Titanic

Titanic Quotes and Analysis

I'm the king of the world!

Jack Dawson

Jack shouts this line from the bow of the ship, overjoyed that he has won tickets aboard the vessel along with his Italian friend Fabrizio. The line captures Jack's feelings of ecstasy and freedom as he heads back to America, and is also ironic given the fact that the audience knows that the ship is headed for an untimely end.

Promise me you'll survive. That you won't give up, no matter what happens. No matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.

Jack Dawson

Afraid that his own death may extinguish Rose's will to go on living, Jack makes Rose promise that she will survive. Rose tells Brock and his team that Jack saved her, "in every way a person can be saved." She lives her entire life knowing that he is waiting for her, and imagines him at the top of the stairs when she passes away at the end of the film.

To making each day count.

Jack Dawson

This is the toast that Jack gives when he is invited to dinner in first class with Rose's family and friends. Although Ruth is contemptuous of Jack, the other members of the dinner party are charmed by Jack's joie de vivre and carefree personality. Jack later slips a message into Rose's hands that says, "Make it count. Meet me at the clock," where he invites her to a party.

You jump, I jump, right?

Rose DeWitt Bukater

Rose tells this to Jack after leaping back aboard the ship from a descending lifeboat, remembering how Jack pledged to jump in after her if she had followed through with her suicide attempt at the beginning of the film. The line encapsulates the undying mutual devotion that the couple has for one another, even after knowing each other for only a short time.

I'd rather be his whore than your wife.

Rose DeWitt Bukater

Rose says this to Cal, after he contemptuously remarks that the "better half" of the ship will end up surviving, and that Rose will become a "whore to a gutter rat" if she keeps pursuing Jack. It marks the moment when Rose no longer even pretends to tolerate Cal, even spitting in his face.

I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.

Rose DeWitt Bukater

Rose tells this to Jack after taking him back to her first class cabin, while Cal is occupied in the smoking lounge. Having previously perused Jack's nude drawings of French prostitutes, Rose wants a similar portrait drawn of her. She describes the moment to Brock and his team as the most erotic moment of her life.

It's been 84 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint.

Rose DeWitt Bukater

This is the first line of the story into which Rose launches after arriving on the research vessel where Brock and his team are searching for the Heart of the Ocean. The line suggests, first, the sheer length of time that has elapsed since the sinking of the Titanic, and also the immediacy of Rose's memories, even in her old age.

He exists now only in my memory.

Rose DeWitt Bukater

Rose tells this to Brock and his team, after explaining why Jack's name would not be on the ship's manifest. Rose's story is visceral and overwhelming, enrapturing Brock and the others with its dramatic and emotional developments. Rose can only imagine Jack, having no photographs or mementos of him.

A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.

Rose DeWitt Bukater

Rose tells this to Brock and his team, explicating the symbolic resonance of the Heart of the Ocean diamond. Rose never spoke of Jack, not even to her future husband, but never forgot him. Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean back into the sea in a symbolic gesture that represents her reunion with Jack in the afterlife.

I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose.

Thomas Andrews

Haunted by guilt, Thomas Andrews tells this to Rose as he stands in the dining quarters, counting the minutes he has left to live. Andrews is one of the only characterizes responsible for the ship who expresses remorse over the disaster, unlike J. Bruce Ismay or Captain Smith.