- Max Plunkett: Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.
- Gilda Farrell: A thing happened to me that usually happens to men. You see, a man can meet two, three or four women and fall in love with all of them, and then, by a process of interesting elimination, he is able to decide which he prefers. But a woman must decide purely on instinct, guesswork, if she wants to be considered nice. Oh, it's quite all right for her to try on a hundred hats before she picks one out, but...
- Tom Chambers: Very fine. But, which chapeau do you want, Madam?
- Gilda Farrell: Both.
- Max Plunkett: Do you love me?
- Gilda Farrell: Oh, Max, people should never ask that question on their wedding night. It's either too late or too early.
- Max Plunkett: I've come here to speak to you man to man.
- Tom Chambers: My favorite type of conversation.
- Max Plunkett: I wish to broach a rather delicate subject.
- Tom Chambers: Oh, now don't let's be delicate, Mr. Plunkett. Let's be crude and objectionable, both of us. One of the greatest handicaps of civilization, and I may say to progress, is the fact that people speak with ribbons on their tongues. Delicacy, as the philosophers point out, is the banana peel under the feet of truth.
- Gilda Farrell: The only thing we can do: let's forget sex.
- George Curtis: Okay.
- Tom Chambers: Agreed.
- George Curtis: It may be a bit difficult in the beginning.
- Tom Chambers: But, it can be worked on.
- Gilda Farrell: Oh, it'll be grand!
- George Curtis: Save lots of time.
- Tom Chambers: And confusion.
- Tom Chambers: It's amazing how a few insults can bring people together in three hours.
- Gilda Farrell: It was certainly good to hear all the names you called me. I haven't heard them since I left father and mother.
- Tom Chambers: That's one way of meeting the situation. Shipping clerk comes home, finds missus with boarder. He breaks dishes. It's pure burlesque. Then there's another way. Intelligent artist returns unexpectedly, finds treacherous friends, both discuss the pros and cons of the situation in grownup dialogue. High-class comedy, enjoyed by everybody.
- George Curtis: There's a third way. I'll kick your teeth out and tear your head off and beat some decency into you!
- Tom Chambers: Cheap melodrama. Very dull.
- Max Plunkett: Mr. Curtis? What is your annual income, in round figures?
- George Curtis: In round figures? Zero.
- Max Plunkett: May I ask what you live on?
- George Curtis: Nothing. I survive on miracles.
- Gilda Farrell: You see, George, you're sort of like a ragged straw hat with a very soft lining. A little bit out of shape, very dashing to look at, and very comfortable to wear. And you, Tom, piquant, perched over one eye, and has to be watched on windy days. And both so becoming.
- Tom Chambers: George betrayed me for you. Without wishing to flatter you, I understood that. I can still understand it. But you betrayed me for George. An incredible choice!
- Gilda Farrell: Now listen, Plunkett, Incorporated. You go to those customers of yours and give 'em a sales talk. Sell them anything you want, but not me. I'm fed up with underwear, cement, linoleum, I'm sick of being a trademark married to a slogan!
- Max Plunkett: Gilda...
- Gilda Farrell: Don't you tell 'em I've got hiccups. Tell them I've got the advertising blues. The billboard collywobbles! Slogans and sales talks morning, noon, and night, and not one human sound out of you and your whole flock of Egelbaurs!
- Gilda Farrell: Max, have you ever been in love?
- Max Plunkett: This is no time to answer that.
- Gilda Farrell: Have you ever felt your brain catch fire? And a curious grateful thing go through your body? Down, down to your very toes, and leave you with your ears ringing?
- Max Plunkett: That's abnormal.
- Gilda Farrell: Well, that's how I felt just before you came in.
- Max Plunkett: Yeah? How'd you feel yesterday after your promenade with Tom?
- Gilda Farrell: Just the opposite. It started in my toes, and came up, up, up very slowly till my brain caught fire. But the ringing in the ears was the same.
- George Curtis: Why didn't you like my picture?
- Gilda Farrell: It's smart aleck. You're wisecracking with paint. It simply creaks with originality. Lady Godiva riding a bicycle!
- Tom Chambers: I know what she means. A bicycle seat is a little hard on Lady Godiva's historical background.
- George Curtis: Shut up! I see, Lady Godiva doesn't belong on a bicycle; but, it's okay to put Napoleon in a Kaplan & Maguire, non-wrinkling, two-fifty, union suit!
- Tom Chambers: Quite right. That's not history. And if may say so,, they do wrinkle.
- Gilda Farrell: I'm a commercial artist. I'm being paid to tell the world that if Napoleon were alive today, he would wear Kaplan & Macquire's two-fifty, non-wrinkling underwear.
- George Curtis: Pure hooey!
- Gilda Farrell: You're wasting your time painting for art galleries. You should get in contact with some bicycle manufacturer. You'd clean up. I'll give you a good slogan: Join Lady Godiva on our tandem.
- Max Plunkett: Mr. Chambers, I don't wish you to misunderstand me. I am not Miss Farrell's husband nor her fiancé in any shape, form or manner.
- Tom Chambers: I see. Her devoted friend?
- Max Plunkett: Yes. For five years.
- Tom Chambers: Her guide, I take it, and counselor.
- Max Plunkett: Yes.
- Tom Chambers: Her protector!
- Max Plunkett: Exactly.
- Tom Chambers: In other words, Mr. Plunkett, you, eh, you never got to first base.
- George Curtis: Sacrifice helps an artist.
- Tom Chambers: Exactly! Sorrows of life are the joys of art.
- Gilda Farrell: We're going to concentrate on work - your work. My work doesn't count. I think you boys have a great deal of talent; but, too much ego. You spend one day working and a whole month bragging. Gentlemen, there are going to be few changes. I'm going to jump up and down on your ego. I'm going to criticize your work with a baseball bat. I'm going to tell you every day how bad your stuff is until you get something good and if it's good I'm going to tell you it's rotten till you get something better. I'm going to be a mother of the arts. - - No sex.
- George Curtis, Tom Chambers: No.
- Gilda Farrell: It's a gentlemen's agreement.
- George Curtis: I haven't got a clean shirt to my name.
- Tom Chambers: Why a clean shirt? What's up? A romance?
- George Curtis: I'm not talking about pajamas. I'm talking about a clean shirt!
- Max Plunkett: Gilda, I've been your friend for five years.
- Gilda Farrell: And I want you to remain my friend for the next fifty years. So please shut up!
- Tom Chambers: May I refer you to a letter, sent to you from London, in a similar crisis?
- George Curtis: You're a very high class...
- Tom Chambers: I could have enclosed some smallpox germs, easily.
- George Curtis: But you didn't. Very considerate. Let's drink to that...
- [proposing a toast]
- George Curtis: To smallpox germs.
- Tom Chambers: In Latin, variola caca.
- Gilda Farrell: You exhibited a painting at the Charlez Gallery.
- George Curtis: True.
- Gilda Farrell: Let me see, oh, "Lady Godiva" wasn't it?
- George Curtis: Did you like it?
- Gilda Farrell: I saw it with a friend of mine. She loved it. We haven't spoken since.
- Gilda Farrell: Are you a painter too?
- Tom Chambers: Oh, no, not me. I'm a playwright. I rewrite unproduced plays and very good at that kind.
- George Curtis: How old is the laundress?
- Tom Chambers: About 45.
- George Curtis: A young 45?
- Tom Chambers: Oh, I don't know. She goes barefoot. She's rather plump. A little soapy. But, a very interesting mustache! Very charming. Very charming. But, not my type.
- George Curtis: Mustache or no mustache, I need a clean shirt for tomorrow.
- George Curtis: So, you've been making love to Gilda.
- Tom Chambers: Oh, now, listen...
- George Curtis: I know! One hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day!
- Gilda Farrell: George, dear George, when I let you make love to me yesterday, I didn't tell you something. I didn't tell you that the day before, Tom and I had - Did he tell you?
- George Curtis: No.
- Gilda Farrell: Thank you, Tommy.
- Tom Chambers: Very welcome.
- Tom Chambers: My dearest Gilda and dearest George. This is the first letter I've ever dictated, so kindly overlook its correct spelling and perfect punctuation. An honest heart still beats beneath. Exclamation Point. Dash. Paragraph. Well, pals, you'll be interested to know that all London is agog with my wit and charm. Underline charm. Period. Lady Uptadike, weight 203 ringside, has smuggled me into her cage of trained social lions. Here, I am on exhibition nightly. Up to my neck in duchesses. Period. The play, by the way, is in it's second week of rehearsals, and looks hotsy-totsy.
- Tom's Secretary: I beg your pardon, sir: hotsy-totsy?
- Tom Chambers: Yes, hotsy-totsy.
- Gilda Farrell: I never forgot you. In fact, you never left me. You haunted me like a nasty ghost. On rainy nights I could hear you moanin' down the chimney.
- George Curtis: [drunkenly] I think we're being very sensible.
- Tom Chambers: Extremely.
- George Curtis: Good for our livers.
- Tom Chambers: Good for our immortal souls!
- George Curtis: And bad for our stomachs.
- Tom Chambers: That's loose thinking. What's bad for your stomach, maybe highly entertaining for my stomach.
- George Curtis: We must forget Gilda.
- Tom Chambers: Utterly!
- George Curtis: Let's change the subject.
- Tom Chambers: Right! Let's talk about something entirely new.
- George Curtis: Let's talk about our ourselves!
- Max's Butler: Are you expected?
- George Curtis: No. Not exactly expected
- Tom Chambers: Anticipated. Hoped for. And dreamed about.
- Gilda Farrell: Don't you tell them I've got hiccups. Tell 'em I've got the advertising blues. The billboard collywobbles! Slogans and sales talks - morning, noon and night and not one human sound out of you and your whole flock of Eaglebauers!
- George Curtis: I love you, Gilda.
- Gilda Farrell: That's sweet to hear.
- George Curtis: Gilda, sometimes I wonder what I see in you. You don't appreciate me - and you know nothing about art!
- Gilda Farrell: Maybe you love me because I'm an imbecile.
- George Curtis: It must be something like that.
- Tom Chambers: Let's behave like civilized people. It's quite apparent, beyond any question, you've behaved in this manner as a rather common, ordinary rat.
- Gilda Farrell: What'll we do after lunch?
- Tom Chambers: We'll take a long walk for our digestion.
- Gilda Farrell: Oh, yes! Let's walk and walk until we are dead tired!
- Tom Chambers: Gilda, I've got a better idea. Let's stay home instead.
- Gilda Farrell: What did they do that for?
- Max Plunkett: Why, they want to remember us. I think it's very nice of them.
- Gilda Farrell: This is no time for remembering. It would have been much more tactful of them to forget.
- Max Plunkett: Well, now, that's a closed chapter in your life. Anyhow, you have nothing to worry about on that score. I've forgiven you.
- Gilda Farrell: Forgiven me? For what?
- Max Plunkett: Oh, that's all right.
- Gilda Farrell: Well, I don't want to be forgiven!
- Max Plunkett: Well, I forgive you just the same.
- Gilda Farrell: I'm just wondering if you could as good a work in the midst of all that hullabaloo as you could if you stayed here?
- Tom Chambers: Keep that old typewriter of mine booted and spurred.
- Gilda Farrell: I will.
- Tom Chambers: So long.
- Gilda Farrell: I fancy this - what you might call, tension - will keep up for some weeks. Wouldn't be wise if I moved to a hotel?
- George Curtis: I love you Gilda. Why lie about it? You can't change love by shaking hands with somebody. We're unreal. The three of us. Trying to play jokes on nature. This is real.
- [George kisses Gilda]
- George Curtis: A million times more honest than all the art in the world.