George Horseless Carriages! Automobiles!...People aren't gonna spend their lives lying on their backs in the road letting grease drip in their faces. No, I think your father better forget about 'em.
Played by Tim Holt 
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) · 59 quotes
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) · 59 quotes
Most-quoted character in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942): in 22 of its 59 quotes
Most scenes with: Isabel (6), Fanny (5), Lucy (5)
Most girls are usually pretty fresh. They ought to go to a man's college for about a year. They'd get taught a few things about freshness.
More lines from George
4 quotes George George [to Eugene, as he struggles to start his car]
Get a horse! Get a horse!
George [to Eugene]
My mother will have no interest in knowing that you came here today or any other day...You're not wanted in this house, Mr. Morgan, now or at any other time. Perhaps you'll understand this. [He slams the door]
George This is our last walk together, Lucy...This is the last time I'll see you ever, ever in my life. Mother and I are starting on a trip around the world tomorrow. We've made no plans at all for coming back...Lucy. I can't stand this...It's quite a shock, Lucy...to find out just how deeply you care, to see how much difference this makes to you...Can't stand this any longer. I can't Lucy. Good-bye, Lucy. It's good-bye. I think it's good-bye for good, Lucy.
Scenes with George
17 scenes
You must promise me never to use those bad words again.
George I promise not to... [pause] unless I get mad at somebody.
George How'd all these ducks get to know you so quick? I really don't see why my mother invited them.
Maybe she didn't want to offend their fathers and mothers.
George I hardly think that my mother need worry about offending anybody in this old town.
It must be wonderful, Mr. Amberson, Mr. Minafer, I mean.
George What must be wonderful?
To be so important as that.
George Oh, that isn't important...Anybody that really is anybody ought to be able to go about as they like in their own town, I should think.
What are you studying at school?
George College.
College.
George Oh, lots of useless guff.
Why don't you study some useful guff?
George What do you mean, useful?
Something you'd use later in your business or profession.
George I don't intend to go into any business or profession.
No?
George No.
Why not?
George Well, just look at them. That's a fine career for a man, isn't it? Lawyers, bankers, politicians. What do they ever get out of life, I'd like to know. What do they know about real things? What do they ever get?
What do you want to be?
George A yachtsman!
[about Wilbur]
It seems to me he looks so badly...He's been worried about some investments he made last year. I think the worry's affected his health.
George What investments? He isn't going into Morgan's automobile concern, is he?
George Look here, father, about this man Morgan and his old sewing machine. Don't they want to get grandfather to put some money into it? Isn't that what he's up to?
You little silly! What on earth are you talking about? Eugene Morgan's perfectly able to finance his own inventions these days.
George I'll bet he borrows money from Uncle Jack.
Georgie. Why do you say such a thing?
George He just strikes me as that sort of a man. Isn't he father?
Wilbur He was a fairly wild fellow twenty years ago. He's like you in one thing, Georgie. He spent too much money. Only he didn't have any mother to get money out of her grandfather for it. But I believe he's done fairly well of late years, and I doubt if he needs anybody else's money to back his horseless carriage.
George Oh, what's he brought the old thing here for, then?
Wilbur I'm sure I don't know. You'll want to ask him.
Eugene Morgan isn't in your father's thoughts at all one way or the other. Why should he be?...
Are you two at it again?
George What makes you and everybody so excited over this man Morgan?
This man Morgan.
Excited!
Oh, shut up.
Can't...can't people be glad to see an old friend without silly children like you having to make a to-do about it? I've just been suggesting to your mother that she might give a little dinner for him.
George For who?
For whom, Georgie.
George [mocking her]
For whom, Georgie.
For Mr. Morgan and his daughter.
George Oh look here. Don't do that. Mother mustn't do that.
George Wouldn't look well.
Wouldn't look...See here Georgie Minafer! I suggest that you just march straight on into your room. Sometimes you say things that show you have a pretty mean little mind.
George What upsets you this much?
Shut up!
I know what you mean. You're trying to insinuate that I get your mother to invite Eugene Morgan here on my account...
I'm gonna move to a hotel.
...because he's a widower.
George What?
What?
George Ha, ha, ha. [Fanny cackles back in mock laughter at him] I'm trying to insinuate that you're setting your cap for him and getting mother to help you?
OH! [Fanny slams her door on him]
George Is that what you mean?
George Well it struck me that Mr. Morgan was looking pretty absent-minded most of the time. And he certainly is dressing better than he used to.
Oh, he isn't dressing better, he's dressing up. Fanny, you ought to be a little encouraging when a prized bachelor begins to show by his haberdashery what he wants you to think about him.
George Well, Jack tells me the fact he's been doing quite well.
Quite well.
George Listen Aunt Fanny. I shouldn't be a bit surprised to have him request an interview and declare that his intentions are honorable.
George [Fanny cries and leaves the room]
It's getting so that you can't joke with her about anything anymore. With all the gambling, we found out that father's estate was all washed up and he didn't leave anything. I thought she'd feel better when he turned over his insurance to her.
I think we've been teasing her about the wrong things. Fanny hasn't got much in her life. You know George, just being an Aunt isn't really the great career it sometimes seemed to be. Really don't know of anything much Fanny has got, except her feeling about Eugene.
I know when you make him (the horse) walk, it's so you can give all your attention to proposing to me again...
George Lucy, if you aren't the prettiest thing in this world. When are you going to say we're really engaged?
Not for years, so there's the answer.
George Lucy dear, what's the matter? You look as if you're gonna cry. You always do that whenever I can get you to talk about marrying me.
I know it.
George Well why do you?
One reason is because I have a feeling it's never gonna be.
George You haven't any reason?
It's just a feeling. I don't know. Everything's so unsettled.
George ...What's unsettled?
Well for one thing, George, you haven't decided on anything to do yet. Or at least if you have, you've never spoken of it.
George Lucy, haven't you perfectly well understood that I don't intend to go into a business or adopt a profession?
Then, what are you going to do George?
George Why, I expect to lead an honorable life. I expect to contribute my share to charities, and take part in, well, in movements.
What kind?
George Whatever appeals to me. Isn't it your father's idea that I have to go into a business, and you oughtn't to be engaged to me until I do? Do you think I'd be very much of a man if I let another man dictate to me my own way of life?...I don't believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes, selling potatoes, or trying law cases. No, I dare say I don't care any more for your father's ideals than he does for mine.
Lucy's on a visit, Father. She's spending a week with a school friend.
She'll be back Monday.
George, how does it happen you didn't tell us before? He never said a word to us about Lucy going away!
Probably afraid to. Didn't know that he might break down and cry if we tried to speak of it, isn't that so, Georgie? [He laughs at George]
George She told me!
At any rate, Georgie didn't approve. I suppose you two aren't speaking again. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Automobiles will carry our streets clear out to the county line.
Oh, I hope you're wrong. Because if people go to moving that far, real estate values here in the old residence part of town will be stretched pretty thin.
So your devilish machines are gonna ruin all your old friends, eh Gene? Do you really think they're gonna change the face of the land?
They're already doing it, Major. It can't be stopped. Automobiles...
George Automobiles are a useless nuisance.
What did you say George?
George I said, 'Automobiles are a useless nuisance.' Never amount to anything but a nuisance. They had no business to be invented.
Of course you forget Mr. Morgan makes them. Also did his share in inventing them. If you weren't so thoughtless, he might think you're rather offensive.
I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization. It may be that they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of men's souls. I'm not sure. But automobiles have come. And almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They're going to alter war and they're going to alter peace. And I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles. And it may be that George is right. It may be that in ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine but would have to agree with George: that automobiles had no business to be invented.
Georgie dear, what did you mean?
George Just what I said.
He was hurt.
George I don't see why he should be. I didn't say anything about him. He didn't seem to me to be hurt. He seemed perfectly cheerful. What makes you think he was hurt?
I know him.
Well, it's a new style of courting a pretty girl, I must say, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his way to try to make an enemy of her father by attacking his business. By jove, that's a new way of winning a woman.
George! You've struck just the right treatment to adopt. You're doing just the right thing.
George Oh, what do you want?
Your father would thank you if he could see what you're doing.
George Why the mysterious detective business? You make me dizzy!
You don't care to hear that I approve of what you're doing?
George For the gosh sakes, what in the world is wrong with you?
Oh, you're always picking on me, always! Ever since you were a little boy!
George Oh, my gosh!
You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like this, except old Fanny! 'Old Fanny,' you say, 'It's nobody but old Fanny, so I'll kick her. Nobody'll resent it. I'll kick her all I want to!' And you're right. I haven't got anything in the world since my brother died. Nobody. Nothing!
George Oh, my gosh!
I never, never in the world would have told you about it or even made the faintest reference to it...if I hadn't seen that somebody else had told you, or you'd have found out for yourself in some way.
George Somebody else had told me what?
How people are talking about your mother.
George What did you say?!
Of course, I understood what you were doing when you started being rude to Eugene. I knew you'd give Lucy up in a minute if it came to a question of your mother's reputation.
George Look here!
...because you said...
George Look here! Just what do you mean?
I only wanted to say that I'm sorry for you, George, that's all. But it's only old Fanny, so whatever she says, pick on her for it. Hammer her! Hammer her!
George Jack said...
It's only poor old lonely Fanny!
George Jack said that if there was any gossip, it was about you! He said people might be laughing about the way you ran after Morgan, but that was all.
Oh yes, it's always Fanny, ridiculous old Fanny, always, always!
George Listen. You said mother let him come here just on your account, and now you say...
He did. Anyhow, he liked to dance with me. He danced with me as much as he did with her...
George You told me mother never saw him except when she was chaperoning you.
Well, you don't suppose that stops people from talking, do you? They just thought I didn't count! 'It's only Fanny Minafer,' I suppose they'd say. Besides, everybody knew he'd been engaged to her.
George What's that?
Everybody knows it. Everybody in this town knows that Isabel never really cared for any other man in her life.
George I believe I'm going crazy. You mean you lied when you told me there wasn't any talk?
It never would have amounted to anything if Wilbur had lived.
George You mean Morgan might have married you?
No, because I don't know that I'd have accepted him.
George Are you trying to tell me that because he comes here and they see her with him, driving and all that, they think that they were right in saying that she was, she was in love with him before, before my father died?
Why, George! Don't you know that's what they say? You must know that everybody in town...What are you going to do, George?
George Fair! Fair when he says that he and you don't care what people say? But you're my mother. You're an Amberson.
We'll go away for a while, you and I.
George I'm only going to be getting $8 a week at the law office. You'd be paying more of the expenses than I would.
I'd be paying? I'd be paying?
George Certainly you would. We'd be using more of your money than mine.
My money. My money. [She makes a desperate laugh] I've got $28, that's all.
George $28?
That's all. I know I told you I didn't put everything in the Headlight Company, but I did. Every cent, and it's gone...Oh, I know what you're gonna do. [Sobbing] You're, you're gonna leave me in the lurch!
George I knew your mother wanted me to watch over you, and try and make something like a home for you, and I tried. I tried to make things as nice for you as I could...I walked my heels down looking for a place for us to live. I-I walked and walked over this town. I didn't ride one block on a streetcar.
[about the boiler she is leaning against]
It's not hot, it's cold. The plumber's disconnected it. I wouldn't mind if they hadn't...I wouldn't mind if it burned me George!
Benson
A real flair for the law. That's right. Couldn't wait till tomorrow to begin. The law's a jealous mistress and a stern mistress.
George I can't do it. I can't take up the law.
Benson
What?
George I've come to tell you that I've got to find something quicker. Something that pays from the start...Well sir, I've heard that they pay very high wages to people in dangerous trades, people that handle touchy chemicals, high explosives. Men in the dynamite factories. Thought I'd see if I couldn't get a job like that. I want to get started tomorrow if I could.
Benson
Georgie. Your grandfather and I were boys together. Don't you think I ought to know what's the trouble?
George Well sir, it's Aunt Fanny. She set her mind on this particular boardinghouse. It seems she put everything in the Headlight Company. Well, she got some old cronies, and I guess she's been looking forward to the games of bridge and the harmless kind of gossip that goes on in such places. Really, it's the life she'd like better than anything else. It struck me that she's just about got to have it.
Benson
You certainly are the most practical young man I ever met.
George [disparagingly]
Horseless carriages. Auto-mobiles. People aren't going to spend their lives lying on their backs on the road letting grease drip in their face. No, I think you're father better forget about 'em.
Papa will be so grateful if he could get your advice.
George I don't know that I've done anything to be insulted for.
You know, I don't mind you being such a lofty person, at all. I think its ever so interesting. But, Papa's a great man.
Don't you remember? We'd had a quarrel and we didn't speak to each other all the way home from a long, long drive. And since we couldn't play together like good children, of course, it was plain we oughtn't of play at all.
George Play?
What I mean is, we've come to the point where it was time to quit playing. Well, what we were playing.
George That being love, as you mean, don't you?
Something like that. It was absurd.
