It's a Wonderful Life quotes

View Quote Uncle Billy: Mary did it, George! Mary did it! She told a few people you were in trouble and they scattered all over town collecting money. They didn't ask any questions — just said: "If George is in trouble — count on me." You never saw anything like it.

View Quote Clarence: What did you stop it for?
Joseph: I want you to take a good look at that face.
Clarence: Who is it?
Joseph: George Bailey.

View Quote Young George: Make up your mind yet?
Young Mary: I'll take chocolate.
Young George: With coconuts?
Young Mary: I don't like coconuts.
Young George: Don't like coconuts? Say brainless, don't you know where coconuts come from? [pulls out a National Geographic magazine] Look-it here, from Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, Coral Sea.
Young Mary: A new magazine! I never saw it.
Young George: 'Course you never. This is just for explorers. It just so happens I've been nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society. I'm going out exploring some day, just you watch. And I might even have a harem, and maybe even one or two wives.

View Quote George: You know, if it wasn't me talking, I'd say you were the prettiest girl in town.
Mary: Well, why don't you say it?
George: I don't know. Maybe I will say it. How old are you anyway?
Mary: Eighteen.
George: Eighteen! Why, it was only last year you were seventeen.
Mary: Too young or too old?
George: Oh, no. Just right. Your age fits you. Yes, sir, you look a little older without your clothes on...I mean, without a dress. You look older...I mean, younger. You look just...
[George steps on the end of the belt on Mary's bathrobe]
George: Oh-oh...
Mary: Sir, my train, please.
George: A pox upon me for a clumsy lout. [throws the belt across her arm] Your...your caboose, my lady.
Mary: You may kiss my hand.
George: Ummmm [holding her hand, George moves in closer] Hey — hey, Mary.

View Quote George: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
George: Well, then you could swallow it, and it'd all dissolve, see? And the moonbeams'd shoot out of your fingers and your toes, and the ends of your hair... Am I talking too much?
Old Man: Yes! Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
George: How's that?
Old Man: Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
George: Want me to kiss her, huh?
Old Man: Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people!

View Quote George: Thank you, sir. Quite a cigar, Mr. Potter.
Potter: You like it? I'll send you a box.
George: Well, I... I suppose I'll find out sooner or later, but just what exactly did you want to see me about?
Potter: [laughs] George, now that's just what I like so much about you. George, I'm an old man, and most people hate me. But I don't like them either, so that makes it all even. You know just as well as I do that I run practically everything in this town but the Bailey Building and Loan. You know, also, that for a number of years I've been trying to get control of it... or kill it. But I haven't been able to do it. You have been stopping me. In fact, you have beaten me, George, and as anyone in this county can tell you, that takes some doing. Take during the depression, for instance. You and I were the only ones that kept our heads. You saved the Building and Loan, and I saved all the rest.
George: Yes. Well, most people say you stole all the rest.
Potter: The envious ones say that, George, the suckers. Now, I have stated my side very frankly. Now, let's look at your side. Young man, twenty-seven,twenty-eight... married, making, say... forty a week.
George: Forty-five!
Potter: Forty-five. Forty-five. Out of which, after supporting your mother, and paying your bills, you're able to keep, say, ten, if you skimp. A child or two comes along, and you won't even be able to save the ten. Now, if this young man of twenty-eight was a common, ordinary yokel, I'd say he was doing fine. But George Bailey is not a common, ordinary yokel. He's an intelligent, smart, ambitious young man — who hates his job –– who hates the Building and Loan almost as much as I do. A young man who's been dying to get out on his own ever since he was born. A young man... the smartest one of the crowd, mind you, a young man who has to sit by and watch his friends go places, because he's trapped. Yes, sir, trapped into frittering his life away playing nursemaid to a lot of garlic-eaters. Do I paint a correct picture, or do I exaggerate?
George: Now what's your point, Mr. Potter?
Potter: My point? My point is, I want to hire you.
George: Hire me?
Potter: I want you to manage my affairs, run my properties. George, I'll start you out at twenty thousand dollars a year.
George: Twenty thou... twenty thousand dollars a year?
Potter: You wouldn't mind living in the nicest house in town, buying your wife a lot of fine clothes, a couple of business trips to New York a year, maybe once in a while Europe. You wouldn't mind that, would you, George?
George: Would I? You're not talking to somebody else around here, are you? You know, this is me, you remember me? George Bailey.
Potter: Oh, yes, George Bailey. Whose ship has just come in –– providing he has brains enough to climb aboard.
George: Well, what about the Building and Loan?
Potter: Oh, confound it, man, are you afraid of success? I'm offering you a three year contract at twenty thousand dollars a year, starting today. Is it a deal or isn't it?
George: Well, Mr. Potter, I... I... I know I ought to jump at the chance, but I... I just... I wonder if it would be possible for you to give me twenty-four hours to think it over?
Potter: Sure, sure, sure. You go on home and talk about it to your wife.
George: I'd like to do that.
Potter: In the meantime, I'll draw up the papers.
George: All right, sir.
Potter: Okay, George?
George: [shaking Potter's hand] Okay, Mr. Potter. [drops Potter's hand] No... no... no... no, now wait a minute, here! I don't have to talk to anybody! I know right now, and the answer is no!NO! Doggone it!You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter! In the... in thewhole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider. You... [to Potter's assistant] And that goes for you too! [to Potter's secretary] And it goes for you too!

View Quote Now you listen to me! I don't want any plastics! I don't want any ground floors, and I don't want to get married — ever — to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do.

View Quote [during the run on the bank] You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's house...right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's house, and a hundred others. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can. Now what are you going to do? Foreclose on them?...Now wait...now listen...now listen to me. I beg of you not to do this thing. If Potter gets hold of this Building and Loan there'll never be another decent house built in this town. He's already got charge of the bank. He's got the bus line. He's got the department stores. And now he's after us. Why? Well, it's very simple. Because we're cutting in on his business, that's why. And because he wants to keep you living in his slums and paying the kind of rent he decides. Joe, you lived in one of those Potter houses, didn't you? Well, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what he charged you for that broken-down shack? Here, Ed. You know, you remember last year when things weren't going so well, and you couldn't make your payments? You didn't lose your house, did you? Do you think Potter would have let you keep it? Can't you understand what's happening here? Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying! And why? Because we're panicky and he's not. That's why. He's picking up some bargains. Now, we can get through this thing all right. We've got to stick together, though. We've got to have faith in each other.

View Quote A toast! A toast to Papa Dollar and to Mama Dollar, and if you want the old Building and Loan to stay in business, you better have a family real quick.

View Quote [to Uncle Billy] Where's that money, you stupid, silly old fool? Where's the money?! Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison! That's what it means. One of us is going to jail! Well, it's not gonna be me!

View Quote Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence. Get me back. Get me back. I don't care what happens to me. Only get me back to my wife and kids. Help me, Clarence, please. Please! I want to live again. I want to live again. I want to live again.....Please, God, let me live again. [snow immediately begins falling again]

View Quote Well whaddya know about that!!!

View Quote What are you doing, picketing?

View Quote He's making violent love to me, mother.

View Quote Remember that night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for.