing can ever change that, Sunny. I do love you.
- [kiss]
- The American Ambassador: In your position, I'd put this Lenin quietly in jail.
- Alexander Kerensky: On what pretext?
- The American Ambassador: I've read his speeches. Surely you have, too.
- Alexander Kerensky: I cannot put a man in jail for what he thinks. It's in your Bill of Rights.
- The American Ambassador: He wants to overthrow the government by force. We Americans call that treason.
- Alexander Kerensky: In Russia, it's always been too easy to lock a man up because he disagrees with you. It's a bad habit. If the people want Lenin, they can vote him into power in December.
- Prince Yusupov: We're going to be torn to pieces. You politicians think you're in control, but you'll be swept away like the rest of us. Rome, Athens, Petersburg, you can't stop it.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Tell me, Dr. Federov, if my son, as the future czar, would remain behind to be educated in Russia while I and my family went abroad, how long would he be likely to live?
- Dr. Fedorov: Deprived of your love and care and what I refer to as "customary surroundings," it's hard to say. It's a matter of luck and chance, Your Majesty. There are no real statistics. One would hope that he could live a normal span of life, but, well, twenty would be a good age.
- Tsarina Alexandra: You're too gentle. You should slam your fist down, as your father always did.
- Tsar Nicholas II: It's no use.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Frowning helps.
- Tsarina Alexandra: You enjoy yourself at parties. I get headaches. If you sat there knowing everyone disliked you, feeling like a foreigner...
- Tsar Nicholas II: No one dislikes you.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Yes, they do. You never see unpleasant things, you drift away. I even wonder if you hear me half the time.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Just now, I find you all too audible.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Nicky, guess what?
- Tsar Nicholas II: You've got your headache.
- Father Gapon: The czar is here in Petersburg to bless the troops. He's staying at the Winter Palace. Thousands of us will march there on Sunday morning. I'll go to him on the balcony and read this.
- [holds up a paper]
- Father Gapon: "Sire, we working men and inhabitants of St. Petersburg come to you, Sire, to seek for truth, justice and protection. Only you can hear our prayers. And if you do not, we shall die here on this square before your palace."
- Tsarina Alexandra: To marry Nicky, I had to change my faith. That was a great sin, don't you think? God thinks so. He won't hear me when I pray. I've sinned, and He won't listen.
- Rasputin: All saints were sinners once. God loves sinners.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Then why is He killing my baby?
- Rasputin: We had a man in Pokrovskoe. He didn't wash or work. He lied, stole, cheated, drank, chased all the women. He was a sinner. Why, out of all men, did the Virgin come to him?
- Tsarina Alexandra: Perhaps he lied. You said he was a liar.
- Rasputin: No. She came. I saw her. I know all there is to know about sin. Pray with me, Matushka. God is here.
- [after Nagorny saves Alexei from falling off a rock he was climbing]
- Tsarevich Alexei: It's all right, Nagorny. You'll always save me.
- Tsarina Alexandra: I still say Alexei needs a nurse.
- Tsar Nicholas II: He needs the company of men.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Does he?
- Tsar Nicholas II: He's with you all day long. You hardly ever come to meals. I never seem to see you anymore.
- Tsarina Alexandra: My place is where I'm needed most.
- Tsar Nicholas II: It must be hard to have so many people need you. I'll be patient. If I wait, my turn will come.
- Tsarina Alexandra: Oh, Nicky. What a mess I make of things. I meant to look so nice for you. I meant our last night in Livadia to be beautiful. Sometimes I wonder how you live with me.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I wonder too. Only I know I could never live without you, Sunny.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I didn't want to come on this tercentenary tour, Pyotr Arkadyevich. But, God help me, I do love it when they stand and wave.
- Tsar Nicholas II: He's a good man. They always kill the good men, the ones who help the most. They killed my grandfather. He freed the serfs, you know. He helped them, so they threw a bomb. Stolypin is a good man. I can't find a match.
- Vice Premier Kokovstov: They've got the man who shot him.
- Tsar Nicholas II: The man?
- Vice Premier Kokovstov: Some kind of revolutionary.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Damn them all. You help them, and they kill you for it. Give them dumas, and they give you bombs. I want them paid in kind. You understand me? I want something done.
- Count Witte: I'm old, sir. I've seen so many wars. They all seemed so important at the time. Now, I don't even remember what they were called. Millions of dead men. I don't know why. Nobody knows.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Gentlemen, Germany has declared war on Russia. God save Russia!
- Nikolasha: God save the Tsar.
- Tsar Nicholas II: All my life, my whole life, I've done what you want. I gave Mother up. You hated her, so we don't see her anymore. I gave my friends up. Do you know I haven't a single friend? I've got my family. Four girls, one sick boy, and you. I ask before I eat, sleep, or change my clothes, "Is this what Sunny wants?" And it never is. There's always more. Sweet Jesus, how much do you want of me?
- [seeing a young girl]
- Rasputin: So, you'd like to be an opera singer? Yes, you have the chest for it.
- Rasputin: I don't hate anyone. And yet, so many enemies. I'm not rich, what I get, I give away, I take no vengeance on the men I remove from office. When you fall, I won't abuse you.
- Rasputin: I've been poisoned. You tried to kill me. You all have. You silly fools. I thought I could trust you. Silly fools. You can't even kill properly. You're too small to destroy me. Look!
- Prince Yusupov: Cyanide!
- Rasputin: Now get up, prince. Get up! Try. Let's see you try to kill me.
- Grand Duke Dmitry: It's cyanide!
- Rasputin: I begged Batushka not to start this war. I know who dies. You don't die. The people die. The wise old men, the generals, the ministers, the ones who say, "Do this. Go there." No mud on their boots. No bullets in their bellies. Where's your rifle, Prince? Why aren't you at the front where the blood is? I'm not a German. I come from the Russian soil, and you fools will never destroy me. Thank God Russia has sons like me and isn't at the mercy of scum like you.
- General Alexeiev: The duma has appointed a provisional government, and all your ministers have been arrested.
- Tsar Nicholas II: Order your troops to march on Petersburg...
- General Alexeiev: At this moment, Your Majesty, if my troops knew the czar was here, there's every chance they would turn on you.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I've often thought I should like to be a country gentleman. I've always liked to watch things grow.
- Yurovsky: I kept their mail. I didn't know whether they ought to have it. Shall I give it to them now? Would it be cruel or kind? I don't know how to judge these things. I don't think anyone knows.
- Alexander Kerensky: Do you realize I'm all that stands between you and the block? No munitions. No supplies. I don't know where the army stands. The treasury is bankrupt. The students riot. Workers carry arms. The Socialists want this, the Mensheviks want that. The Radicals, the Centrists, the Kadets, the Bolsheviks. I can't arrest them even if I wanted to. We have rights and laws now. You had power and no laws. I have laws and no power.
- Tsar Nicholas II: I wish I could help you.
- Alexander Kerensky: You had your chances. I wish I had mine.
- Alexander Kerensky: The Bolsheviks have taken over the station, the telegraphs, the banks. How strong are they? If we had loyal troops, how many would it take to dislodge them?
- General Alexeiev: One regiment would be enough. But I haven't got a regiment. At least, not one I can trust.
- Tsarina Alexandra: At times, I actually like it. Mending clothes and teaching classes and quiet afternoons. I doze and daydream, and I think about my life. I don't know what I did wrong. I'd feel better if I did.
- Tsarina Alexandra: This is the beginning of the glory of your reign. Our friend told me so. It will be the greatest page in Russian history, the story of these weeks and days. And when you go, don't worry over what you've left behind. I'm here. Lean on me, use me. I'm not wise or strong, but God will show me what to do.
- Vladimir Lenin: In the last ten years, I've spent three months in Russia. I'm out of fashion. No one's wearing me this year. I talk, and no one listens. I write, and no one reads. Think what we'll be like in ten or fifteen years. Emigres go off their heads in the end, you know.
- Mme. Krupskaya: No.
- Vladimir Lenin: Mad old cranks with no money, no country, always worrying about the laundry, complaining when the mail's late, being ill in charity hospitals and buried with paupers.
- Mme. Krupskaya: No, Ilyich. It won't be like that.
- Vladimir Lenin: Three hundred years of Romanovs? Why not three hundred more?
- Vladimir Lenin: [to a journalist attending a Communist Party congress in London] Pay attention. You're about to see the birth of the Bolshevik Party.
- English journalist: Excuse me, Mr. Lenin. I'm from the Socialist Worker. Could you tell me what you think of the socialist movement in England?
- Mme. Krupskaya: The English cut their meat wrong, their tea is terrible, and the weather was better in Siberia. At least you keep your policemen under control.
- Tsar Nicholas II: The boy will bring us luck. We'll smash the Japanese and drive them from Korea, and I don't care what it costs. I have a son to fight for now.
- Tsarina Alexandra: We have a son.