How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Quote #4
GUSTAVE: [Examining Boy with Apple in the train car back to Nebelsbad.] I'll never part with it. It reminded her of me. It will remind me of her—always. I'll die with this picture above my bed.
To Gustave, Boy with Apple is more than a masterpiece; it's a remembrance of his late, dearly-beloved Madame D. On the other hand, maybe it's just a way to make some quick cash.
Quote #5
THE AUTHOR: [Inquiring about Mustafa's reason for keeping the Hotel.] Is it simply your last connection to that vanished world, his world, if you will? His world?
MR. MUSTAFA: No, I don't think so. You see, we shared a vocation, it wouldn't have been necessary. No, the hotel I keep for Agatha. We were happy here, for a little while.
Mustafa's connection with Gustave doesn't require any type of memento. They were brothers of the same trade. The Budapest isn't a giant, rundown memorial of the esteemed concierge. It's so that he can relive his fond memories of his wife, Agatha.
Quote #6
MR. MUSTAFA: To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But, I will say, he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.
Gustave wasn't just a historical figure to the Author and his contemporaries; he was practically a historical figure in his own time. With the way he talks and conducts himself it can be easy to forget we're supposed to be in the 1930s and not the 1830s. He brings with him the best of an outdated era, a kind of chivalry and propriety that you often hear your grandparents lamenting the absence of.