Double Indemnity quotes

View Quote Walter: Afraid, baby?
Phyllis: Yes, I'm afraid. But not of Keyes. I'm afraid of us. We're not the same anymore. We did it so we could be together but instead of that, it's pulling us apart, isn't it, Walter?
Walter: What are you talking about?
Phyllis: And you don't really care whether we see each other or not.
Walter: [kissing her] Shut up, baby.

View Quote Walter: Look, baby. You can't get away with it. You want to knock him off, don't ya?
Phyllis: That's a horrible thing to say.
Walter: Whaddya think I was anyway? A guy that walks into a good-looking dame's front parlor and says, 'Good afternoon. I sell accident insurance on husbands. Have you got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash? Just give me a smile and I'll help you collect?' Huh! Boy, what a dope you must think I am!
Phyllis: I think you're rotten.
Walter: I think you're swell. So long as I'm not your husband.
Phyllis: Get out of here.
Walter: You bet I'll get out of here, baby. I'll get out of here but quick.

View Quote [Norton, Keyes's boss, has just tried, unsuccessfully, to convince a client that her husband's death was a suicide]
Barton Keyes: You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business.
Edward S. Norton: Mister Keyes, I was RAISED in the insurance business.
Barton Keyes: Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by TYPES of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from STEAMBOATS. But, Mr. Norton: Of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the point where the body was found? Fifteen miles an hour. Now how can anybody jump off a slow-moving train like that with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No, no soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

View Quote [Phyllis shoots Walter in the shoulder]
Walter: You can do better than that, can't you, baby? You'd better try it again. Maybe if I came a little closer? How's this? Think you can do it now?
[She is incapable of firing a second shot and lowers her gun, trembling. Quietly, he takes the gun out of her unresistant hand.]
Walter: Why didn't you shoot again, baby? Don't tell me it's because you've been in love with me all this time.
Phyllis: '[[crying] No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That's all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot. I never thought that could happen to me.
Walter: Sorry, baby, I'm not buying.
Phyllis: I'm not asking you to buy. Just hold me close.
[She puts her arms around him in. Then she draws slightly back in surprise and fear, realizing the barrel of his gun is against her chest.]
Walter: Good-bye baby.

View Quote [to a towel-clad Phyllis] The insurance ran out on the 15th. I'd hate to think of your having a smashed fender or something while you're not, uh, fully covered.

View Quote [to Keyes] You're so darn conscientious you're driving yourself crazy. You wouldn't even say today's Tuesday unless you looked at the calendar. Then, you'd check to see if it was this year's or last year's calendar. Then you'd find out who'd printed the calendar and find out if their calendar checked with the World Almanac's Calendar.

View Quote After that, a full week went by and I didn't see her once. I tried to keep my mind off her and off the whole idea. I kept telling myself that maybe those Fates they say watch over ya had gotten together and broken his leg to give me a way out.

View Quote Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?

View Quote I don't know anything. In fact, I don't know why I came here...When I came in here, I had no idea you owed me any money. You told me you did. Then you told me you didn't. Now you tell me you want to pay me a part of it, whatever it is. You want to bargain with me at a time like this. I don't like your insinuations about my husband and I don't like your methods. In fact, I don't like you, Mr. Norton.

View Quote I picked you for the job, not because I think you're so darn smart, but because I thought you were a shade less dumb than the rest of the outfit. Guess I was wrong. You're not smarter, Walter... you're just a little taller.

View Quote I was trying to think with your brains, Keyes, 'cause I wanted all the answers ready for all the, all the questions you were gonna spring as soon as Dietrichson was dead.

View Quote If you had that accident policy and tried to pull a monoxide job, we've got a guy in our office named Keyes. For him, a set-up like that would just be like a slice of rare roast beef. In three minutes, he'd know it wasn't an accident. In ten minutes, you'd be sitting under the hot lights. In a half hour, you'd be signing your name to a confession...They know more tricks than a carload of monkeys. And if there's a death mixed up in it, you haven't got a prayer. They'll hang you just as sure as ten dimes will buy a dollar.

View Quote It sounds wonderful. Just strangers beside you. You don't know them and you don't hate them. You don't have to sit across the table and smile at him and that daughter of his every morning of your life...He thinks a lot more of her than he does of me.

View Quote It was a hot afternoon, and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along that street. How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle? Maybe you would have known Keyes the minute she mentioned accident insurance, but I didn't. I felt like a million.

View Quote It'll be the train, Walter, just the way you want it. Straight down the line.