Milly What do you think of the children?
Children? I don't recognize 'em. They've grown so old.
Milly I tried to stop them, to keep them just as they were when you left, but they got away from me.
Played by Myrna Loy 
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) · 50 quotes
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) · 50 quotes
Tied for 5th most-quoted character in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): in 5 of its 50 quotes
Most scenes with: Al Stephenson (5), Peggy (2)
Scenes with Milly
5 scenes Milly Milly You know, I had a dream. I dreamt I was home. I've had that dream hundreds of times before. This time, I wanted to find out if it's really true. Am I really home?
Milly It looks like it, and you're going to be royally treated. You're having breakfast in bed.
Milly You ought to rest a while. Take a vacation.
Got to make money. Last year it was kill Japs. And this year it's 'make money.'
Milly We're all right for the time being.
Then why do they have to bother me about problems like that the first day I get home. Why can't they give a fella time to get used to his own family?
I know what you both think.
What are we thinking?
You're afraid I may be in love with Fred.
Why I never had any such idea?
Milly Shut up, Al. Are you in love with him?
Yes. But I don't want to be. That's why I asked him and his wife to go out with us this evening. I think it ought to have a very healthy effect on me. Once I get to know her, well, I'm sure I'll stop being silly about the whole thing.
I've made up my mind...I'm going to break that marriage up. I can't stand it seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn't love and who doesn't love him. Oh it's horrible for him. It's humiliating and it's killing his spirit. Somebody's got to help him...He doesn't love her, he hates her. I know it. I know it.
Who are you, God? How did you get this power to interfere in other people's lives?
Milly Is Fred in love with you?
Yes.
Milly You've been seeing him.
Only once, today. Oh, it was all perfectly respectable. But when we were saying goodbye, he took me in his arms and kissed me and I knew.
And you think a kiss from a smooth operator like Fred - you think that means anything?
You don't know him. You don't know anything about what's inside him. And neither does she, his wife. That's probably what she thought when she married him. A smooth operator with money in his pockets. But now he isn't smooth any longer and she's lost interest in him.
Whereas you're possessed of all the wisdom of the ages. You can see into the secret recesses of his innermost soul.
I can see because I love him.
So you're gonna break this marriage up. Have you decided yet how you're gonna do it? Are you gonna do it with an axe?
It's none of your business how I'm gonna do it. You've forgotten what it's like to be in love.
You hear that, Milly? I'm so old and decrepit I've forgotten how it feels to want somebody desperately.
Milly Peggy didn't mean that, did you darling?
Oh, no. I don't know what I do mean. It's just that, everything has always been so perfect for you. You loved each other and you got married in a big church, and you had a honeymoon in the south of France. And you never had any trouble of any kind. So how can you possibly understand how it is with Fred and me?
Milly We never had any trouble. [To Al] How many times have I told you I hated you, and believed it in my heart. How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me, that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?
