- [Rex has bought Julia a tortoise with her initials embossed in jewels on its shell. She is proudly showing it to Lady Marchmain and Mr Samgrass]
- Mr. Samgrass: What will you do when it's dead? Can you have another tortoise fitted into the shell?
- Charles Ryder: D'you know, Bridey. If ever I thought about becoming a Catholic, I'd only have to talk to you for five minutes to be cured. You manage to reduce what seem quite sensible propositions to stark nonsense.
- Lord Brideshead 'Bridey': It's odd you should say that. I've heard it before from other people. It's one of the reasons why I don't think I'd have made a good priest. It's something in the way my mind works, I suppose.
- Lady Marchmain: I don't understand how you could have been so nice in so many ways and then do something so wantonly cruel. I don't understand how we all liked you so much. Did you hate us all the time?