When Harry Met Sally quotes

View Quote Harry: [discussing Casablanca's Rick and Ilsa] He wants her to leave. That's why he puts her on the plane.
Sally: I don't think she wants to stay.
Harry: Of course she wants to stay. Wouldn't you rather be with Humphrey Bogart than the other guy?
Sally: I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca married to a man who runs a bar. That probably sounds very snobbish to you, but I don't.
Harry: You'd rather be in a passionless marriage -
Sally: - and be the First Lady of Czechoslovakia -
Harry: - than live with the man... you've had the greatest sex of your life with, just because he owns a bar and that is all he does.
Sally: Yes, and so would any woman in her right mind. Women are very practical. Even Ingrid Bergman, which is why she gets on the plane at the end of the movie.

View Quote Harry: I think they have an OK time.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: What do you mean how do I know? I know.
Sally: Because they...
Harry: Yes, because they...
Sally: And how do you know that they really...
Harry: What are you saying, that they fake orgasm?
Sally: It's possible.
Harry: Get outta here!
Sally: Why? Most women at one time or another have faked it.
Harry: Well they haven't faked it with me.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because I know.
Sally: Oh, right, that's right, I forgot, you're a man.
Harry: What is that supposed to mean?
Sally: Nothing. It's just that all men are sure it never happened to them and that most women at one time or another have done it so you do the math.
Harry: You don't think that I could tell the difference?
Sally: No.
Harry: Get outta here.
Sally: Ooo...Oh...Ooo...
Harry: Are you OK?
Sally: Oh...Oh god...Ooo Oh God...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh God...Oh yeah right there Oh! Oh...Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh...Oh...Yes Yes Yes....Oh...Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh...Oh... Oh...Oh God Oh... Oh... Huh...
Older Woman Customer: [to waiter] I'll have what she's having. Note: the bolded line is ranked #33 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: And Ingrid Bergman is low maintenance?
Harry: An L.M. Definitely.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.
Sally: I don't see that.
Harry: You don't see that? "Waiter, I'll begin with the house salad, but I don't want the regular dressing. I'll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side, and then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side." 'On the side' is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know, high maintenance.

View Quote Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is — and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form — is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don't.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally: What if they don't want to have sex with you?
Harry: Doesn't matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we're not going to be friends then.
Harry: Guess not.
Sally: That's too bad. You were the only person that I knew in New York.

View Quote Jess: I don't understand this relationship.
Harry: What do you mean?
Jess: You enjoy being with her?
Harry: Yeah.
Jess: You find her attractive?
Harry: Yeah.
Jess: And you're not sleeping with her.
Harry: No.
Jess: You're afraid to let yourself be happy.
Harry: Why can't you give me credit for this? This is a big thing for me. I never had a relationship with a woman that didn't involve sex. I feel like I'm growing.
...
Harry: It's very freeing. I can say anything to her.
Jess: Are you saying you can say things to her you can't say to me?
Harry: Nah, it's just different. It's a whole new perspective. I get the woman's point of view on things. She tells me about the men she goes out with and I can talk to her about the women that I see.
Jess: You tell her about other women.
Harry: Yeah. Like the other night. I made love to this woman, and it was so incredible, I took her to a place that wasn't human, she actually meowed.
Jess: You made a woman meow?
Harry: Yeah. That's the point, I can say these things to her. And the great thing is, I don't have to lie because I'm not always thinking about how to get her into bed. I can just be myself.
Jess: You made a woman meow?

View Quote Harry: Helen comes home from and she said, "I don't know if I want to be married anymore." Like it's the institution, you know, like it's nothing personal, just something she's been thinking about... in a casual way. I'm calm, I say, "Why don't we take some time to think about it, you know, don't rush into anything."
Jess: Yeah, right.
Harry: Next day she said she's thought about it, and she wants a trial separation. She just wants to try it, she says, but we can still date. Like this is supposed to cushion the blow. I mean I got married so I can stop dating. So I don't see where we can still date is any big incentive since the last thing you want to do is date your wife, who's suppose to love you, which is what I'm saying to you, that's when it occurs to me that maybe...she doesn't. So I say to her, "Don't you love me anymore?" You know what she says? "I don't know if I've ever loved you."
Jess: Ooo that's harsh. You don't bounce back from that right away.
Harry: Thanks Jess.
Jess: No, I'm a writer, I know dialogue and that's particularly harsh.
Harry: Then she tells me that somebody in her office is going to South America and she can sub-let his apartment. I can't believe this, and the doorbell rings, 'I can sub-let his apartment', the words are still hanging in the air, you know, like in a balloon attached to a mouth.
Jess: Like in the cartoon.
Harry: Right. So I go to the door, and there were moving men there. Now I start to get suspicious. I say, "Helen when did you call these movers?", and she doesn't say anything. So I asked the movers, "When did this woman book you for this gig?". And they're just standing there. Three huge guys, one of them was wearing a T-shirt that says, "Don't **** with Mr. Zero." So I said, "Helen, when did you make this arrangement?". She says, "A week ago." I said, "You've known for a week and you didn't tell me?". And she says, "I didn't want to ruin your birthday."
Jess: You're say Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?
Harry: Mr. Zero knew.
Jess: I can't believe this!
Harry: I haven't told you the worst part yet.
Jess: What could be worse than Mr. Zero knowing?
Harry: It's all a lie. She's in love with somebody else, some tax attorney. She moved in with him.
Jess: How did you find out?
Harry: I followed her, I stood outside the building.
Jess: That's so humiliating.
Harry: Tell me about it. And do you know I knew? I knew the whole time that even though we were happy it was just an illusion and that one day she will kick the shit out of me.
Jess: Marriages don't break up on a count of infidelity. It's just a symptom that something else is wrong.
Harry: Oh really? Well that symptom is ****ing my wife.

View Quote Woman: He was a head counselor at the boys' camp, and I was a head counselor at the girls' camp. And they had a social one night. And he walked across the room. I thought he was coming to talk to my friend Maxine, because people were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine, but he was coming to talk to me. And he said -
Man: I'm Ben Small of the Coney Island Smalls.
Woman: At that moment, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon.

View Quote Sally: At least I got the apartment.
Harry: That's what everybody says to me too. But really what's so hard about finding an apartment? What you do is, you read the obituary column. Yeah, you find out who died, and go to the building and then you tip the doorman. What they can do to make it easier is to combine the obituaries with the real estate section. Say, then you'd have Mr. Klein died today leaving a wife, two children, and a spacious three bedroom apartment with a wood burning fireplace.

View Quote Harry: You were going to be a gymnast.
Sally: A journalist.
Harry: Right, that's what I said. And?
Sally: I am a journalist, I work at The News.
Harry: Great! And you're with Joe. Well that's great, great. You're together, what, three weeks?
Sally: A month, how did you know that?
Harry: You take someone to the airport it's clearly the beginning of a relationship. That's why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.
Sally: Why?
Harry: Because eventually if things move on and you don't take someone to the airport, and I never wanted anyone to say to me, "How come you never take me to the airport anymore?"
Sally: It's amazing, you look like a normal person but actually you are the Angel of Death.

View Quote Sally: Three months later, we got married.
Harry: It only took three months.
Sally: Twelve years and three months.
Harry: We had this - we had a really wonderful wedding.
Sally: It really was.
Harry: It was great. We had this enormous coconut cake.
Sally: Huge coconut cake with the tiers, and there was this very rich chocolate sauce on the side.
Harry: Right. Because not everybody likes it on the cake, because it makes it very soggy.
Sally: Particularly the coconut soaks up a lot of that stuff so you really - it's important to keep it on the side.
Harry: Right...

View Quote Harry: I had my dream again, where I'm making love and the Olympic judges are watching. I've nailed the compulsories so this is it, the finals. I got a nine eight from the Canadian, a perfect ten from the American, and my mother disguised as a East German judge gave me a five six. Must've been the dismount.
Sally: Well, basically it's the same one I've been having since I was twelve.
Harry: What happens?
Sally: It's too embarrassing.
Harry: Don't tell me.
Sally: Okay, there's this guy...
Harry: What does he look like?
Sally: I don't know, he's just kind of faceless.
Harry: Faceless guy, okay. Then what?
Sally: He rips off my clothes.
Harry: Then what happens?
Sally: That's it.
Harry: That's it? The faceless guy rips off all your clothes, and that's the sex fantasy you've been having since you were twelve? Exactly the same.
Sally: Well sometimes I vary it a little.
Harry: Which part?
Sally: What I'm wearing.

View Quote Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That's what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side?
Harry: Sure. Why? Don't you have a dark side? I know, you're probably one of those cheerful people who dots their "i's" with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.
Sally: That doesn't mean you're deep or anything. I mean, yes, basically I'm a happy person...
Harry: So am I.
Sally: ...and I don't see that there's anything wrong with that.
Harry: Of course not. You're too busy being happy. Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do. A fleeting thought that drifts in and out of the transom of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days...
Sally: - and you think this makes you a better person?
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down, I'm gonna be prepared and you're not, that's all I'm saying.
Sally: And in the meantime, you're gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.

View Quote Sally: [on the phone] What do you want Harry?
Harry: Nothing, nothing. I... just called to say I'm sorry.
Sally: OK.
[long pause]
Sally: I gotta go.
Harry: Wait a second, wait a, wait a second. What are you doing for New Year's? Are you going to the Tyler's party? 'Cos I don't have a date, and if you don't have a date, we always said that if neither one of us had a date, we could be together for New Years. And we... could... you know.... why don't...
Sally: I can't do this anymore, I am not your consolation prize. Goodbye.

View Quote Harry: Why don't you tell me the story of your life.
Sally: The story of my life?
Harry: We've got eighteen hours to kill before we hit New York.
Sally: The story of my life isn't even going to get us out of Chicago. I mean nothing's happened to me yet. That's why I'm going to New York.
Harry: So something can happen to you?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Like what?
Sally: Like I'm going to journalism school to become a reporter.
Harry: So you can write about things that happen to other people.
Sally: That's one way to look at it.
Harry: Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you lived out your whole life and nothing happens. You never meet anybody, you never become anything, and finally you die in one of those New York deaths which nobody notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into the hallway.

View Quote Harry: The first time we met, we hated each other.
Sally: No, you didn't hate me, I hated you. And the second time we met, you didn't even remember me.
Harry: I did too, I remembered you. The third time we met, we became friends.
Sally: We were friends for a long time.
Harry: And then we weren't.
Sally: And then we fell in love.