The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Teresa Wright: Peggy Stephenson

Photos 

8 more photos

Quotes 

• Peggy Stephenson : I've made up my mind.

  Al Stephenson : Good girl.

  Milly Stephenson : To do what?

  Peggy Stephenson : I'm going to break that marriage up! I can't stand it seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn't love and who doesn't love him. Oh, it's horrible for him. It's humiliating and it's killing his spirit. Somebody's got to help him.

• Woody Merrill : All marriages don't have to be like that one.

  Peggy Stephenson : Which one?

  Woody Merrill : Your friends, Fred and Marie.

  Peggy Stephenson : What's wrong with their marriage?

  Woody Merrill : Nothing, except one slight detail, they just don't like each other.

• Fred Derry : I dreamed I was gonna have my own home. Just a nice little house for my wife and me out in the country... in the suburbs anyway. That's the cock-eyed kind of dream you have when you're overseas.

  Peggy Stephenson : You don't have to be overseas to have dreams like that.

  Fred Derry : Yeah. You can get crazy ideas right here at home.

• Milly Stephenson : Well? What's she like?

  Peggy Stephenson : I'm glad I went out with them. Even though it was a pretty disagreeable experience.

  Al Stephenson : It took guts, honey. But you got plenty.

  Peggy Stephenson : I'll need them. I've made up my mind.

  Al Stephenson : Good girl.

  Milly Stephenson : To do what?

  Peggy Stephenson : I'm going to break that marriage up. I can't stand it, seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn't love, and who doesn't love him. Oh, it's horrible for him. It's humiliating, and it's killing his spirit. Somebody's got to help him.

  Milly Stephenson : Are you sure he doesn't love her?

  Peggy Stephenson : Of course I am.

  Milly Stephenson : Did he tell you?

  Peggy Stephenson : No.

  Milly Stephenson : Did she?

  Peggy Stephenson : No

  Al Stephenson : So you just jumped to conclusions!

  Peggy Stephenson : He doesn't love her, he hates her. I know it. - I know it.

  Al Stephenson : Who are you, God? How did you get this power to interfere in other people's lives?

  Milly Stephenson : Is Fred in love with you?

  Peggy Stephenson : Yes.

  Milly Stephenson : You've been seeing him?

  Peggy Stephenson : Only once. Today. Oh, it was all perfectly respectable. But when we were saying goodbye, he... he took me in his arms and kissed me and... and I knew.

  Al Stephenson : And you think a kiss from a smooth operator like Fred - you think that means anything?

  Peggy Stephenson : You don't know him. You don't know anything about what's inside him. Neither does she, his wife. That's probably what she thought when she married him - a smooth operator with money in his pockets. But now he isn't smooth any longer, and she's lost interest in him.

  Al Stephenson : Whereas you're possessed of all the wisdom of the ages! You can see into the secret recesses of his innermost soul!

  Peggy Stephenson : I can see because I love him.

  Al Stephenson : So you're gonna break this marriage up. Have you decided yet how you're going to do it? Are you gonna do it with an axe?

  Peggy Stephenson : It's none of your business how I'm going to do it! You've forgotten what it's like to be in love!

  Al Stephenson : You hear that, Milly? I'm so old and decrepit, I've forgotten how it feels to want somebody - desperately.

  Milly Stephenson : Peggy didn't mean that. Did you, darling?

  Peggy Stephenson : No... I don't know what I do mean. It's just that everything has always been so perfect for you. You loved each other and you got married in a big church and you had a honeymoon in the South of France. You never had any trouble of any kind. So how can you possibly understand how it is with Fred and me?

  Milly Stephenson : We never had any trouble? How many times have I told you I hated you and believed it in my heart? How many times have you said you were sick of me, that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?

• Peggy Stephenson : Well, what have you been doing with yourself lately?

  Fred Derry : Working.

  Peggy Stephenson : Yes, Dad told me he heard you were in some kind of building work.

  Fred Derry : Well, that's a hopeful way of putting it. I'm really in the junk business - an occupation for which many people feel I'm well-qualified by temperament and training.

• Peggy Stephenson : I'm going to break that marriage up! I can't stand it seeing Fred tied to a woman he doesn't love and who doesn't love him. Oh, it's horrible for him. It's humiliating and it's killing his spirit. Somebody's got to help him.

  Al Stephenson : Who made you God?