Philadelphia Story, The (1940) quotes

View Quote C. K. Dexter Haven: Hello, friends and enemies.

View Quote Elizabeth 'Liz' Imbrie: [of Mike] Where's my wandering parakeet?

View Quote Dexter: [about marrying George] How in the world could you even think of it?
Tracy: Because he is everything you're not. He's been poor. He's had to work and he's had to fight for everything. And I love him, as I never even began to love you.
Dexter: Maybe so, but I doubt it. I think he's just a swing from me. But it's too violent a swing. Kittredge is no great tower of strength, you know, Tracy. He's just a tower.
Tracy: You hardly know him.
Dexter: To hardly know him is to know him well. And perhaps it offends my vanity to have anyone who is even remotely my wife re-marry so obviously beneath her.
Tracy: How dare you! Any of you in this day and age use such an idiotic...
Dexter: I'm talking about the difference in mind and spirit...Kittredge is not for you.
Tracy: You bet he's for me. He's a great man and a good man. Already, he's of national importance.
Dexter: You sound like Spy Magazine talking. But whatever he is, toots, you'll have to stick. He'll give you no out as I did.
Tracy: I won't require one.
Dexter: I suppose you'd still be attractive to any man of spirit, though. There's something engaging about it, this goddess business. There's something more challenging to the male than the, uh, more obvious charms.
Tracy: Really?
Dexter: Really. We're very vain, you know - 'This citadel can and shall be taken, and I'm the boy to do it.'
Tracy: You seem quite contemptuous of me all of a sudden.
Dexter: No, Red, not of you, never of you. Red, you could be the finest woman on this earth. I'm contemptuous of something inside of you you either can't help, or make no attempt to; your so-called 'strength' - your prejudice against weakness - your blank intolerance.
Tracy: Is that all?
Dexter: That's the gist of it; because you'll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty. It's a pity your own foot can't slip a little sometime - but your sense of inner divinity wouldn't allow that. This goddess must and shall remain intact. There are more of you than people realize - a special class of the American Female. The Married Maidens.
Tracy: So help me, Dexter, if you say another word, I'll...
Dexter: I'm through, Red. For the moment, I've had my say.

View Quote Dexter: I always thought Kidd himself was the five-cent Kidd.
Mike: And what's that make you worth, C. K. Dexter Haven? Bringing us down here.
Dexter: But you know why I did that. To get even with my ex-bride. You told me so yourself...
Mike: Kidd's just using you like he uses everybody else. You don't know Kidd like I know him. The guy's colossal, he's terrific, he's got everybody fooled.
Dexter: No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd.

View Quote Dexter: I never saw you looking better, Red. You're getting that fine, tawny look.
Tracy: Oh, we're going to talk about me, are we? Goodie.
Dexter: It's astonishing what money can do for people, don't you agree, Mr. Connor? Not too much, you know - just more than enough. Now take Tracy for example. (There's) never a blow that hasn't been softened for her. Never a blow that won't be softened. As a matter of fact, she's even changed her shape - she was a dumpy little thing at one time.
Tracy: Only as it happens, I'm not interested in myself, for the moment.
Dexter: Not interested in yourself! You're fascinated, Red. You're far and away your favorite person in the world.
Tracy: Dexter, in case you don't know it -
Dexter: Of course, Mr. Connor, she's a girl who's generous to a fault.
Tracy: To a fault, Mr. Connor.
Dexter: Except to other people's faults. For instance, she never had any understanding of my deep and gorgeous thirst.
Tracy: That was your problem.
Dexter: Granted. But you took on that problem with me when you took me, Red. You were no help-mate there. You were a scold.
Tracy: It was disgusting. It made you so unattractive.
Dexter: A weakness, sure, and strength is her religion, Mr. Connor. She finds human imperfection unforgiveable. And when I gradually discovered that my relationship to her was supposed to be not that of a loving husband and a good companion, but - [He turns away from her] Oh, never mind.
Tracy: Say it.
Dexter: But that of a kind of high priest to a virgin goddess, then my drinks grew deeper and more frequent, that's all. [Mike slides off his chair and leaves them.]
Tracy: I never considered you as that, nor myself.
Dexter: You did without knowing it. Oh, and the night that you got drunk on champagne and climbed out on the roof and stood there, NAKED, with your arms out to the moon, wailing like a banshee - [Dexter laughs at the thought.]
Tracy: I told you I never had the slightest recollection of doing any such thing.
Dexter: I know. You drew a blank. You wanted to. Mr. Connor, what would you... [He turns and notices Mike has gone] Oh.
Tracy: A nice story for spies, incidentally.
Dexter: Too bad we can't supply photographs of you on the roof.

View Quote Dexter: Orange juice, certainly.
Tracy: Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whiskey and whiskeys.
Dexter: No, no, no, no. I've just changed their color, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. They're more becoming to me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don't you? Alcohol, I mean.
Mike: Oh, a little.
Dexter: A little, 'little.' And you a writer? I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time, I think I secretly wanted to be a writer.
Tracy: Dexter, would you mind doing something for me?...Get the heck out of here.
Dexter: Oh my dear, Red. I couldn't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you. You need me too much.
Tracy: Would you mind telling me just what it is you're hanging around for? [Mike begins to walk away] Oh no, no, no. Please don't go, Mr. Connor.
Dexter: 'Oh no, no, no. Please don't go Mr. Connor.' As a writer, this ought to be right up your street.
Tracy: Don't miss a word.

View Quote Dexter: Perhaps I'll go look for some eye-openers in the pantry.
Uncle Willie: That's the first sane remark I've heard today. Come along, Dexter. I know a formula that's said to pop the pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen.
Dexter: [to Dinah] If the conversation should lag, you might tell Tracy about your dream.

View Quote Dexter: You don't look as well as when I last saw you, Kittredge. Oh, you poor fellow. I know just how you feel...Why, you don't look old enough to get married. Not even the first time. And then you never did. She needs trouble to mature her, Kittredge. Give her lots of it.
George: I'm afraid she can't count on me for that.
Dexter: No, that's too bad. Sometimes, for your own sake, Red, I think you should have stuck to me longer.
Tracy: I thought it was for life, but the nice Judge gave me a full pardon.
Dexter: Aw, that's the old redhead, no bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left in the jaw.

View Quote Dexter: You look beautiful, Red. [She slowly opens her eyes] Come on in.
Tracy: [drunk] Why?
Dexter: No particular reason. A drink, maybe?
Tracy: I don't drink.
Dexter: That's right, I forgot.
Tracy: I haven't.

View Quote Dexter: You see, Kidd is holding a dirty piece on Tracy's father. This might stop him.
Mike: On Tracy's father?
Dexter: That's right.
Mike: Oh. Oh, so that's how Kidd got you to...That's how Liz and I were gotten in. Blackmail, huh? We all rode into this thing on a filthy blackmail. Well look. You use it. Use it with my blessings. I'm cooked. I'm through anyway. I'm not gonna hand in a story on this wedding. I'm gonna write one on Kidd.
Dexter: No, no. Let me do it. I don't have to tell him where I got my facts, OK?

View Quote Dinah: I dreamed I got up and went over to the window - and guess what I dreamed I saw coming over out of the woods?
Tracy: I haven't the faintest idea. A skunk?
Dinah: Well, sort of - it was Mr. Connor.
Tracy: Mr. Connor?
Dinah: Yes, with his both arms full of something. And guess what it turned out to be?
Tracy: What?
Dinah: You, and some clothes. Wasn't it funny? It was sort of like as if you were coming from the pool.
Tracy: The pool? I'm going crazy. I'm standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy. Then what?
Dinah: And after a while, I opened my door a crack and there he was in the hall, still coming along with you, puffing like a steam engine. His wind can't be very good.
Tracy: Then what?
Dinah: And you were sort of crooning.
Tracy: I never crooned in my life.
Dinah: I'm only saying what it sounded like. And then he - guess what?
Tracy: I couldn't possibly.
Dinah: Then he just sailed right into your room with you, and that scared me, so I got up and went to your door and peeked in to make sure you were all right. And guess what?
Tracy: What?
Dinah: You were. He was gone by then.
Tracy: Gone? Of course he was gone - he was never there!
Dinah: I know, Tracy.
Tracy: Well, I should certainly hope you did.
Dinah: I'm certainly glad I do, because if I didn't and in a little while I heard the minister say, 'If anyone knows any just cause or reason why these two should not be united in holy matrimony,' I just wouldn't know what to do. Dexter says it's a dream too.
Tracy: Dex-, you told Dexter all that?
Dinah: Not a word. Not a single word. But you know how quick he is.
Tracy: Dinah Lord, you little fiend, how can you stand there and...?

View Quote Dinah: She's so mean about Dexter.
Margaret: He was rather mean to her, my dear.
Dinah: Did he really sock her?
Margaret: Please, Dinah.
Dinah: Did he really?
Margaret: Darling. You go out and wait in the car.
Dinah: The papers were full of 'innundo.'
Margaret: Of what?
Dinah: Of 'innundo.' 'Cruelty and drunkenness,' it said. She's sort of, well you know, hard, isn't she?
Margaret: Certainly not. Tracy sets exceptionally high standards for herself, that's all. And other people aren't always quite apt to live up to them.
Dinah: But don't you think it's stinking not at least to want father?
Margaret: Yes, darling. Between ourselves, I think it's good and stinking.

View Quote Dinah: This stinks.
Margaret: Don't say 'stinks,' darling. If absolutely necessary, 'smells' - but only if absolutely necessary.

View Quote George: [looking through Spy Magazine] Well I thought maybe you, you being one of the oldest families in Philadelphia and me getting fairly important myself, it's luck of course...
Tracy: [tossing the paper into the dirt] Of all the filthy ideas - coming into a private house with a camera.

View Quote George: You know, we're gonna represent something, Tracy, you and I in our home, something straight, sound, and fine. Then perhaps your friend Mr. Haven will be somewhat less condescending.
Tracy: George, you, you don't really mind him, do you? I mean, the fact of him...I mean...that he ever was my lord and master. That we ever were...
George: I don't believe he ever was, Tracy, not really. I don't believe that anyone ever was - or ever will be. That's the wonderful thing about you, Tracy.
Tracy: What? How?
George: Well, you're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and - and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue...
Tracy: George -
George: Oh, it's grand, Tracy. It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshipped you for from afar.
Tracy: George, listen -
George: First, now, and always! Only from a little nearer now, eh, darling!
Tracy: I-I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be loved!
George: Well, you're that too, Tracy. Oh, you're that all right.
Tracy: I mean really loved.
George: But that goes without saying, Tracy.
Tracy: No. No, now it's you who doesn't see what I mean.