The Best Years of Our Lives quotes

View Quote Salesman: [about Fred] I'll bet he's back looking for a job.
Saleswoman: And he'll get it too with all those ribbons on his chest.
Salesman: Well, nobody's job is safe with all these servicemen crowding in.

View Quote Fred: [about his lack of managerial experience] I didn't do any of that. I just dropped bombs...I was only responsible for getting the bombs on the target. I didn't command anybody.
Mr. Thorpe: Unfortunately, we've no opportunities for that with Midway Drugs. However, we might be able to provide an opening for you as an assistant to Mr. Merkle, the floor manager...Incidentally, your work would require part-time duties at the soda fountain.
Fred: At what salary?
Mr. Thorpe: Thirty-two fifty per week.
Fred: Thirty-two fifty. I used to make over four hundred dollars a month in the Air Force.
Mr. Thorpe: The war is over, Derry.

View Quote Homer: What about us? We're all right, aren't we?
Wilma: No, listen to me, Homer.
Homer: I'm listening.
Wilma: You wrote me that when you got home, you and I were going to be married. If you wrote that once, you wrote it a hundred times. Isn't that true?
Homer: Yes, but things are different now.
Wilma: Have you changed your mind?
Homer: Have I said anything about changing my mind?
Wilma: No. That's just it. You haven't said anything about anything...I don't know what to think, Homer. All I know is, I was in love with you when you left and I'm in love with you now. Other things may have changed but that hasn't.

View Quote Homer: I'm sorry, Luella. It isn't your fault. Just go on and play with your friends. [To Wilma] I know Wilma, I was wrong. I shouldn't have acted like that. It wasn't her that burned my hands off. I'll be all right. I just got to work it out myself.
Wilma: I could help you, Homer, if you'd let me.
Homer: I've got to work it out myself. All I want is for people to treat me like anybody else instead of pitying me. It guess it's, it's hard for them to do that. I've just got to learn to get used to it and pay no attention.
Wilma: Couldn't I...?
Homer: No, I've got to do it myself.

View Quote Fred: We spent it, babe. That's what happened. I'm sorry it's so sudden. I didn't tell you the money was almost gone because every day I kept hoping I was going to land a good job. But at last, I've got it through my thick skull that I'm not going to get one so we'll just have to forget about Jackie's Hotspot and the Blue Devil and all the rest.
Marie: Can't you get those things out of your system?
Fred: Oh sure.
Marie: Maybe that's what's holding you back. You know, the war's over. You won't get anyplace 'til you stop thinking about it. Come on, snap out of it.
Fred: When we were married, babe, the Justice of the Peace said something about 'For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse.' Remember? Well, this is the 'worse.'
Marie: Well, when do we get going on the 'better?'
Fred: Whenever I get wise to myself, I guess. Whenever I wake up and realize I'm not an officer and a gentleman anymore. I'm just another soda jerk out of a job.

View Quote Peggy: I didn't really come in to buy anything. Dad told me you were working here and I just dropped in to say hello.
Fred: [as he shows her a perfume] Oh just a minute. I have - I have an hour off at one o'clock. Are you doing anything for lunch?
Peggy: Why no.
Fred: Thank you madam. [softly] I'll meet you outside in twenty minutes.

View Quote Fred: I knew I'd never go back to that drugstore...I dreamed I was going to have my own home. Just a nice little house with my wife out in the country, in the suburbs anyway. That's the ****-eyed kind of dream you have when you're overseas.
Peggy: You don't have to be overseas to have dreams like that.
Fred: Yeah. You can get crazy ideas right here at home.
[They kiss]
Fred: That shouldn't have happened, but I guess it had to.

View Quote Marie: Say, who is this Peggy Stephenson?
Fred: She's a girl.
Marie: I didn't think she was a kangaroo. Where did you meet her?
Fred: I told you. The night I got back when you weren't here. Al Stephenson and his wife took me home with them. She's their daughter. I'd never seen her before.
Marie: Or since?
Fred: Listen, babe, if you think you're gonna make anything out of this, you're due for a big disappointment. I just don't like to be accepting handouts when we're broke.
Marie: Well, if that's it, you'd better get used to it, because I don't see how we're gonna get much fun on your thirty two fifty a week.

View Quote Peggy: I know what you both think.
Al: What are we thinking?
Peggy: You're afraid I may be in love with Fred.
Al: Why I never had any such idea?
Milly: Shut up, Al. Are you in love with him?
Peggy: Yes. But I don't want to be. That's why I asked him and his wife to go out with us this evening. I think it ought to have a very healthy effect on me. Once I get to know her, well, I'm sure I'll stop being silly about the whole thing.

View Quote Peggy: [explaining why she invited Fred and his wife] I did it deliberately...to prove to myself that what happened this afternoon didn't really happen.
Fred: But it did happen. It had to happen. And if we go on seeing each other, Peggy, it will happen again.

View Quote Peggy: I've made up my mind...I'm going to break that marriage up. I can't stand it seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn't love and who doesn't love him. Oh it's horrible for him. It's humiliating and it's killing his spirit. Somebody's got to help him...He doesn't love her, he hates her. I know it. I know it.
Al: Who are you, God? How did you get this power to interfere in other people's lives?
Milly: Is Fred in love with you?
Peggy: Yes.
Milly: You've been seeing him.
Peggy: Only once, today. Oh, it was all perfectly respectable. But when we were saying goodbye, he took me in his arms and kissed me and I knew.
Al: And you think a kiss from a smooth operator like Fred - you think that means anything?
Peggy: You don't know him. You don't know anything about what's inside him. And neither does she, his wife. That's probably what she thought when she married him. A smooth operator with money in his pockets. But now he isn't smooth any longer and she's lost interest in him.
Al: Whereas you're possessed of all the wisdom of the ages. You can see into the secret recesses of his innermost soul.
Peggy: I can see because I love him.
Al: So you're gonna break this marriage up. Have you decided yet how you're gonna do it? Are you gonna do it with an axe?
Peggy: It's none of your business how I'm gonna do it. You've forgotten what it's like to be in love.
Al: You hear that, Milly? I'm so old and decrepit I've forgotten how it feels to want somebody desperately.
Milly: Peggy didn't mean that, did you darling?
Peggy: Oh, no. I don't know what I do mean. It's just that, everything has always been so perfect for you. You loved each other and you got married in a big church, and you had a honeymoon in the south of France. And you never had any trouble of any kind. So how can you possibly understand how it is with Fred and me?
Milly: We never had any trouble. [To Al] How many times have I told you I hated you, and believed it in my heart. How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me, that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?

View Quote Al: I happen to be quite fond of Peggy, and I, uh...
Fred: ...don't want her to get mixed up with a heel like me.
Al: I haven't called you a heel, yet. I just don't want to see her get into this mess...I don't like the idea of you sneaking around corners to see Peggy, taking her love on a bootleg basis. I give you fair warning. I'm going to do everything I can to keep her away from you, to help her forget about you, and get her married to some decent guy who can make her happy.
Fred: Then, I guess that's it, Al. I don't see her anymore. I'll put that in the form of a guarantee. I won't see her anymore. I'll call her up and tell her so. Does that satisfy you?

View Quote Homer: I know what it is. How did I get these hooks and how do they work? That's what everybody says when they start off with 'Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?' Well, I'll tell ya. I got sick and tired of that old pair of hands I had. You know, an awful lot of trouble washing them and manicuring my nails. So I traded them in for a pair of these latest models. They work by radar. Look. [He takes a scoop of his ice cream sundae with a spoon] Pretty cute, hey?
Customer: You got plenty of guts. It's terrible when you see a guy like you that had to sacrifice himself - and for what?
Homer: And for what? I don't getcha Mister?
Customer: ...We let ourselves get sold down the river. We were pushed into war.
Homer: Sure, by the Japs and the Nazis so we had...
Customer: No, the Germans and the Japs had nothing against us. They just wanted to fight the Limies and the Reds. And they would have whipped 'em too if we didn't get deceived into it by a bunch of radicals in Washington.
Homer: What are you talkin' about?
Customer: We fought the wrong people, that's all. Just read the facts, my friend. Find out for yourself why you had to lose your hands. And then go out and do something about it.

View Quote Wilma: They figure you don't want me around. You don't want to see me, and if I go away for awhile, maybe I'll get all of this out of my mind...Do you want to get rid of me? Tell me the truth, Homer. Do you want me to forget about you?
Homer: I want you to be free, Wilma, to live your own life. I don't want you tied down forever just because you've got a kind heart.
Wilma: Oh, Homer! Why can't you ever understand the way things really are, the way I really feel? I keep trying to tell you.
Homer: But, but you don't know what it would be like to live with me. Have to face this every day, every night.
Wilma: I can only find out by trying. And if it turns out I haven't courage enough, we'll soon know it.
Homer: Wilma, you and I have been close to each other for a long time, haven't we? Ever since we were kids.
Wilma: Yes, Homer.
Homer: I'm going upstairs to bed. I wantcha, I want ya to come up and see for yourself what happens.
Wilma: All right, Homer.

View Quote Homer: I'm lucky I have my elbows. Some of the boys don't, but I can't button them up.
Wilma: I'll do that, Homer.
Homer: This is when I know I'm helpless. My hands are down there on the bed. I can't put them on again without calling to somebody for help. I can't smoke a cigarette or read a book. If that door should blow shut, I can't open it and get out of this room. I'm as dependent as a baby that doesn't know how to get anything except to cry for it. Well, now you know, Wilma. Now you have an idea of what it is. I guess you don't know what to say. It's all right. Go on home. Go away like your family said.
Wilma: I know what to say, Homer. I love you and I'm never going to leave you, never. [She kisses him]
Homer: You mean you, you didn't mind?
Wilma: Of course not. I told you I loved you.
Homer: I love you, Wilma. I always have and I always will.
Wilma: Good night, darling. Sleep well.