Laura quotes

View Quote Laura: By stooping so low, you only degrade yourself, Waldo.
Lydecker: Did you know that he almost went to jail for passing rubber checks? That he was suspected of stealing his hostess' jewels when he was a house guest in Virginia?...
Laura: What of it? I know his faults. A man can change, can't he? People are always ready to hold out a hand to slap you down but never to pick you up. All right, I'm helping Shelby. His past is his own affair. I only care about the present.
Lydecker: Speaking of the changed Mr. Carpenter in the present tense, he's now running around with a model from your own office. Her name is Diane Redfern.
Laura: I'm closer to despising you than I thought I ever would be... I'm sorry. I should have told you before. Shelby and I are going to be married, next week.
Lydecker: I believe you presented him with a cigarette case on his last birthday. Rather valuable, isn't it?
Laura: Where did you get it?
Lydecker: From the pawn shop where Diane Redfern took it after he gave it to her.
Laura: I don't believe it. He probably needed money and was too proud to borrow.
Lydecker: Carpenter proud? Perhaps that's why the pawn ticket was in her name.
Laura: Before this goes any further, well, I'll just... [She dials the phone for Shelby at his home]
Lydecker: He isn't home. He's dining at Anne Treadwell's.
Laura: He can't be. He asked me to dinner.
Lydecker: He would have cancelled his appointment with her if you had accepted. He treats her rather badly these days. [Laura begins dialing Anne's number] I'm afraid she'll say he isn't there.
Laura: Waldo? Why are you doing this?
Lydecker: For you, Laura.

View Quote Laura: I'm not alone. [She looks back toward Lydecker]
Shelby: Oh him! I thought he's still doin' the polka.
Lydecker: Excuse me, please. Yes, Betsy Ross taught it to me.

View Quote Laura: What are you doing here?
McPherson: You're alive.
Laura: If you don't get out at once, I'm going to call the police.
McPherson: You are Laura Hunt, aren't you? Aren't you?
Laura: I'm going to call the police.
McPherson: I am the police.

View Quote Lydecker: Don't worry, darling. Let them accuse you. We'll fight them. I have every weapon. Money, connections, prestige, and my column. Every day, millions will read about you and rally to your defense.
McPherson: You talk as if you wanted to see her tried for murder.
Lydecker: Yes, rather than let you blacken her name with suspicions and rumors. Try to prove her guilty. Get on the witness stand with your poor shreds of evidence. I'll expose your cheap methods you used on her.

View Quote Lydecker: Have you ever been in love?
McPherson: A doll in Washington Heights once got a fox fur out of me.
Lydecker: Did you ever know a woman who wasn't a doll or a dame?
McPherson: Yeah, one. But she kept walking me past furniture windows to look at the parlor suites.
Lydecker: Would you mind turning that off?
McPherson: Why? Don't you like it?
Shelby: It was one of Laura's favorite. Not exactly classical but sweet.

View Quote Lydecker: Haven't you any sense of privacy?
McPherson: Murder victims have no claim to privacy.
Lydecker: Have detectives who buy portraits of murder victims a claim to privacy?...McPherson, did it ever strike you that you're acting very strangely? It's a wonder you don't come here like a suitor with roses and a box of candy - drugstore candy, of course. Have you ever dreamed of Laura as your wife, by your side at the Policeman's Ball or in the bleachers? Or listening to the heroic story of how you got a silver shinbone from a gun battle with a gangster? ...I see you have.
McPherson: Why don't you go home? I'm busy.

View Quote Lydecker: In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.
Laura: But you write about people with such real understanding and sentiment. That's what makes your column so good.
Lydecker: The sentiment comes easy at 50 cents a word.
Laura: Well, if that's the way you really feel, you must be very lonely.
Lydecker: Will you kindly continue this character analysis elsewhere? You begin to bore me.
Laura: You're a poor man. I'm very sorry for you.

View Quote Lydecker: It still doesn't make sense to me, Laura. He's playing some sort of a game with you.
Laura: I don't think so.
Lydecker: I don't deny that he's infatuated with you in some warped way of his own. But he isn't capable of any normal, warm, human relationship. He's been dealing with criminals too long. When you were unattainable, when he thought you were dead, that's when he wanted you most.
Laura: But he was glad when I came back as if he were waiting for me.
Lydecker: Do you know what he calls women? 'Dames.' 'A dame in Washington Heights got a fox fur out of him.' His very words.
Laura: That doesn't mean anything. He isn't like that.
Lydecker: Laura, you have one tragic weakness. With you, a lean strong body is the measure of a man. And you always get hurt.
Laura: No man is ever going to hurt me again. No one. Not even you.
Lydecker: I? Hurt you? Laura - look at me. When a man has everything in the world that he wants, except what he wants most, he loses his self-respect. It makes him bitter, Laura. He wants to hurt someone as he's been hurt. You were a long time finding out about Shelby but that's over now. We'll be back together again.

View Quote Lydecker: It's the same obvious pattern, Laura. If McPherson weren't muscular and handsome in a cheap sort of way, you'd see through him in a second.
Laura: Waldo, I mean to be as kind about this as I know how. But I must tell you. You're the one who follows the same obvious pattern. First it was Jacoby, then Shelby, and now I suppose - I don't think we should see each other again.
Lydecker: You're not yourself, darling.
Laura: Yes I am. For the first time in ages, I know what I'm doing.
Lydecker: Very well. I hope you'll never regret what promises to be a disgustingly earthy relationship. My congratulations, McPherson. And listen to my broadcast in fifteen minutes. I'm discussing Great Lovers of History.

View Quote Lydecker: Laura had not definitely made up her mind to marry him. She told me so herself, last Friday when she called up to cancel our dinner engagement. As a matter of fact, she was going to the country to think it over. She was extremely kind, but I was always sure she would never have thrown her life away on a male beauty in distress.
Shelby: [to McPherson] I suppose you've heard losers whine before, especially in your profession, eh?

View Quote Lydecker: That's the way it is, isn't it, Laura?
Radio Announcer: You have heard the voice of Waldo Lydecker by electrical transcription.
Laura: Waldo, you've taken one life. Isn't that enough?
Lydecker: The best part of myself - that's what you are. Do you think I'm going to leave it to the vulgar pawing of a second-rate detective who thinks you're a dame? Do you think I could bear the thought of him holding you in his arms, kissing you, loving you? ...There he is now. He'll find us together, Laura as we always have been and we always should be, as we always will be.

View Quote Lydecker: There are two or three things in here belong to me. This vase, for instance. And that, uh, clock of course, and antique fire screen. I only lent them to Laura, you know.
Anne: Oh really, Waldo.
Lydecker: Yes, really. This vase is the gem of my collection. I intend to have it back. And the clock and the screen too.
Shelby: They aren't yours. You gave them to Laura. I won't permit it.
Lydecker: Does an alleged fiance have any voice in this matter? I'll take the vase with me now and send someone to collect the other things this very day.
McPherson: Nothing's leaving here except you, Lydecker.

View Quote Lydecker: Well, McPherson, what does Laura's resurrection do to you?
McPherson: Too bad Diane Redfern can't be resurrected.

View Quote Lydecker: Will you please stop dawdling with that infernal puzzle? It's getting on my nerves.
McPherson: I know, but it keeps me calm.

View Quote Lydecker: Yesterday morning after Laura's body was found, I was questioned by Sergeants McAvity and Shultz. And I stated: [He reads from his typed statement] 'On Friday night, Laura had a dinner engagement with me, after which she was ostensibly going out of town. She phoned and cancelled our engagement at exactly seven o'clock. After that...
McPherson: ...you ate a lonely dinner, then got into the tub to read.' Why did you write it down? Afraid you'd forget it?
Lydecker: I am the most widely mis-quoted man in America. When my friends do it, I resent it. From Sergeants McAvity and Shultz, I should find it intolerable. Hand me that washcloth please, Mr. __ , Mr. __ ?
McPherson: McPherson.
Lydecker: The Siege of Babylon, Long Island. The gangster with a machine gun killed three policemen. I told the story over the air. Wrote a column about it. Are you the one with the leg full of lead? The man who walked right in and got him.
McPherson: You have a pretty good memory, Mr. Lydecker.
Lydecker: I always liked that detective with a silver shinbone.
McPherson: Thanks. I hope you won't have any reason to change your mind about me.