Boreo/Quotes

The Goldfinch (2013)
"Believe? Ha! I don’t believe in anything [...] I don’t believe everything that anybody tells me [...] not even you."

- Boris still not confiding in Theo around the start of their relationship

"Boris stole steaks for us, butter, boxes of tea, cucumbers (a great delicacy for him), packages of bacon—even cough syrup once, when I had a cold—slipping them in the cutaway lining of his ugly gray raincoat... As he wandered around I stood lookout at the head of the aisle, so shaky with nerves I sometimes worried I would black out— but soon I was filling my own pockets with apples and chocolate (other favored food items of Boris’s) before walking up brazenly to the counter to buy bread and milk and other items too big to steal."

- Theo talking about their habits of shoplifting together, and how he'd even steal Boris' favorite foods.

"…But who cared what crappy girl Boris liked? Weren’t we still friends? Best friends? Brothers practically? Then again: there was not exactly a word for Boris and me. Until Kotku came along, I had never thought too much about it."

"The first time he'd turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half- asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last - embarrassed - faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Ssh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn't. I'd fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn't explain it without making it sound like more than it was."

- Theo informally gay panicking over Boris.

"But we were so attuned to each other that we didn’t need to talk at all if we didn’t want to; we knew how to tip each other over in hysterics with an arch of the eyebrow or quirk of the mouth."

- Their intimacy shown by expressions.

"On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back down in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep."

- Boris always soothing Theo after he wakes up scared from nightmares.

"We'd drowse off in each other's arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, the Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children."

- Theo commenting on how they'd cuddle listening to music.

"Again Boris moaned, as the guy yanked his hair once more, and from across the car threw me an unmistakeable look-which I understood just as plainly as if he'd spoken the words aloud, an urgent and very specific cut of the eyes straight from our shoplifting days: run for it, Potter, go. "Boris," I said, after a disbelieving pause, "please, just give it to them,"

- Boris being able to sacrifice himself if that meant Theo could run away and escape. But Theo refuses to leave Boris by himself.

"Why should I doubt you? Ever? [...] Why should I ever doubt you?"

- Boris to Theo, a complete upgrade and an immense contrast to how Boris was still distrusting of Theo at Vegas, as seen by the other quote.

The Goldfinch (2019 film)
"You know what I did in college? Conversational russian. Because of you. It... used to make me think of you."

- Theo to Boris in the restaurant after their reunion.