The Best Years of Our Lives quotes

View Quote [to the bank president] Novak looked to me like a good bet...You see Mr. Milton, in the Army, I've had to be with men when they were stripped of everything in the way of property except what they carried around with them and inside them. I saw them being tested. Now some of them stood up to it and some didn't. But you got so you could tell which ones you could count on. I tell you this man Novak is okay. His collateral is in his hands, in his heart and his guts. It's in his right as a citizen.

View Quote [to Marie] I don't want to be right back where we started. We can never be back there again. We never want to be back there.

View Quote Homer: What about us? We're all right, aren't we?
Wilma: No, listen to me, Homer.
Homer: I'm listening.
Wilma: You wrote me that when you got home, you and I were going to be married. If you wrote that once, you wrote it a hundred times. Isn't that true?
Homer: Yes, but things are different now.
Wilma: Have you changed your mind?
Homer: Have I said anything about changing my mind?
Wilma: No. That's just it. You haven't said anything about anything...I don't know what to think, Homer. All I know is, I was in love with you when you left and I'm in love with you now. Other things may have changed but that hasn't.

View Quote Mr. Cameron: Have you thought anything about getting a job, Homer?
Wilma: Father, it's much too soon for Homer to be thinking about a job. He's just out of the hospital.
Mr. Cameron: Yes, I know but a few months from now, the same opportunities won't exist that exist today. You might think about my business Homer, insurance. We've taken on a number of veterans. They make very good salesmen, you know. Men who have suffered from some kind of disability.

View Quote Milly: You ought to rest a while. Take a vacation.
Al: 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.
Al: 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?

View Quote [to Mr. Novak] You'll get your loan...You look like a good risk to me. And when those tomato plants start producing, I'll come out for some free samples.

View Quote [to Peggy] I think they ought to put you in mass production.

View Quote Salesman: [about Fred] I'll bet he's back looking for a job.
Saleswoman: And he'll get it too with all those ribbons on his chest.
Salesman: Well, nobody's job is safe with all these servicemen crowding in.

View Quote Peggy: I know what you both think.
Al: What are we thinking?
Peggy: You're afraid I may be in love with Fred.
Al: Why I never had any such idea?
Milly: Shut up, Al. Are you in love with him?
Peggy: 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.

View Quote You know what it'll be, don't you, Peggy? It may take us years to get anywhere. We'll have no money, no decent place to live. We'll have to work - get kicked around.

View Quote Homer: I'm sorry, Luella. It isn't your fault. Just go on and play with your friends. [To Wilma] I know Wilma, I was wrong. I shouldn't have acted like that. It wasn't her that burned my hands off. I'll be all right. I just got to work it out myself.
Wilma: I could help you, Homer, if you'd let me.
Homer: I've got to work it out myself. All I want is for people to treat me like anybody else instead of pitying me. It guess it's, it's hard for them to do that. I've just got to learn to get used to it and pay no attention.
Wilma: Couldn't I...?
Homer: No, I've got to do it myself.

View Quote Milly: What do you think of the children?
Al: 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.

View Quote [about Homer] They [the Navy] couldn't train him to put his arms around his girl to stroke her hair.

View Quote Homer: I was afraid you wouldn't be able to stand up for me.
Fred: I'd stand up for you, kid, 'til I drop.

View Quote [to Milly and Peggy] How 'bout we go celebrate the old man's homecoming...I want to do something, see something. I've been in jungles and around savages so long, I gotta find out I'm back in civilization again.