- June Goffe: You see, son, it's all right to live in a cocoon like this if you expect to be a butterfly someday. Otherwise...
- Val Bartelli: [to Brady after being introduced to Mrs. Raymond] If she cut off her head, she'd be very pretty.
- June Goffe: Golly, the misery that walks around on this pretty, quiet night.
- Gus Hoffman: June... the logic you are looking for... the logic is that there is no logic. The horror and terror you feel, my dear, comes from being alive. Die, and there is no trouble. Live, and you struggle.
- Alex Winkler: [while dancing] Do you think it might rain and cool off?
- June Goffe: [detached] Such things have been known to happen.
- Alex Winkler: [after a pause] A lot of nice people dancing here, isn't there?
- June Goffe: [cynically] This is a post office, son, full of second-class matter.
- Alex Winkler: [speaking to June about his father] Three or four haircuts ago - that's the last time I seen him.
- Gus Hoffman: [looking over Edna's correspondence] The Divine Being made many loathsome creatures, but none so low as a woman with a cold heart. She held these letters for blackmail, even her own brother.
- [looks at photographs of various men on the wall]
- Gus Hoffman: A blind man can see how many boyfriends she had. Evidently the water tasted good, so she jumped down the well.
- Gus Hoffman: [to June who is starting to shout] Shhh. Let's not raise our voices. We are not exactly mice.
- Gus Hoffman: Who are you?
- Val Bartelli: Who likes to know?
- Gus Hoffman: A man with a gun in his hand. Don't move. The human body bleeds very easy. Don't move.
- Gus Hoffman: [speaking about his wife who ran off with another man] You won't believe it. The first six years, I shaved every night before I went to bed... I thought she might come back.
- Val Bartelli: [referring to his murdered sister] She was no lullaby, but she had the brains, like a man.
- Gus Hoffman: [referring to the shadowy figure in the back of the cab] You know this man?
- June Goffe: I can't see him in there.
- Gus Hoffman: Well, get out, kind sir.
- Edward Honig: [defiantly] I won't!
- Gus Hoffman: There's a police booth down there.
- Sam - Taxi Driver: [to Gus] Listen, I don't wanna get in no trouble. I work. I'm just a parasite on parasites.
- Sam - Taxi Driver: [to the man in the back of his cab] What are you following her for?
- Val Bartelli: [after losing his self-control and assaulting Alex with intent to kill] I was in the deep water there a minute.
- Alex Winkler: [sighs in the back of Gus' cab]
- Gus Hoffman: Beg pardon?
- Alex Winkler: [distracted] What?
- Gus Hoffman: You sigh like the end of summer. Troubled?
- Alex Winkler: Personal.
- Gus Hoffman: Oh... personal. That's killed a lot of people in its day.
- Alex Winkler: Yes.
- Gus Hoffman: [after Alex gets out of the cab] By the way, if it's not too personal, what was that all about down there?
- Alex Winkler: Oh, uh, uh, personal.
- Gus Hoffman: All right, I'll buy it back. Forget I asked. Good night.
- Alex Winkler: Good night.
- [first lines]
- Edna Bartelli: Why, it's Sleepy Parsons. Aren't you dead yet?
- [Sleepy takes out a cigar, Edna pours a drink]
- Edna Bartelli: Here's to nothin'. Still on your twenty cigars a day?
- [Sleepy puts cigar away]
- Edna Bartelli: Can your heart take it, Sleepy?
- Sleepy Parsons: You drunk again?
- Edna Bartelli: Yes.
- Sleepy Parsons: Took you a long time to answer the door.
- Edna Bartelli: [laughs] It's a great relief being divorced from you, Sleepy, dear.
- Sleepy Parsons: Give me the money and I'll go.
- Edna Bartelli: Do you think it'll rain and cool off.
- Sleepy Parsons: Give me my money, Edna, don't kid around.
- Edna Bartelli: What are you gonna do with all that cash, take out a chorus girl?
- [looks in her purse]
- Edna Bartelli: It's gone!
- Sleepy Parsons: Don't fool around, I'm not in the mood.
- Edna Bartelli: Must be that kid.
- June Goffe: [in Edna's apartment] We'd better wait in the dark a minute. Do you hear anything?
- Alex Winkler: Only your breathing.
- June Goffe: Is that what that is?
- Alex Winkler: Yes, and mine.
- June Goffe: [walking into Edna's apartment and seeing that she has been strangled] I hear the whistle blowing.
- [after a pause]
- June Goffe: Who did it? You?
- Alex Winkler: You mean you think I did it?
- June Goffe: Didn't you?
- Alex Winkler: Don't look at me like that! I think you'd better leave.
- June Goffe: Yes. Well, this is New York... where "hello" means "goodbye".
- June Goffe: [angrily to the bouncer] Why don't you ask him why he's wearing those white gloves? He's been givin' me the itch all night.
- Edward Honig: [nervously] No, it's a misunderstanding.
- June Goffe: [contemptuously] He's got a rash on his hands.
- Bouncer: [angrily] Is that a fact?
- Edward Honig: [desperately] No, it's a nervous condition.