How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Quote #1
GUSTAVE: You filthy, goddamn, pock-marked, fascist assholes! Take your hands off my Lobby Boy!
All insults aside, we can tell Gustave is already very protective of Zero… and he's only been working at the Budapest for about a month.
Quote #2
GUSTAVE: I'll tell you what, if I die first—and I most certainly will—you will be my sole heir. There's not much in the kitty except a set of ivory-backed hairbrushes and my library of romantic poetry, but when the time comes, these will be yours, along with whatever we haven't already spent on whores and whiskey.
This may be just another part of Gustave's Boy with Apple blood-pact, but his offering of his total inheritance will amount to a lot after the same is done for him by Madame D.
Quote #3
GUSTAVE: I owe you my life. You are my dear friend and protégé and I'm very proud of you.
You must know that. I'm so sorry, Zero.ZERO: We're brothers.
After a series of very nasty insults, Gustave realizes his air and his misplaced frustration and apologizes to Gustave. Zero, of course, accepts. They are no longer merely concierge and lobby boy: they're the family that neither of them has.
Quote #4
GUSTAVE: I give you my word, if you lay a finger on this man, I'll see you dishonorably discharged, locked up in the stockade and hanged by sundown.
Gustave is loyal even to a fault. This attempt at once again rescuing Zero from the authorities is what leads to him being shot.
Quote #5
MADAME D: Will you light a candle for me, please? In the sacristy of Santa Maria?
GUSTAVE: I'll see to it myself immediately. Remember, I'm always with you.
MADAME D.: I love you.
GUSTAVE: I love you. [She drives off.] It's quite a thing winning the loyalty of a woman like that for nineteen consecutive seasons.
There so much happening here. On the one hand we know that Gustave really does care for Madame D. (and it's obvious she cares for him). But on the other hand, Gustave doesn't deliver on the whole "see to it myself immediately" part when he delegates the task to Zero a moment later. Further, "winning the loyalty of a woman like that for nineteen consecutive seasons" sounds more like a business strategy then genuine affection.
Quote #6
MR. MUSTAFA: She left everything to Monsieur Gustave, of course. The mansion, known as Schloss Lutz, the factories, which produced weapons, medicine and textiles, an important newspaper syndicate, and, perhaps you've already deduced, this very institution, the Grand Budapest Hotel.
Madame D.'s second will shows not only how loyal she was to her dear friend and lover, but that Gustave's loyalty to her has paid off more than he could have ever imagined. He started hoping for a few Klubecks and was ecstatic when he got Boy with Apple. This inheritance is on a whole other level.
Quote #7
LUDWIG: Me and the boys talked it over. We think you're a really straight fellow.
GUSTAVE: Well, I've never been accused of that before, but I appreciate the sentiment.
LUDWIG: You're one of us now.
GUSTAVE: What a lovely thing to say.
Making friends in prison is easy. All you need to do is be overly polite and accommodating, provide delicious, hand-crafted pastries, and, uhh, "beat the living shit" out of them. Sounds simple enough.
Quote #8
HENCKELS: Monsieur Gustave? My name is Henckels. I'm the son of Dr. and Mrs. Wolfgang Henckels-Bergersdofer. Do you remember me?
GUSTAVE: I know exactly who you are. It's uncanny. You're little Albert.
HENCKELS: I'm terribly embarrassed. Release them. Release them. Your colleague is stateless. He'll need to apply for a revised Special Transit Permit, which at this point may be very difficult to acquire. Take this. It's temporary but it's the best I can offer, I'm afraid.
The kindness Gustave showed to a young Henckels repays him as Henckels has remembered Gustave and pays him back for his good deed. Sometimes loyalty is just a de facto part of a relationship, but in the Grand Budapest it's earned.