Philadelphia Story, The (1940) quotes

View Quote Tracy: When you can do a thing like that book, how can you possibly do anything else?
Mike: Well, you may not believe this, but there are people in this world that must earn their living.
Tracy: Of course, but people buy books, don't they?
Mike: Not as long as there's a library around. You know, that book of mine represents two solid years' work. And it netted Connor something under six hundred dollars.
Tracy: But that shouldn't be!...What about your Miss Imbrie?
Mike: Well, Miss Imbrie is in somewhat the same fix. She's a born painter, and might be a very important one. But Miss Imbrie must eat. And she also prefers a roof over her head to being constantly out in the rain and snow.
Tracy: Food and a roof.

View Quote Mike: Age 32...General Manager, Quaker State Coal, controlling interest in the company owned by Seth Lord - that's the girl's father, huh?
Dexter: Uh, huh.
Liz: What a coincidence.
Mike: How did he meet her?
Dexter: Heaven brought them together, I imagine.
Mike: Now about this girl. Tracy Samantha Lord...Oh, what's her leading characteristic.
Dexter: [Mike is wearing a hat] She has a horror of men who wear their hats in the house. [leaves the room]
Liz: Leading characteristics to be filled in later.
Mike: I can fill them in right now: the young rich, rapacious, American female. There's no other country where she exists.
Liz: And would I change places with Tracy Samantha Lord for all her wealth and beauty? Oh boy just ask me.

View Quote I feel as though I'd lived through all of this before in another life.

View Quote George: [looking through Spy Magazine] Well I thought maybe you, you being one of the oldest families in Philadelphia and me getting fairly important myself, it's luck of course...
Tracy: [tossing the paper into the dirt] Of all the filthy ideas - coming into a private house with a camera.

View Quote Kidd: Your assignment will be Spy's most sensational achievement - Tracy Lord. Big game hunting in Africa, fox hunting in Pennsylvania. Married on impulse and divorced in a rage. And always unapproachable by the press. 'The Unapproachable Miss Lord.' 'The Philadelphia Story'...(quote) 'A Wedding Day Inside Mainline Society.'
Mike: Or: 'What the Kitchen Maid Saw Through the Keyhole.' (unquote)...(quote) 'No hunter of buckshot in the rear is Cagey Crafty Connor.' (unquote) (close paragraph)
Liz: Close job, close bank account. But Mr. Kidd, how can you possibly get inside the Lord estate, let alone the house?
Mike: Now we're not gonna do it, Liz, dawgonnit, it's degrading. It's undignified.
Liz: And so is an empty stomach. How do we get in?

View Quote [in response to Mike's impromptu proposal] No, Mike. Thanks but, mm-mm. Nope...Because I don't think Liz would like it. And I'm not sure you would. And I'm even a little doubtful about myself. But I am beholden to you, Mike. I'm most beholden.

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

View Quote [hungover] Awww... this is one of those days that the pages of history teach us are best spent in bed.

View Quote Tracy: I thought you were low, but I never thought you'd sink to...Who the heck do they think they are, barging in on peaceful people?
Dexter: Now, shush, shush, they'll think you don't want them.
Tracy: I want them out and you too.
Dexter: Yes, yes your Majesty, but first, could I interest you in some small blackmail?
Tracy: No!
Dexter: [as he removes an article from his coat pocket] Well, it's an article, complete with snapshots, details, and insinuations. And it's ready for publication in Spy and it's about your father and that dancer in New York.
Tracy: [grabbing the article] About father and Tina Mara?
Dexter: Now quiet, Dinah...
Tracy: But they can't. Well they can't, even if it's true. Where did you get these?
Dexter: From Sidney Kidd. The editor and publisher...
Tracy: He's got to be stopped.
Dexter: Well he is, temporarily. That is, if you'll allow those two to turn in a story on your wedding. And when Kidd says a story, he means a story!
Tracy: I'm gonna be sick.
Dexter: Yes, dear. 'An Intimate Day with a Society Bride.'
Tracy: I am sick.
Dexter: Well, it's tough, but that's the way it seems to be.
Tracy: So I'm to be examined, undressed, and generally humiliated at fifteen cents a copy. And you, you ---. You're loving it.
Dexter: Am I, Red?

View Quote Tracy: They aren't anybody's friends, but we're to pretend they are...Don't ask me, there's a good reason and it's my wedding, so please!
Dinah: I'll bet it's on account of father and that dancer in New York.
Tracy: Watching every little mannerism, jotting down notes on how we sit, stand, talk, and even move...And all in that horrible, snide, corkscrew English. Well, if we have to submit to it to save father's face, which [she covers Dinah's ears] incidentally doesn't deserve it, I'm for giving them a picture of home life that will stand their hair on end.
Margaret: No. Tracy, we must just be ourselves. Very much ourselves.

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 Mike: Well, are you sure you're doing the right thing? You know what happens to girls like you when they read books like mine. They begin to think. That's bad.
Tracy: These stories are beautiful. Why, Connor, they're almost poetry.
Mike: Well, don't kid yourself - they are.
Tracy: I can't make you out at all, now.
Mike: Really? I thought I was easy.
Tracy: So did I. But you're not. You, you talk so big and tough - and then you write like this. Which is which?
Mike: Both, I guess.
Tracy: No. No I-I believe you put the toughness on to save your skin.
Mike: Do you think so?
Tracy: I know a little about that.
Mike: Do you?
Tracy: Quite a lot.

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 Kidd: I understand we understand each other.
Dexter: Quite.