BRIDGET JONES: You seem to go out of your way to try to make me feel like a complete idiot every time I see you, and you really needn’t bother. I already feel like an idiot most of the time anyway, with or without the fireman’s pole. [buzz] That’ll be my taxi. Goodnight.
MARK DARCY: Look, um, I’m sorry if I’ve been…
BRIDGET JONES: What?
MARK DARCY: I don’t think you’re an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother’s pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker, and um, you tend to let whatever’s in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences. I realize that when I met you at the turkey/curry buffet that I was unforgivably rude and wearing a reindeer jumper that my mother had given me the day before. But the thing is, what I’m trying to say, very inarticulately, is that um, in fact, perhaps, despite appearances, I like you. Very much.
BRIDGET JONES: Ah, apart from the smoking, and the drinking, and the vulgar mother, and the verbal diarrhea…
MARK DARCY: No, I like you very much. Just as you are.
- from Bridget Jones’s Diary
