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Home / Best Quotes / The Lost Daughter Best Movie Quotes

The Lost Daughter Best Movie Quotes

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Starring: Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, Ed Harris, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Domińczyk, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Peter Sarsgaard

OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆

Story:

Netflix psychological drama written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Lost Daughter (2021) centers on Leda (Olivia Colman), who whilst alone on a seaside vacation, becomes obsessed with a young mother, Nina (Dakota Johnson), and her daughter, Elena, as she watches them on the beach. Her obsession prompts memories of the terror, confusion, and intensity of her own early motherhood. Then an impulsive act shocks Leda into the strange and ominous world of her own mind, where she is forced to face the unconventional choices she made as a young mother and their consequences.

 

Our Favorite Quote:

'We are obliged to do so many stupid things. From childhood even.' - Female Hiker (The Lost Daughter) Click To Tweet

 

Best Quotes


 

Young Leda: [flashback to peeling an orange with her daughter] Don’t let it break. Peel it like a snake.


 

Callie: You don’t mind moving, right?
Leda: No, I’m fine here.
Callie: It’s just switching umbrellas so my family can be together.
Leda: I understand that, but I have no desire to move.


 

Leda: You got a lovely big belly.
Callie: Well, it’s a girl. So, you know.
Leda: And how much longer have you got?
Callie: Two months. My sister-in-law had hers right away. It took me eight years.
Leda: Well, these things happen when they’re supposed to happen. But have a great birthday.


 

Callie: You don’t have kids?
Leda: Yes, I have two daughters.
Callie: Where are they? How old are they?
Leda: Bianca is twenty-five and Martha is twenty-three.
Callie: No! I mean, you’re too young. You must’ve started really early.
Leda: I’m forty-eight.
Callie: S**t. No. You look amazing. We were saying before, you couldn’t be more than forty. Damn, you’re lucky.


 

Leda: Look, I’m sorry about earlier as well. I was feeling a bit anxious.
Callie: Yeah. Well, you know, the sun can do that. And, well, maybe your girls. Being away from your girls, you know?
Leda: Yeah, well, you’ll see. Children are a crushing responsibility. Happy birthday.


 

Lyle: I saw you at the beach today, at Callie’s birthday party.
Leda: Oh, well, I wasn’t exactly at the party. I didn’t see you.
Lyle: I saw you.


 

Nina: [after Leda finds Elena] I just wanted to come say thank you.
Leda: Yeah, it was scary.
Nina: I thought I was going to die.
Callie: Thank God you were here. Thank God.
Leda: I think sometimes it’s easier for strangers in these situations.
Callie: Yeah, I was so crazy, I couldn’t see right. You know, so many awful things can happen. People are so f***ed up.


 

Nina: It’s been a weird day. We found her, and then she lost her doll.
Leda: I used to have a doll like that. Called Mina.
Nina: Nina?
Leda: Mina. Or Mini-Mama, as my mother called her. You’ll find it.
[we then later see that Leda has taken Elena’s doll]


 

Young Leda: You don’t like her? I gave Mina to you because I trusted you to take care of her. You know, you can be very thoughtless. This is my doll. You can’t treat her like s**t.
Young Bianca: No. She’s mine.
Young Leda: Yeah, well, she’s ruined.
[she throws the doll out the window and it breaks]


 

Will: I heard you’re a professor.
Leda: I think the correct response is, “Sounds like fun.”
Will: What?
Leda: It’s a rude joke.


 

Will: I saw you know a lot of languages?
Leda: Well, I don’t know anything very well. I also wasted a lot of time.


 

Leda: [referring to Nina’s family] Wow, it’s like talking about a film I saw in a language I didn’t quite understand.
Will: You watch movies in languages you don’t know?
Leda: Yeah.
Will: Without subtitles?


 

Will: [referring to Bianca and Martha] And do they look like you?
Leda: I don’t know. It’s hard to say, if I’m honest. They probably do.
Will: Because you’re beautiful.
Leda: You’re a very smart boy.


 

Leda: My mother was very beautiful. And when I was about Martha’s age, I felt like she hadn’t shared it. Like, in creating me she’d separated herself, like pushing a plate away if the food’s repulsive. But Bianca and Martha, it’s funny. What I find most interesting are the secret resemblances. You know? So what makes Bianca seductive and Martha not, and vice versa. Well, they blame me.


 

Leda: But Bianca is completely different, and she would never let herself feel deprived. She sucks everything out of me. All my secret skills. She’s the one that pointed out I’m finicky about peeling fruit. Because I don’t like it when the peel breaks. I like when it, you know, comes off in one long whatsit? String. Yeah, very, very uptight. Didn’t even know that about myself.


 

Joe: I’m working.
Young Leda: I’m suffocating.


 

Leda: Oh, poor creatures that came out of my belly. You know, the bits I find most beautiful about them are the bits that are alien to me. So I don’t have to take responsibility for that. Have I bored you?
Will: No.


 

Leda: Nina’s very beautiful.
Will: Yes. I hope they find the doll. They’re all freaking out, and I had to rake the entire beach looking for it.
Leda: They will.

 

'Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.' - Professor Hardy (The Lost Daughter) Click To Tweet

 

Will: What you did yesterday was amazing. When you wouldn’t move from the umbrella. But don’t do things like that anymore.
Leda: Why?
Will: Because they’re bad people.


 

Young Leda: Sometimes I get scared I can’t take care of them. What if I passed out, alone with them when you’re in Arizona?
Joe: Baby, you’re okay. I promise. Of course you can take care of them.


 

Callie: [referring to Elena’s doll] Whoever took her should get brain cancer.
Vassili: Oh, come on. It’s kids stuff, you understand? They like a toy, they take it. That’s it.


 

Nina: [referring to Elena] She’s driving me crazy.


 

Callie: [referring to children] They really put us through it, huh?
Leda: I thought you said you’re pregnant with your first.
Callie: I am. What were your daughters like when they were little? Were they like this willful little creature?
Leda: I honestly can’t remember much actually.
Callie: Oh, no, you can’t forget anything about your own children.
Leda: Is that your experience?
Callie: I just mean, did your daughters give you a hard time when they were little?
Leda: I just don’t remember.
Callie: Are you okay?
Nina: She doesn’t remember.
Leda: I was very tired.


 

Leda: [to Nina] Don’t bother buying her another doll. It won’t make any difference. You’ll find it.


 

Joe: Oh, my God. Life is so different without kids.
Male Hiker: I have kids. I have three kids. Twelve, nine, and seven. They are in London, with their mother.
Young Leda: So you ran away together?
Male Hiker: I guess we did.
Female Hiker: Yes, we did.


 

Female Hiker: We are obliged to do so many stupid things. From childhood even.
Young Leda: Obliged?
Female Hiker: Yes. What happened to us is the only thing that’s happened to me since I was born that makes sense.


 

Female Hiker: What are you working on?
Young Leda: I’m barely working.
Joe: Yeats. She’s working on a Yeats translation.
Male Hiker: Yeats?
Young Leda: No.
Male Hiker: In Italian? That is like chocolate on chocolate.


 

Lyle: Have you had dinner?
Leda: No, I haven’t had lunch.
Lyle: [referring to the octopus] It’s almost five. This is so fresh, you could even eat it raw.
Leda: Ooh, I think I would find that disgusting. Or was that a dirty joke?

See more The Lost Daughter Quotes


 

Leda: Your kids must have loved it with the octopus. Sounds like a nice way to grow up.
Lyle: They grew up with their mom, in Philly. My oldest son is older than you.
Leda: I don’t think so. I’m old.
Lyle: What do you mean, old? At the most you’re, what, forty? Forty-two? Forty-three? Forty-four? Forty-five? Forty-six? Forty-seven?
Leda: Forty-eight, Lyle. Two grown-up children.


 

Leda: Martha grew up worrying about me. Poor little thing. Checking that I ate, didn’t die at night, like a little mama. Bianca’s like her father. She made me feel like she wanted to remake me. Like her viciousness was for my own good.
Lyle: Well, my oldest is fifty. Actually fifty-one. So, I win. Three times a grandfather.
Leda: They’re so soft when they’re young. Their little bodies.


 

Leda: You sound like a real family man.
Lyle: Yeah. Yeah, I taught them all how to swim. Except the littlest.
Leda: I’m so sorry. That was, I’m so mean.
Lyle: No. F*** that, lady. I’m mean too.
Leda: Well, you’re in good company.


 

Leda: Must’ve been lonely here.
Lyle: It was a real party.


 

Lyle: Do you feel sick?
Leda: No, I’m fine.
Lyle: Why don’t you lay down for a minute? Now, now, it’ll pass.
Leda: Nothing needs to pass, Lyle. I feel fine.


 

Lyle: [to Leda, after seeing Elena’s doll] There’s water in there.


 

Professor Hardy: As Simone Weil says, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”


 

Young Leda: [referring to Hardy] Suddenly he was just saying my name. And it was crazy. He was, no, he was talking about the Auden publication. He was saying that I had anticipated Ricœur’s work on translation. And that, yeah. That I had anticipated Ricœur’s work on translation. And it was just, I mean, it was wild. And Cole looked like his eyes were going to, I mean, he turned around in slow motion. He was absolutely raging.


 

Professor Hardy: [to young Leda] I want to go to bed with you. But it looks like you’re married, so. You’ll have to start this.


 

Young Leda: I hate talking to my kids on the phone.
Professor Hardy: What?
Young Leda: I hate talking to my kids on the phone. They don’t like it either.
Professor Hardy: Don’t say that.
Young Leda: They don’t.


 

Nina: Since the doll went missing, she’s been like actually driving me f***ing crazy. There’s something wrong with her. She’s not sleeping. At all. She won’t sleep unless I’m in the bed with her. And if I move… I’m really tired. I’m like scary tired.
Leda: I remember.


 

Nina: I know you saw me with Will. I don’t want you to think badly of me.
Leda: I don’t think badly of anyone.
Nina: Yeah. Yeah, see, I knew that. As soon as I saw you, I just, I was like, “I want to be like that lady.”


 

Nina: It didn’t mean anything, what you saw.
Leda: Didn’t it?
Nina: No. I don’t let it go anywhere. I just… But I’m happy. I’m happy with Elena, with everything.


 

Nina: I met my husband so young. And he’s f***ing crazy about me. And her. He says my breasts are exactly the size of his hand.
Leda: What would he do if he saw you with Will?
Nina: Oh, he’d cut my throat.


 

Nina: What happened in the toy store? You were talking about your daughters, and then something happened. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Leda: Yeah. I left. When the oldest was seven, and the youngest was five, I left. I abandoned them, and I didn’t see them for three years.
Nina: You didn’t see your children for three years?
Leda: No.
Nina: Who took care of them?
Leda: Their father and my mum, and then I came back for them.


 

Nina: What did it feel like without them?
Leda: It felt amazing. I felt like I’d been trying not to explode, and then I exploded.
Nina: That doesn’t sound amazing.


 

Joe: [referring to Leda leaving him] They’re little f***ing girls. How am I supposed to do this?
Young Leda: Joe, I’m feeling dizzy.
Joe: I’m taking them to your mum’s. I can’t handle this.
Young Leda: No, you’re not.
Joe: Yeah.
Young Leda: You’re threatening me? That is revenge. That’s f*** lazy. You bring them back there, and they’re going to sink into that black s**thole. All the f***ing s**t that I came from!


 

Will: [after he’s asked her to lend her place to him and Nina] Are you angry?
Leda: No.
Will: You seem angry.
Leda: No, Will, the caretaker of my apartment knows Nina, and has business with her husband.
Will: Lyle? You just give him twenty euros and he’s not going to say anything.
Leda: Why are you asking this of me in particular?
Will: Nina asked me to.


 

Leda: Yeah. So, do you want the keys?
Nina: If it’s alright with you.
Leda: Doesn’t have much to do with me.
Nina: It doesn’t?


 

Leda: You told me you were happy with your husband.
Nina: I did.
Leda: Yeah, you told me you were happy with everything.
Nina: I am. I don’t know. What do you think?
Leda: I think you should do what you want.


 

Nina: Is this going to pass?
Leda: What?
Nina: I don’t know what to call it. I have depression, or something. But it passes.
Leda: I thought you said you were in a hurry.
Nina: I am.


 

Nina: If it felt amazing, then why did you go back to your daughters?
Leda: I’m their mother. I went back because I missed them. I’m a very selfish person.


 

Nina: [referring to Elena’s doll] What? You found her? Where did you find her?
Leda: No, I took her.
Nina: Why?
Leda: I don’t know.
Nina: You don’t know?
Leda: No.


 

Nina: But I don’t understand. Did you think that the doll wasn’t good for us?
Leda: I was just playing.
Nina: Playing? We were all messed up. You saw us.
Leda: I’m an unnatural mother.


 

Leda: Oh, Nina. Take the keys! I’m leaving tonight. And the apartment’s going to be empty till the end of the month. Nina, I’m so sorry.
Nina: I don’t want anything from you.
Leda: You’re so young, and it doesn’t pass. None of this passes.
[Nina suddenly stabs her with the hat pin Leda had given to her]


 

Leda: [over phone, after waking on the beach and bleeding from her wound] You’re both there.
Martha: Hi, Mama.
Leda: Martha, little one.
Bianca: I left you so many messages. I thought you were dead.
Leda: Dead?
Bianca: Yeah. Are you alright, Mama?
Leda: No, I’m alive actually.
[as she’s talking on the phone she sees an orange in her hand and starts peeling it]

 


 

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