Philadelphia Story, The (1940) quotes

View Quote Mike: Doggone it, C.K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.
Dexter: Shall we toss a coin?

View Quote Mike: [drunk] Are you still in love with her?...Liz thinks you are...But of course, women like to romanticize [hiccup] about things...I don't know, I-I can't understand how you can have been married to her and still know so little about her?...You know, Tracy's no ordinary woman. And you said some things to her this afternoon I resented.
Dexter: Well, I apologize Mr. Connor.
Mike: That's quite all right. Quite all right. But when a girl is like Tracy, she's one in a million. She's, she's sort of like a, she's sort of like a...
Dexter: A goddess?
Mike: No, no, no. No, you said that word this afternoon. No. No, she's, she's sort of like a queen. A radiant glorious queen. And you can't treat her like other women.
Dexter: No, I suppose not. But then I imagine Kittredge appreciates all that.
Mike: Kittredge! Kittredge appreciates Kittredge. Ah, that fake man of the people. He isn't even smart.

View Quote Dexter: I always thought Kidd himself was the five-cent Kidd.
Mike: And what's that make you worth, C. K. Dexter Haven? Bringing us down here.
Dexter: But you know why I did that. To get even with my ex-bride. You told me so yourself...
Mike: Kidd's just using you like he uses everybody else. You don't know Kidd like I know him. The guy's colossal, he's terrific, he's got everybody fooled.
Dexter: No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd.

View Quote Dexter: You see, Kidd is holding a dirty piece on Tracy's father. This might stop him.
Mike: On Tracy's father?
Dexter: That's right.
Mike: Oh. Oh, so that's how Kidd got you to...That's how Liz and I were gotten in. Blackmail, huh? We all rode into this thing on a filthy blackmail. Well look. You use it. Use it with my blessings. I'm cooked. I'm through anyway. I'm not gonna hand in a story on this wedding. I'm gonna write one on Kidd.
Dexter: No, no. Let me do it. I don't have to tell him where I got my facts, OK?

View Quote Tracy: Aren't you coming Liz?
Liz: Well, it seems I've got to commit suicide first.

View Quote Liz: We've come for the body of Macaulay Connor.
Dexter: I'm so glad you came. Can you use a typewriter?
Liz: No, thanks, I've got one at home.

View Quote Dexter: You look beautiful, Red. [She slowly opens her eyes] Come on in.
Tracy: [drunk] Why?
Dexter: No particular reason. A drink, maybe?
Tracy: I don't drink.
Dexter: That's right, I forgot.
Tracy: I haven't.

View Quote Mike: [drunk] You going my way miss?
Tracy: [drunk] That's "Miss Goddess" to you.
Mike: Okay, Miss Goddess To Me.

View Quote Mike: The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.
Tracy: You're a snob, Connor.
Mike: No doubt, no doubt...Tracy. You can't marry that guy.
Tracy: George? I'm going to. Why, why not?
Mike: Well, I don't know. I thought I'd be for it at first, but you just don't seem to match up.
Tracy: Then the fault's with me.
Mike: Well, maybe so, but all the same now, you can't do it.
Tracy: No?
Mike: No.
Tracy: Come around about noon tomorrow. I mean today. Snob.
Mike: What do ya mean, snob?
Tracy: You're the worst kind there is. An intellectual snob. You made up your mind awfully young, it seems to me.
Mike: Well, thirty's about time to make up your mind. And I'm nothing of the sort, not Mr. Connor.
Tracy: The time to make up your mind about people - is never. Yes you are, and a complete one.
Mike: You're quite a girl, aren't you?
Tracy: You think?
Mike: Yeah, I know.
Tracy: Thank you, Professor. I don't think I'm exceptional.
Mike: You are though.
Tracy: I know any number like me. You ought to get around more.
Mike: In the upper class. No, no. No thank you.
Tracy: You're just a mass of prejudices, aren't you? You're so much thought and so little feeling, Professor.
Mike: Oh I am, am I?
Tracy: Yes you am, are you! Your intolerance infuriates me. I should think that of all people, a writer would need tolerance. The fact is, you'll never - you can't be a first-rate writer or a first-rate human being until you've learned to have some small regard for human fra...[Suddenly, she stops, her eyes widen, and she realizes that she is repeating Dexter's words. She turns] Aren't the geraniums pretty, Professor? Is it not a handsome day that begins, Professor?
Mike: All right, lay off that, Professor.
Tracy: Yes, Professor.
Mike: You've got all the arrogance of your class, all right, haven't you?
Tracy: Halt. What have classes to do with it? What do they matter except for the people in them? George comes from the so-called lower class. Dexter from the upper...Upper and lower, my eye. I'll take the lower, thanks.
Mike: If you can't get a drawing room.
Tracy: What do you mean by that?
Mike: My mistake.
Tracy: Decidedly. You're insulting.
Mike: I'm sorry.
Tracy: Oh, don't apologize.
Mike: Well, who's apologizing?
Tracy: I never knew such a man.
Mike: You wouldn't be likely to, dear, not from where you sit.
Tracy: Talk about arrogance.
Mike: Tracy.
Tracy: What do you want?
Mike: You're wonderful. [She laughs] There's a magnificence in you, Tracy.
Tracy: Now, I'm getting self-conscious. It's funny. I- Mike? Let's...
Mike: Yeah?
Tracy: I don't know - go up I guess, it's late.
Mike: A magnificence that comes out of your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts.
Tracy: I don't seem to you made of bronze?
Mike: [takes her in his arms] No, you're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy. Full of life and warmth and delight. What goes on? You've got tears in your eyes.
Tracy: Shut up, shut up. Oh Mike. Keep talking, keep talking. Talk, will you?
Mike: No, no. I-I've stopped.
Tracy: Why? Has your mind taken hold again, dear Professor?
Mike: That's really all I am to you, is it?
Tracy: Of course, Professor.
Mike: Are you sure?
Tracy: Why, yes, yes, of course...
[Mike's forceful, passionate kiss stops her next word. She takes the melodramatic kiss and returns it]
Tracy: Golly. [She kisses him a second time] Golly Moses. All of a sudden, I got the shakes.
Mike: It can't be anything like love, can it?
Tracy: No! No! It mustn't be. It can't.
Mike: Would it be inconvenient?
Tracy: Terribly. Anyway, I know it isn't. Oh Mike, we're out of our minds.
Mike: And right into our hearts.
Tracy: That ought to have music.
Mike: It does, doesn't it? Tracy, you're so lovely.
Tracy: Oh, it's as if my insteps were melting away. What is it? Have I got feet of clay or something?
Mike: Tracy...
Tracy: It's not far to the pool. It's just over the lawn and in the birch-grove. It'll be lovely now.
Mike: Tracy, you're tremendous...
Tracy: Put me in your pocket, Mike.

View Quote Liz: Mike's only chance to ever become a really fine writer is to get fired. He's still got a lot to learn. I don't want to get in his way for a while.
Dexter: Suppose another girl came along in the meantime?
Liz: I'd scratch her eyes out, I guess, that is, unless she was going to marry somebody else the next day.

View Quote [Mike walks in, carrying a drunk Tracy]
Dexter: [To George] Now easy old man! [To Mike] She's not hurt?
Mike: No, no.
Tracy: Not wounded, sire, but dead.
Mike: It seems the minute she hit the water, the wine hit her.
George: Now look here, Connor.
Dexter: A likely story, Connor.
Tracy: Hello, Dexter. Hello, George. Hello, Mike. My feet are made of clay. Made of clay, did you know? Good niiiggghhhttt little man!
[Mike carries her upstairs]
Dexter: How are the mighty fallen! But if I know Tracy - and I know her well, she'll remember little of this. For the second time in her life, she'll draw quite a tidy blank.

View Quote [As George is about to hit Mike, Dexter instead steps in and hits Mike]
George: Hey listen! What right have...?
Dexter: A husband's, till tomorrow, Kittredge.
[George leaves]
Dexter: [to Mike] I know. I know. I'm sorry. But I thought I'd better hit you before he did. He's in better shape than I am.
Mike: Well, you're enough.

View Quote Tracy: I don't know what's the matter with me. I must have had too much sun yesterday. My eyes don't open properly.
Dexter: You should have taken a quick swim when you got home.
Tracy: [remembering the previous night] A swim? A swim!
Dexter: There, now they're open.
Dinah: That was just the beginning, and it was no dream!

View Quote Dexter: Perhaps I'll go look for some eye-openers in the pantry.
Uncle Willie: That's the first sane remark I've heard today. Come along, Dexter. I know a formula that's said to pop the pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen.
Dexter: [to Dinah] If the conversation should lag, you might tell Tracy about your dream.

View Quote Dinah: I dreamed I got up and went over to the window - and guess what I dreamed I saw coming over out of the woods?
Tracy: I haven't the faintest idea. A skunk?
Dinah: Well, sort of - it was Mr. Connor.
Tracy: Mr. Connor?
Dinah: Yes, with his both arms full of something. And guess what it turned out to be?
Tracy: What?
Dinah: You, and some clothes. Wasn't it funny? It was sort of like as if you were coming from the pool.
Tracy: The pool? I'm going crazy. I'm standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy. Then what?
Dinah: And after a while, I opened my door a crack and there he was in the hall, still coming along with you, puffing like a steam engine. His wind can't be very good.
Tracy: Then what?
Dinah: And you were sort of crooning.
Tracy: I never crooned in my life.
Dinah: I'm only saying what it sounded like. And then he - guess what?
Tracy: I couldn't possibly.
Dinah: Then he just sailed right into your room with you, and that scared me, so I got up and went to your door and peeked in to make sure you were all right. And guess what?
Tracy: What?
Dinah: You were. He was gone by then.
Tracy: Gone? Of course he was gone - he was never there!
Dinah: I know, Tracy.
Tracy: Well, I should certainly hope you did.
Dinah: I'm certainly glad I do, because if I didn't and in a little while I heard the minister say, 'If anyone knows any just cause or reason why these two should not be united in holy matrimony,' I just wouldn't know what to do. Dexter says it's a dream too.
Tracy: Dex-, you told Dexter all that?
Dinah: Not a word. Not a single word. But you know how quick he is.
Tracy: Dinah Lord, you little fiend, how can you stand there and...?