- Narrator: Querelle's inner harmony was indestructible; because, it was sealed in that heaven of heavens - where beauty unites with beauty.
- Lieutenant Seblon: We have Jesus to thank that we are able to glorify humility, for He made it the sign of the divine. The godhead in our innermost depths. For why should we renounce the violence of this world? If this Godhead is to confront violence, then it must be strong if it is to achieve the victory. And humility can only be born of humiliation. Otherwise it is nothing but vanity.
- [first lines]
- Lieutenant Seblon: The thought of murder often evokes thoughts of the sea and of sailors. What naturally follows thoughts of the sea and murder is the thought of love or sexuality.
- Lysiane: [singing] Each man kills the thing he loves! Each man kills the thing he loves! Da-da-daaa. Da-da da-daaa. Each man kills the thing he loves! Each man kills the thing he loves! Da-da-daaa. Da-da da-daaa...
- Lieutenant Seblon: Querelle's great passion is his own body in repose. It is as if he's reflecting himself in his own image. He's looking at himself as if through a magnifying glass. He's scrutinizing the minute events like an etymologist. But how shining is his body in the glory of his proud movements?
- Gil: I really want to make it with your sister. Can you imagine how I'd fuck her if I held her like I'm holding you now?
- Sailor #1: Finally, land.
- Sailor #2: And broads. Juicy cunts. Hot and wet.
- Lieutenant Seblon: Once I have suffered the solitude caused by my peculiarity long enough. It may be that naked I will hold these boys, who shatter me with their audacity and strength, against my body. Though I hardly dare believe it. With tears in my eyes, I thank God for granting me this bliss. My tears soften me. I melt with their wetness on my cheeks. I toss. I roll in waves of tenderness for these boys and their hard, shallow cheeks.
- Lieutenant Seblon: From the time I fell in love with Querelle, I've become less of a disciplinarian. My love makes me softer. The more I love Querelle, the more gentle and definite, the sadder the woman in myself becomes; because, she cannot achieve fulfillment. During one of these strange revelations, defining my relationship with Querelle, I think amidst all these sorrows and inner defeats: "What's the point?"
- Narrator: Between such men, and for them alone, a universe is established from which the idea of woman is banished. The absence of woman forces the two males to draw a little femininity from within each other to invent the woman.
- Gil: Paulette, you sweet little piglet with that adorable pussy. You're going to get another taste of my rod! I'm a man. I even fuck guys! And I fuck you too, Theo!
- Robert: Finally, I know why you won't let the other girls wear black lingerie.
- Lysiane: Huh? Why?
- Robert: Because, you alone are ennobled by this black. It makes you so beautiful - gives you a solemn air - and at the same time you are unbearably hot.
- Lysiane: Do I make you hot?
- Robert: Want to see?
- Lysiane: Okay, get started.
- Lysiane: I'm sick of your obscenities. Right? Your obscenities. Don't you think I know? I'm sick of it.
- Narrator: When Madame Lysiane found herself before Querelle, her gaze went to his fly in spite of herself. Perhaps this evening the cloth would be less stiff, would clearly outline his cock and balls, allowing Madame Lysiane to note a difference between the two brothers. She still hoped that the sailor's cock would be smaller than Robert's.
- Mario: Lysiane waited a long time for love. Men never did get her all that excited. It wasn't until she was around 40 that she developed an appetite for men with hard muscles.
- Mario: She loves your brother. Robert is her man. The first real one, I think. But when they make love, they make it like gays and Lysiane despises gays.
- Robert: Nono sees in his game with Querelle an energetic, somewhat boastful manifestation of a horniness, which he believes to have discovered in Querelle. There's nothing more to it than there would be to an orgy in a monastery: a bit of pleasant fun.
- Nono: I know I'm risking nothing... because absolutely no emotion clouds the purity of my game. No passion. It's a game without weight.
- Lysiane: You're disgusting! You're my enemy! You've destroyed me. You have mysterious powers. They multiply infinitely. You're not a human being. You don't belong to this earth!
- Querelle: You're a pal. All the others are assholes, but you're a pal. Whatever you want from me, it's yours.
- Querelle: I'm on the brink of a shame from which no man ever rises. But only in that shame will I find my everlasting peace. I am so weak. I've been conquered. Totally conquered. And my thoughts are sad. I have feelings of autumn, soilings, fine mortal wounds in me.
- Lysiane: [as they dance] A penny for your thoughts, Querelle.
- Querelle: I acknowledge the existence of authority in Mario. I note his objective gestures. Objectivity is the companion of total power. It holds sway over unchallengeable moral authority. It's a perfect social organization.
- [He stops dancing and walks away]
- Lysiane: [singing] Each man kills the thing he loves, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss...
- Sailor #2: Have you been in Brest before?
- Sailor #1: Why?
- Sailor #2: Because they got the raunchiest whore house in the world.
- Sailor #3: They say every trick has to throw dice with the boss - if he wants to catch a hooker.
- Sailor #4: Nono. That's the name of The Feria boss. Nono.
- Sailor #1: That's right. Nono.
- Sailor #2: Why do they have to throw dice?
- Sailor #1: That's the rule. When you win, you get to have your pick. When you lose, you have to to let the boss fuck you first.
- Sailor #2: Really?
- Sailor #3: Really - and I'm damn sure there's plenty of guys who kind of like losing.
- Lieutenant Seblon: Perhaps love is a den of killers, and if this is true - will Querelle draw me into it? And I? When the time comes for me to drown in my emotion for Querelle - will there be an alarm ringing for me?
- Lysiane: All you ever look at is yourselves. I'm not even there for you. Who am I then? Where do I fit in? You only live in your brother's eyes. Inside your brother, and he lives inside of you. There's no room for me in between. I'm at the door. I'm too fat. That's it. I'm too fat!
- Narrator: Her mind was clouded by the extreme, precise, indescribable melting of those two muscular, sinewy bodies. She tried to force the soft, dissolving mass of her own sumptuous body between them.
- Lysiane: I always remained indifferent - to the desires the others showed me; but, my mental chastity has built a field inside of me, a field that can be easily sown with the seeds of the miraculous.
- Narrator: In some obscure way, Querelle understood that love is voluntary. You have to want it.
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