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His Girl Friday

His Girl Friday quotes

54 total quotes

Bruce Baldwin
Hildegard 'Hildy' Johnson
Mollie Malloy
Multiple Characters
Walter Burns




View Quote Bruce: You know, Hildy, he's not such a bad fellow.
Hildy: No, he should make some girl real happy.
Bruce: Uh-huh.
Hildy: [To herself] Slap-happy.
Bruce: He's not the man for you. I can see that. But I sort of like him. He's got a lot of charm.
Hildy: Well, he comes by it naturally. His grandfather was a snake.
View Quote Walter: Well, he'll (Egelhoffer) say the same as all the rest.
Hildy: Suppose he does.
Walter: Well, what's the scheme, Hildy?
Hildy: Look Walter, you get the interview with Earl Williams. Print Egelhoffer's statement. And right alongside of it - you know, double column - run your interview. Alienist says he's sane. Interview shows he's goofy.
Walter: Aw Hildy, you can do it. You could save that poor devil's life.
View Quote Bruce: How long would the interview take?
Walter: Oh, about an hour for the interview. Another hour to write it. That's about all.
Bruce: Hildy, we could take the six o'clock train if it'd save a man's life.
Hildy: No, Bruce. [To Walter] If you want to save Earl Williams' life, you write the interview yourself. You're still a good reporter.
Walter: Aw, Hildy. You know I can't write that kind of thing. It takes a woman's touch. It needs that heart, that...
Hildy: Now don't get poetic, Walter. Get Sweeney. He's the best man you've got on the paper for that sob-sister stuff.
Walter: [explaining that Sweeney is not to be found because he is out celebrating the birth of twins] So Sweeney has twins, and Earl Williams gets hanged tomorrow. [to Bruce] Well you argue with her. You argue with her. Otherwise, you're going on a honeymoon with blood on your hands. How can you have any happiness after that? All through the years, you'll remember that a man went to the gallows because she was too selfish to wait two hours. I tell ya, Bruce, Earl Williams' face will come between you on the train tonight and at the preacher's tomorrow, and all the rest of your lives.
Hildy: I just remembered. Sweeney was only married four months ago.
Walter: All right, Hildy, you win. I'm licked.
View Quote Walter: [to Bruce] You persuade Hildy to do the story and you can write out a nice fat insurance policy for me.
Bruce: I refuse to use my wife for business purposes.
Hildy: We could use that money, Bruce. How long would it take to get him examined?
Bruce: Well, I could get a company doctor here in twenty minutes.
Hildy: Alright Bruce, suppose you have Mr. Burns examined over in his office and see what they'll allow on that old carcass of his...
Walter: Say, I'm better than I ever was. How do ya like...
Hildy: There was never anything to brag about. Now look, Bruce. I'll go back and change and dress. And after you get the check, you phone me. I'll be in the press-room of the Criminal Courts Building. Oh Walter!
Walter: What?
Hildy: By the way, I think you'd better make that a certified check.
Walter: What do you think I am, a crook?
Hildy: Yes. No certified check, no story. Get me?
Walter: It'll be certified. Want my fingerprints?
Hildy: No thanks. I've still got those.
View Quote Roy Bensinger: A new lead on the hanging - This alienist from New York, Dr. Max J. Egelhoffer, Egelhoffer, yeah, he's gonna interview with him in about half an hour in the Sheriff's office...Here's the situation on the eve of the hanging...A double guard is being thrown around the jail, the Municipal Buildings, railroad terminals, and elevated stations to prepare for the expected general uprising of radicals at the hour of execution.
Murphy: The Sheriff has just put two hundred more relatives on the payroll to protect the city from the Red Army which is leaving Moscow in a couple of minutes.
View Quote Hildy: I have to do a yarn on Williams. Did he know what he was doing when he fired that gun?
Murphy: If you ask us, 'No.' If you ask the state alienist, the answer is 'Yes.'
Hildy: Who is he? What's he do?
Jake McCue: He was a bookkeeper. He starts out at twenty dollars a week and after fourteen years, he gradually works himself up to seventeen fifty...Plus the company goes out of business and Williams loses his job...
Ernie: So he starts hangin' around the park, listenin' to a lot of soapbox spellbinders makin' phony speeches and begins to believe 'em.
Endicott: And makes some of his own.
View Quote Walter: [after designating Hildy as the beneficiary of his life insurance policy] Well, by that time, you'll probably have made enough so that the money won't mean anything to you. But suppose you haven't made good Bruce? What about Hildy's old age? Think of Hildy. Ah - I can see her now. White-haired. Lavender and old lace. Can't you see her, Bruce?
Bruce: [dreamily] Yes. Yes I can.
Walter: She's old, isn't she? Now Bruce, don't you think that Hildy is entitled to spend her last remaining years without worries of money? Of course you do, Bruce.
Bruce: Of course, if you put it that way.
Walter: And remember, I love her too.
Bruce: Yes, I'm beginning to realize that.
Walter: And the beauty of it is, she'll never have to know until I've passed on. Oh well, maybe she'll think kindly of me after I'm gone.
Bruce: Gee! You make me feel like a heel comin' between ya.
Walter: No, no Bruce. You didn't come between us. It was all over for her before you came on the scene. For me...it'll never be.
View Quote Williams: He [the soap-box speaker] said everything should be made use of.
Hildy: It makes quite a bit of sense, doesn't it?...Now look, Earl, when you found yourself with that gun in your hand, and that policeman coming at you, what did you think about?...You must have thought of something...Could it have been, uh, 'production for use'?...What's a gun for Earl?
Williams: A gun?...Why to shoot, of course.
Hildy: Oh. Maybe that's why you used it.
Williams: Maybe.
Hildy: Seems reasonable?
Williams: Yes, yes it is. You see, I've never had a gun in my hand before. That's what a gun's for, isn't it? Maybe that's why.
Hildy: Sure it is.
Williams: Yes, that's what I thought of. Production for use. Why, it's simple isn't it?
Hildy: Very simple.
Williams: There's nothing crazy about that, is there?
Hildy: Nope. Nothing at all.
Williams: You'll write about that in your paper, won't you?
Hildy: You bet I will.
Williams: I liked talking to you.
View Quote Mollie: Aren't they inhuman?
Hildy: I know. They're newspapermen.
Mollie: All they've been doing is lying. All they've been doing is writing lies...Why won't they listen to me?
View Quote Murphy: Why can't you hang this guy at five o'clock instead of seven?
Bensinger: Sure, it won't hurt you, and we'd make the city edition.
Sheriff: Oh well now, that's, that's kind of raw, Roy. After all, I can't hang a man in his sleep just to please the newspaper.
Newsman: No, but you can reprieve him twice so the hanging's three days before election, can't ya?
Endicott: You can run on a law and order ticket. You can do that all right.
Sheriff: Honest boys, I had absolutely nothing to do with those reprieves. He's just as sane as I am.
View Quote Newsman: Well, I still say that anybody that can write like that ain't gonna give it up permanently and sew socks for a guy in the insurance business. Now I give that marriage three months and I'm layin' three to one. Any takers?
Hildy: [entering the room] I'll take that bet. Geez. It's getting so a girl can't leave the room without being discussed by a bunch of old ladies...
Newsman: Oh, don't get sore, Hildy. We were only saying a swell reporter like you wouldn't quit so easy...
Hildy: Oh, I can quit all right without a single quiver. I'm gonna live like a human being. Not like you chumps.
View Quote Walter: [describing Bruce] He looks like, uh, that fellow in the movies, you know, uh, Ralph Bellamy.
Benji: Oh him.
Walter: Can you handle it?
Benji: I've never flopped on you yet, have I?
View Quote Mayor: Have you seen Sheriff Hartwell?
Endicott: It's hard to tell, your Honor. You see, there's so many ****roaches around here.
View Quote Hildy: Mrs. Baldwin - Mother!
Mrs. Baldwin: Don't you 'Mother' me! Playing cat and mouse with my poor boy, keeping him locked up, making us miss two trains and you supposed to be married tomorrow.
Hildy: I'll be with you in five minutes.
Mrs. Baldwin: You don't have to go with me at all. Just give me Bruce's money and you can stay here forever as far as I'm concerned - you and that murderer you caught...Which one of these men is it? They all look like murderers to me.
Endicott: Wait a minute, Hildy. What murderer did you catch?...
Hildy: I don't know what she's talking about. I haven't said any such thing.
Mrs. Baldwin: I am quoting my son, and he has never lied to me.
Hildy: That's ridiculous. In the first place, I never said anything like that.
Mrs. Baldwin: Yes you did.
Hildy: No, I didn't. I said I was trying to find the murderer. [To the news-hungry reporters] She got it all balled up. Can't you see that?
View Quote Walter: Get Bruce out of jail? How can you worry about a man who's resting in a nice quiet police station while this is going on? Hildy, this is WAR! You can't desert me now!
Hildy: Oh Walter, get off that trapeze. You've got your story right over there in the desk. Go on. Smear it all over the front page. Earl Williams - captured by the Morning Post. I covered your story for ya and I got in a fine mess doing it. Now I'm gettin' out.
Walter: You're a drooling idiot. What do you mean you're getting out? There are 365 days in a year one can get married. How many times you got a murderer locked up in a desk? Once-in-a-lifetime. Hildy, you got the whole city by the seat of the pants.
Hildy: Sure, I know, I know...
Walter: You know. You know. You got the brain of a pancake. This isn't just a story you're covering. It's a revolution. This is the greatest yarn in journalism since Livingston discovered Stanley.
Hildy: It's the other way around.
Walter: Oh, well don't get technical at a time like this. Do you realize what you've done, honey? You've taken a city that's been graft-ridden for 40 years under the same old gang. With this yarn, you're kicking 'em out. They're giving us a chance to have the same kind of government New York's having under LaGuardia. Listen honey, if I didn't have your best interest at heart, do you think I'd waste my time arguin' with ya? You've done something big, Hildy. You've stepped up into a new class.
Hildy: Huh?
Walter: We'll make such monkeys out of those ward heelers next Tuesday nobody will vote for 'em. Not even their wives.
Hildy: Expose 'em, eh...
Walter: Certainly. We'll crucify that mob. We'll keep Williams under cover until morning so the Post can break the story exclusive. Then we'll let the Governor in on the capture. Share the glory with him.
Hildy: I get it. I get it.
Walter: You've kicked over the whole City Hall like an applecart. You've got the Mayor and Hartwell backed up against a wall. You put one administration out and another one in. This isn't just a newspaper story, Hildy. It's a career. And you standin' there bellyache-ing about whether you're catchin' an eight o'clock train or a nine o'clock train.
Hildy: Well, Walter, I never figured it that way.
Walter: You're still a doll-faced hick, that's why.
Hildy: Gee, we'd be the white-haired boys, won't we?
Walter: Sure, they'll be naming streets after you. Hildy Johnson Street. There'll be statues of ya in the park. The movies will be after ya. The radio. By tomorrow morning, I'll betcha there's a Hildy Johnson cigar. I can see the billboards now. They say, 'Light up with Hildy Johnson.'
Hildy: Oh Walter, will you stop that acting!...We got a lot to do.
Walter: Now you're talking.