- Basil: I don't want any trouble.
- Alexis Zorba: Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.
- Alexis Zorba: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You've got everthing except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else...
- Basil: Or else?
- Alexis Zorba: ...he never dares cut the rope and be free.
- Alexis Zorba: Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.
- Alexis Zorba: You think too much.That is your trouble.Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything.
- Alexis Zorba: Why do the young die? Why does anybody die?
- Basil: I don't know.
- Alexis Zorba: What's the use of all your damn books if they can't answer that?
- Basil: They tell me about the agony of men who can't answer questions like yours.
- Alexis Zorba: I spit on this agony!
- Alexis Zorba: God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive
- [slaps table]
- Alexis Zorba: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go. I know because a very wise old Turk told me.
- Alexis Zorba: How can I not love them? Poor weak creatures... and they take so little, a man's hand on their breast, and they give you all they got.
- Alexis Zorba: There will be no funeral. She was a Frank, she crossed herself with four fingers. The priest will not bury her like everybody else.
- Alexis Zorba: No more fooling around, not in this place. We'll pull our pants up and make a pile of money.
- Madame Hortense: You are cruel! Why you abandon me? The whole village is laughing at me. Where is my white satin? Where is my wedding dress?
- Basil: Aren't you feeling well?
- Madame Hortense: In my age, monsieur, one is never well... especially on the holidays.
- Basil: I don't believe you give a damn about your country.
- Alexis Zorba: Don't you talk to me like that!
- Alexis Zorba: [pulls open his shirt, shows Basil wound scars on his bare front] Look here, here and here! Nothing on the back! I have done things for my country that would make your hair stand. I have killed. Destroyed villages. Raped women. And why? Because they were Turks! or Bulgarians! That's the rotten damned fool I was. Now I look at a man - any man - and I say, he is good, he is bad. What do I care if he's Greek or Turk? As I get older, I swear by the bread I eat, I even stop asking that. Good or bad? What is the difference? They all end up the same way... food for worms!
- [laughs]
- Alexis Zorba: [speaking to Basil] Do you know how old I am? Ah, never mind, that's a secret. But I... have got to go fast. You know, they.. they say that age kills the fire inside of a man. That he hears death coming. He opens the door, says, "Come in. Give me rest." That is a pack of God damned lies. I've got enough fight in me to.. to devour the world! So... I fight!
- Basil: [after Zorba has departed on horseback for a business trip] Don't be sad. He's coming back.
- Madame Hortense: They all say that.