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Vertigo

Vertigo quotes

30 total quotes

Detective John 'Scottie" Ferguson
Gavin Elster
Multiple Characters




View Quote Well, I think that explains it. Anyone could become obsessed with the past with a background like that!
View Quote [to Midge] I always said you were wasting your time in the underwear department.
View Quote You're gonna be all right now, Madeleine. Don't you see? You've given me something to work on now! I'm gonna take you down there to that mission this afternoon and when you see it, you'll remember when you saw it before, and it'll finish your dream. It will destroy it. I promise you. All right?
View Quote The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast..I should have liked to have lived here then - color, excitement, power, freedom.
View Quote My wife Madeleine has several pieces of jewelry that belonged to Carlotta. She inherited them. Never wore them - they were too old-fashioned, until now. Now when she's alone, she takes them out and looks at them, handles them gently, curiously. Puts them on and stares at herself in the mirror. Then goes into that other world, is someone else again.
View Quote Sorry Scottie, that was rotten. He had no right to speak to you like that. It was my responsibility. I shouldn't have got you involved. No, there's nothing you have to say to me. I'm getting out Scottie, for good. I can't stay here. I'm going to wind up her affairs, and mine, and get away as far as I can. Europe perhaps. I probably never will come back. Goodbye, Scottie. If there's anything I can do for you before I go? There's no way for them to understand. You and I know who killed Madeleine.
View Quote Pop Leibel: Oh yes, I remember. Carlotta, beautiful Carlotta, sad...It (the McKittrick Hotel) was hers. It was built for her many years ago...by...the name I do not remember, a rich man, powerful man...It is not an unusual story. She came from somewhere small to the south of the city. Some say from a mission settlement. Young, yes, very young. And she was found dancing and singing in cabaret by that man. And he took her and built for her the great house in the Western Addition. And, uh, there was, there was a child, yes, that's it, a child, a child. I cannot tell you exactly how much time passed or how much happiness there was, but then he threw her away. He had no other children. His wife had no children. So, he kept the child and threw her away. You know, a man could do that in those days. They had the power and the freedom. And she became the sad Carlotta, alone in the great house, walking the streets alone, her clothes becoming old and patched and dirty. And the mad Carlotta, stopping people in the streets to ask, 'Where is my child?' 'Have you seen my child?' ...She died...by her own hand. There are many such stories.
View Quote Midge: Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie. Please try. Try, Johnnie. You're not lost. Mother's here...John-O, you don't even know I'm here, do you?
View Quote Judy Barton: I heard that one before too. I remind you of someone you used to be madly in love with, but then she ditched ya for another guy. And you've been carrying the torch ever since. Then you saw me and something clicked.
View Quote Judy Barton: [in a letter to Scottie] Dear Scottie: And so you found me. This is the moment that I've dreaded and hoped for, wondering what I would say and do if I ever saw you again. I wanted so to see you again just once. Now I'll go and you can give up your search. I want you to have peace of mind. You have nothing to blame yourself for. You were the victim. I was the tool, and you were the victim of Gavin Elster's plan to murder his wife. He chose me to play the part because I looked like her, dressed me up like her. He was quite safe because she lived in the country and rarely came to town. He chose you to be a witness to a suicide. Carlotta's story was part real, part invented to make you testify that Madeleine wanted to kill herself. He knew of your illness. He knew you'd never get up the stairs to the tower. He planned it so well. He made no mistakes. I made a mistake. I fell in love. That wasn't part of the plan. I'm still in love with you. And I want you so to love me. If I had the nerve, I'd stay and lie, hoping that I could make you love me again as I am, for myself, and so forget the other and forget the past. But I don't know whether I have the nerve to try.
View Quote Scottie: It's because of this fear of heights I have, this acrophobia. I wake up at night seeing that man fall from the roof and I try to reach out to him, it's just...
Midge: It wasn't your fault.
Scottie: I know. That's what everybody tells me.
Midge: Johnny, the doctors explained to you.
Scottie: I know. I know. I have acrophobia which gives me vertigo and I get dizzy. Boy, what a moment to find out I had it!
Midge: Well, you've got it and there's no losing it. And there's no one to blame, so why quit?
Scottie: You mean and sit behind a desk, chair-bound...
Midge: ...where you belong.
Scottie: What about my acrophobia? What about... Now, suppose, suppose I'm sitting in this chair behind a desk, here's the desk, and a pencil falls from the desk down to the floor, and I reach down to pick up the pencil - BINGO - my acrophobia's back.
Midge: [Laughing.] Oh, Johnny-O.
View Quote Scottie: I'm a man of independent means as the saying goes. Fairly independent.
Midge: Hmm, mmm. Well, why don't you go away for a while?
Scottie: You mean to forget? Oh now, Midge, don't be so motherly. I'm not gonna crack up.
View Quote Elster: Is it a permanent, physical disability?
Scottie: No, no. It just means that I can't climb stairs that are too steep or go to high places like the bar at the Top of the Mark. But there are plenty of street-level bars in this town.
View Quote Elster: [regarding his wife] She'll be talking to me about something. Suddenly the words fade into silence. A cloud comes into her eyes and they go blank. She's somewhere else, away from me, someone I don't know. I call her, she doesn't even hear me. Then, with a long sigh, she's back. Looks at me brightly, doesn't even know she's been away, can't tell me where or when.
Scottie: How often does this happen?
Elster: More and more in the past few weeks. And she wanders - God knows where she wanders. I followed her one day, watched her coming out of the apartment, someone I didn't know. She even walked a different way. Got into her car and drove off to Golden Gate Park. Five miles. Sat by the lake, staring across the water at the pillars that stand on the far shore. You know, Portals of the Past. Sat there a long time without moving. I had to leave, get back to the office. When I got home that evening, I asked her what she'd done all day. She said she'd driven out to Golden Gate Park and sat by the lake, that's all.
Scottie: Well.
Elster: The speedometer on her car showed that she'd driven ninety-four miles. Where did she go? I've got to know, Scottie, where she goes and what she does before I get involved with doctors.
View Quote Midge: Is she pretty?
Scottie: Carlotta?
Midge: No, not Carlotta. Elster's wife.
Scottie: Yes, I guess you'd consider that she would...
Midge: I think I'll go and take a look at that portrait.