- Vi: Here's something to clean up the floor.
- [hands a hand towel to Jerry]
- Buck: Is there anything I can do Joan?
- Jerry Corbett: Yeah, you can clean up the floor.
- Jerry Corbett: If you love me, you'll lock that door so that I can't get out.
- [Joan opens the door]
- Jerry Corbett: You mean that?
- Joan Prentice: I'm no jailer.
- Joan Prentice: I spent the morning realizing that we're living in a modern world - where there's no place for old-fashioned wives. You seem to want a modern wife and that's what I'm going to be. In other words, I'm going to unpack my trunks. You see, I'd rather go merrily to Hell with you than alone.
- Jerry Corbett: I always said you were swell.
- Joan Prentice: Perhaps you won't think so much longer because if being a modern husband gives you privileges, then being a modern wife gives me privileges.
- Joan Prentice: Gentlemen, I give you the holy state of matrimony, modern style: single lives, twin beds and triple bromides in the morning.
- Claire Hempstead: Dear, why are you treating me with this devotion?
- Jerry Corbett: Devotion?
- Claire Hempstead: Well, about as much devotion as I'd show to a boa constrictor. Is it because I treated you badly once?
- Jerry Corbett: I didn't think you knew that you had.
- Claire Hempstead: I was young and egotistical, Jerry.
- Jerry Corbett: Well, what are you now?
- Claire Hempstead: Young and egotistical.
- Charlie Baxter: [Toasting] To the ladies. They keep their hearts, and change their minds.
- Joan Prentice: Oh, no. We keep our minds, but change our hearts!
- Jerry Corbett: You know Miss Clair Hempstead, I met a girl who's just the opposite of your lovely, fleshly self. The first girl that's attracted me since you opened my veins and carried away my blood in a golden bowl.
- Jerry Corbett: [on the phone] What would you say if I said I was coming over to see you now? Well, you might at least answer me.
- Claire Hempstead: Sir, if I said yes, I should mean no, and if I said no, I should mean yes. But my silence is all true and for you.
- Jerry Corbett: [Drunk and slurring] I don't believe we've met. My name's Corbett, what's yours?
- Gregory 'Greg' Boleslavsky: Gregory Boleslavsky.
- Jerry Corbett: [Taking affront] Hey, now, wait a minute. I asked you a civil question and I expect a civil answer.
- [Bewildered, he puts his hands in his pockets]
- Jerry Corbett: Want a drink?
- Jerry Corbett: [singing] First she gave me ginger bread and then she gave me cake; and then she gave me creme de menthe for meeting her at the gate.
- Joan Prentice: [Seeing Jerry being carried in] Buck, is he hurt?
- Buck: Oh, he's still alive, but a couple of bottles of scotch are dead.
- Joan Prentice: I see you believe in signs.
- Jerry Corbett: [Drunkenly] Mmmm, and all the signs point to three stars.
- [THe camera pans in to a bottle of Henessey brandy]
- Jerry Corbett: [Drunkenly] At the moment we're looking for a baritone.
- Fred - Bartender: [Taking offense] I don't allow them in the place!
- Jerry Corbett: [In unison with Buck and Claire] You don't?
- [They leave]
- Richard Damery: [after Jerry reads a particularly snide column about him and Joan written by Demery] Any statement to make to the press, Corbett?
- Jerry Corbett: Any statement I made to you wouldn't be fit to print.
- Richard Damery: [Officiously] Well, I don't know. Yours is just a common case. When we're young, we want to marry for love, and when we're a little older, we marry a Rolls-Royce.
- [Jerry punches him]
- Jerry Corbett: What troubles me is, have I a right to take a swell girl and make her my wife?
- Vi: No.
- Jerry Corbett: Your charm is only exceeded by your frankness.
- Jerry Corbett: Wouldn't you like a little drink?
- Joan Prentice: No thank you. Drinking isn't one of my many vices.
- Jerry Corbett: Oh, personally, I'm going to stop drinking next Tuesday afternoon at three o'clock sharp.
- Jerry Corbett: You shouldn't have got me started on the subject of myself; because, I can go on and on for hours!
- Jerry Corbett: You don't often see such fine hands. Long, slender and artistic. And a diamond ring the size of a small potato on the right little finger.
- Joan Prentice: Awfully fine head. You're like an Indian. Fine chiseled features. Clean-cut as a tomahawk.
- Joan Prentice: Do you always make love to girls when you take them for a drive?
- Jerry Corbett: I don't often take them for a drive. I'm afraid as a rule I prefer the company of men - particularly if they're bartenders. You see, I figured out a long time ago a punch in the nose heals much quicker than a broken heart.
- Jerry Corbett: I guess I didn't know you walked on these floors; because most of the floors I know have sawdust on them.
- Jerry Corbett: I've just had an invitation to the dance. James, me cuffs and me sword, please. I'm off to the wars in Flanders.
- Buck: I think we ought to celebrate.
- Jerry Corbett: So do I.
- Buck: So do I.
- Jerry Corbett: Let us have champagne, or at the very least, beer.
- Claire Hempstead: Oh, Jerry, this is your big moment.
- Jerry Corbett: To Waterloo.
- Claire Hempstead: To Austerlitz!
- Jerry Corbett: Don't you think I've done enough today?
- Joan Prentice: How many pages?
- Jerry Corbett: Two, uh, and a half.
- Joan Prentice: You know you do three pages a day.
- Jerry Corbett: You're not Mrs. Jerry Corbett. You're Mrs. Simon Legree and I'm poor ol' Uncle Tom.
- Claire Hempstead: Well, how do you feel with the curtain going up on your first play?
- Jerry Corbett: Like Napoleon before Austerlitz - or before Waterloo.
- Joan Prentice: If being a modern husband gives you privileges, then being a modern wife gives me privileges.
- Jerry Corbett: I'm not worried, honey. I've told you before, you've got the words but not the tune.
- Joan Prentice: Don't forget, I have a musical ear and can pick up tunes easily.
- Party Boy: [laughing, drunkenly] By the way, has anyone here heard about the depression?
- Joan Prentice: What depression?
- Male Party Guest: The very charming depression between your shoulder blades, my dear.
- Joan Prentice: [giggling] You're tickling me.
- Jerry Corbett: I'm grateful this whole thing's happened because if I had never met you again, I might have gone through life clinging to an image in my mind, a phantom that I'd been drinking to for years, when all the time I had a wonderful reality in my arms.
- Claire Hempstead: You really should save those speeches for your plays.