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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof quotes

37 total quotes

Big Daddy
Maggie the Cat
Multiple Characters




View Quote Big Mama: The exploratory operation proved there's nothin' wrong with Big Daddy. Nothin' at all. Just a little ol' spastic colon and that's all.
Maggie: That's the best birthday present of all.
...
Big Daddy: Well, I'm gonna live, Maggie, I'm gonna live. You know, they had me real scared. You know, I've wasted so much time, you know, I've got a million different kinds of feelings left in me. And I want to use 'em. I want to use 'em all.
View Quote Big Daddy: Why did you and Brick suddenly decide to drive up from New Orleans?
Maggie: For your birthday, what else?
Big Daddy: I had a birthday last year and the year before. I didn't see ya then.
Maggie: Well, you know how Brick is sometimes.
Big Daddy: Maybe he thought he was comin' to my funeral instead of my birthday?
Maggie: Why Brick loves you! Well he does.
Big Daddy: But does he love you?
Maggie: What do you want - Truth?
Big Daddy: If I was married to you three years, you'd have the livin' proof. You'd have three kids already and the fourth in the oven.
View Quote Brick: Big Daddy! Now what makes him so big? His big heart? His big belly? Or his big money?
Maggie: The heat has made you cross.
Brick: Give me my crutch.
Maggie: Why don't you put on your nice silk pajamas, honey, and come on down to the party? There's a lovely cool breeze.
Brick: Give me my crutch, Maggie.
Maggie: Lean on me, baby. [He turns and stiffly ignores her. She warmly hugs him from behind] You've got a nice smell about you. Is your bath water cool?
Brick: No.
Maggie: I know somethin' that would make you feel cool and fresh. Alcohol rub. Cologne.
Brick: No thanks. We'd smell alike. Like a couple of cats in the heat.
Maggie: It's cool on the lawn.
Brick: I'm not goin' down there, Maggie, not for you and not for Big Daddy.
Maggie: At least you can give him his present that I remembered to buy for you for his birthday. Do you think you could write a few words on this card?
Brick: You write somethin' Maggie.
Maggie: It's got to be your handwritin'. It's your present. It's got to be your handwritin'.
Brick: I didn't get him a present.
Maggie: Well, what's the difference?!
Brick: Then if there's no difference, you write the card.
Maggie: And have him know you didn't remember his birthday?
Brick: I didn't remember.
Maggie: Well, you don't have to prove it to him. Just-just write 'Love, Brick' for heaven's sakes.
Brick: NO!
Maggie: You've got to.
Brick: I don't have to do anything I don't want to! Now you keep forgettin' the conditions on which I agreed to stay on livin' with you.
Maggie: I'm not living with you. We occupy the same cage, that's all. You know, that's the first time you've raised your voice in a long time. Crack in the stone wall? I think that's a fine sign. Mighty fine.
View Quote Big Mama: Oh shoot, Maggie, you just don't like children.
Maggie: Why that's not true! I adore them - well brought up.
Big Mama: Well why don't you have some then and bring them up well instead of all the time pickin' on Gooper's an' Mae's?
Maggie: ...Big Mama, what you said about havin' children, it's still kind of a secret but...
Big Mama: Oh shoot, Maggie, stop playing so dumb. I mean, is he still drinkin' this stuff much?
Maggie: Oh, well he may have had a little highball...
Big Mama: Don't laugh about it! Some single men stop drinking when they get married. Others start. Brick never touched liquor before he was...
Maggie: [crying out] THAT'S NOT FAIR.
Big Mama: Fair or not fair. I want to ask you a question, one question: 'Do ya make Brick happy?' Well?
Maggie: Why don't you ask me if he makes me happy?
Big Mama: Cause I know that ...
Maggie: It works both ways.
Big Mama: Somethin' ain't right. You're childless and our son drinks... [she pats the bed for emphasis] When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there!
Maggie: [now alone in the room] That's not fair.
View Quote Maggie: [abput Big Daddy] You've got no cause to dislike him.
Brick: Do I dislike him?
Maggie: Well, it's obvious to everybody, especially to him. What's he ever done to you? What? Why do you hate him so much? What's he ever done to you?
Brick: Nothin'.
View Quote Maggie: [after Brick tells her that Big Daddy has terminal cancer] Oh, poor Big Daddy. I'm fond of him. I'm genuinely fond of that old man. I really am, you know. Oh, when he finds out. I wouldn't want to be the one to tell him. That's why you want to go now.
Brick: Yeah, that's why I want to leave now. You gotta do this for me, Maggie, please.
Maggie: And leave the field to Gooper and that wife of his? No sir. Let's face facts, baby. You're a drinker, and that takes money.
Brick: I don't want his money.
Maggie: Are you ready to settle for ten cent beer? 'Cause that's just what Gooper will dole out to you when they freeze you out. They got a plan, baby. Oh you should have heard them layin' it on Big Daddy - a mile a minute. Big Mama's already on their side. You're a drinker and I'm childless. We got to beat that plan. We just got to. I-I been so disgustingly poor all my life. That's the truth, Brick.
Brick: Have you, Maggie?
Maggie: You-you don't know what it's like to have to suck up to people you can't stand just 'cause they have money. You don't know what it's like. Never havin' any clothes. That dress I married you in was a hand-me-down from a snotty rich cousin I hated. You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it. Where did I fail you? Where did I make my mistake? Make that your last drink until after the party, please honey!
View Quote Maggie: I think I made my mistake when I tried to tell you about Skipper. That's where I made my fatal error.
Brick: Maggie...
Maggie: I never should have confessed...
Brick: Maggie, now you shut-up about Skipper. I mean it, you got to shut up about Skipper.
Maggie: The laws of silence won't work about that. Not about Skipper and us. It's like lockin' the door on the fire in hopes of forgettin' the house is burnin' - but not lookin' at a fire doesn't put it out. This time, I'm gonna finish. That night in a hotel room, Skipper and I...
Brick: I don't want to hear about it.
Maggie: Why won't you face the truth just once about Skipper? About me? About yourself?
Brick: Do you want me to hit you with this crutch?
Maggie: You're still blamin' me for Skipper's death.
Brick: [advancing] Now don't you know that I could kill you with this crutch?
Maggie: Good Lord, man, d'you think I'd care if you did?
Brick: Skipper and I had a friendship. Now why won't you let it alone?
Maggie: It's got to be told.
Brick: But I don't want to hear it.
Maggie: It's got to be told and you never let me tell it. I love you, and that's worth fightin' for. Not Skipper. Skipper was no good.
Brick: Maggie!
Maggie: Maybe I'm no good either - nobody's good. But Brick, Skipper IS DEAD! And I'M ALIVE!
Brick: Maggie!
Maggie: Maggie 'the Cat' is ALIVE! I'M ALIVE! Why are you afraid of the truth?
Brick: Truth! [He hurls his crutch at her, misses, and pitches forward to the floor.]
View Quote Dixie: Why were you jumpin' hurdles?
Brick: Because I used to jump them, and people like to do what they used to do after they've stopped being able to do it.
Maggie: That's right, and that's your answer. Now go away little girl. [Dixie fires her cap pistol at Maggie] Stop it! You little no-neck monster.
Dixie: You're just jealous 'cause you can't have babies!
[Dixie cruelly sticks her tongue out at Maggie and sashays past her with her stomach stuck out.]
Maggie: See? They and Gooper gloat over us being childless - even in front of their little no-neck monsters. Brick. I went to a doctor in Memphis, a gynecologist. He-he says there's no reason why we can't have a child whenever we want. Brick? Are you listening?
Brick: Yes, Maggie, I hear you. But how in hell on earth do you imagine you're gonna have a child by a man who cannot stand you?
Maggie: That, boy of mine, is a problem I'll just have to work out.
View Quote Big Daddy: I put up with a lot of bull around here because I thought I was dyin'. That's when you started takin' over. Your loud voice and your old busybody buttin' in here, there, and everywhere. Sashayin' around here, makin' a big noise like a boss. I'm the only boss around here. I built this place with no help from you. And I'll run this place 'til the day I die. Now is that plain to ya, Ida? Is that perfectly clear to ya? Now I ain't gonna die. There ain't nothin' wrong with me but a spastic colon! Made spastic, I reckon, by all the lies and liars I've had to put up with around here. And all the hypocrisy I've had to live with these forty years I've lived with you.
Big Mama: In all these years, you never believed I loved you. And I did. I did so much. I did love you. I even loved your hate and your hardness.
View Quote Brick: [about Maggie and Mae] Well, they're a couple of cats. They're sittin' on the middle of a big piece of land, you know, twenty-eight thousand acres - that's a lot of land. And they're both squarin' off, each determined to knock off a bigger piece whenever you let go.
Big Daddy: Well, I got a surprise for them babies. I ain't gonna let go for a long time yet if that's what they're waitin' for.
View Quote Big Daddy: They say Maggie sleeps on the bed and you sleep on the sofa. Is that true or not? If you don't like Maggie, get rid of her! What are you doin' over there now?
Brick: Fresh'nin' up my drink.
Big Daddy: Son, you know you got a real liquor problem?
Brick: Yes sir, I know.
Big Daddy: Is that why you quit your job, sports announcin', because of the liquor?
Brick: I guess so, yes sir, that's it.
Big Daddy: Don't guess about it, son, it's too important.
View Quote Brick: Somethin' hasn't happened yet.
Big Daddy: What's that?
Brick: A click in my head.
Big Daddy: Did you say, 'click'?
Brick: Yes sir, the click in my head that makes me feel peaceful.
Big Daddy: Boy, sometimes you worry me.
Brick: It's like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on and all of a sudden, there's peace.
Big Daddy: Boy, you're, you're a real alcoholic!
Brick: That is the truth. Yes sir, I am an alcoholic, so if you'd just excuse me...
Big Daddy: [grabbing him] No, I won't excuse you.
Brick: Now I'm waitin' for that click and I don't get it. Listen, I'm all alone. I'm talkin' to no one where there's absolute quiet.
Big Daddy: You'll hear plenty of that in the grave soon enough. But right now, we're gonna sit down and talk this over.
Brick: This talk is like all the others. It gets nowhere, nowhere, and it's painful.
View Quote Big Daddy: Now, why do ya drink?!
Brick: Give me my crutch.
Big Daddy: Tell me first.
Brick: No, you give me a drink first and I'll tell ya.
Big Daddy: Tell me first! First you gotta tell me!
Brick: All right, disgust!
Big Daddy: DISGUST WITH WHAT?
Brick: You strike a hard bargain.
Big Daddy: Boy, do you want liquor that bad?
Brick: Yes, sir. I want liquor that bad. [Big Daddy hands him his crutch]
Big Daddy: Now tell me, what are you disgusted with?
Brick: Mendacity. You know what that is. It's lies and liars.
Big Daddy: Who's been lyin' to ya? Maggie? Has your wife been lyin' to ya?
Brick: No. Not one lie, not one person. The whole thing.
Big daddy: Mendacity. What do you know about mendacity? I could write a book on it...Mendacity. Look at all the lies that I got to put up with. Pretenses. Hypocrisy. Pretendin' like I care for Big Mama, I haven't been able to stand that woman in forty years. Church! It bores me. But I go. And all those swindlin' lodges and social clubs and money-grabbin' auxiliaries. It's-it's got me on the number one sucker list. Boy, I've lived with mendacity. Now why can't you live with it? You've got to live with it. There's nothin' to live with but mendacity. Is there?
Brick: Oh, yes sir. [Lifting his glass] You can live with this.
Big Daddy: That's not livin', that's a-dodgin away from life.
Brick: I want to dodge away from it.
Big Daddy: Then son, why don't you kill yourself?
Brick: 'Cause I like to drink.
Big Daddy: I can't talk to you.
Brick: I'm sorry.
View Quote Big Daddy: You expect me to turn over twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of valley Nile to a fool on the bottle?
Brick: No sir.
Big Daddy: I like you son, but why should I subsidize worthless behavior? Rot? Corruption?
Brick: Then turn it over to Gooper and Mae.
Big Daddy: I can't stand Gooper and Mae and those five screamin' monkeys. You know, I don't have to turn it over to any of ya. This day, I ain't made no will. And now I don't have to. The pressure's off. I can just wait and see if you pull yourself together or if you don't... [tenderly] Let's don't leave it like this, like all them other talks we've had. We always seem to talk around things. We seem to leave things unsaid and unspoken. But now we gotta talk straight.
View Quote Brick: Skipper and I were friends. Can you understand that?
Big Daddy: Gooper and Mae said that Skipper...
Brick: [interrupting] Skipper is the only thing that I've got left to believe in. And you are draggin' it through the gutter!
Big Daddy: Now just a minute!
Brick: You are making it shameful and filthy, you...!
[Brick lashes out at his father and misses - and falls to the floor.]
Big Daddy: You and Skipper played football together. Made a few touchdowns. Does that make him God Almighty?
Brick: I could depend on him.
Big Daddy: On the football field?
Brick: At any time, anywhere, anyplace, I could depend on him.
Big Daddy: Are you sure of that?
Brick: Yes sir. Sure.
Big Daddy: Bull. Why did your big strong man fall apart? Why did Skipper crack up?
Brick: All right. You're askin' for it. We're gonna have that talk. That straight true talk. It's too late to stop now.