It seems only right to include some quotes from this great movie.
Miss Prism : Do you mind if I take your picture?
Cecily : No, I often like to be looked at.
[on hearing that Jack's wastrel brother died suddenly]
Miss Prism : What a lesson for him. I trust he will profit by it.
Cecily : You must not laugh at me, darling, but it has always been a girlish dream of mine to love a man named Earnest.
Jack : Actually, I was found.
Lady Bracknell : Found?
Jack : Uh, yes, I was in... a handbag.
Lady Bracknell : A handbag?
Jack : Yes, it was...
[makes gestures]
Jack : an ordinary handbag.
Algy : But, what if I had some other name?
Cecily : Another name?
Algy : Well... Algy, for instance.
Cecily : I would greatly respect you, but I wouldn't love you.
[while Algy is pretending to be Jack's brother]
Jack : [whispering] Algy! Algy! Algy!
[Algy looks around, as if wondering who Jack's calling]
Jack : Ernest.
Algy : Ah, good morning, dear fellow.
Gwendolyn : In matters of utmost importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
Gwendolyn : Where questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us!
Lady Bracknell : You seem to be displaying signs of triviality.
Jack : On the contrary, Aunt Augusta. I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Ernest.
Jack : Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but would you kindly inform me who I am?
Gwendolyn : Let us preserve a dignified silence.
Cecily : Certainly. It is the only thing to do now.
[Jack and Algernon begin serenading them]
Gwendolyn : This dignified silence seems to produce an unpleasant effect.
[in the end credits]
Jack : Algy, you're always talking nonsense.
Algy : It's better than listening to it.
Lady Bracknell : To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.
Cecily : What a charming boy, I like his hair so much!
Jack : Good heavens, I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
Algy : But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins!
Jack : I said it was perfectly heartless of YOU under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
Algy : That may be, but the muffins are the same!
Miss Prism : The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
Jack : How you can sit there eating muffins when we're in this terrible trouble, I can't understand!
Algy : I can hardly eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.
