James Stewart credited as playing...
George Bailey
- Man on Porch: Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?
- George Bailey: You want me to kiss her, huh?
- Man on Porch: Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people.
- George Bailey: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.
- Mary: I'll take it. Then what?
- George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair... am I talking too much?
- [last lines]
- Zuzu Bailey: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.
- George Bailey: That's right, that's right.
- George Bailey: [Looks heavenward] Attaboy, Clarence.
- George Bailey: Just a minute... just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was... why, in the 25 years since he and his brother, Uncle Billy, started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry away to college, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter, and what's wrong with that? Why... here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You... you said... what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!
- George Bailey: [running through Bedford Falls] Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!
- [George has discovered his brother Harry's tombstone]
- Clarence: [explaining] Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.
- George Bailey: That's a lie! Harry Bailey went to war! He got the Congressional Medal of Honor! He saved the lives of every man on that transport!
- Clarence: Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.
- Mary: [embracing George] Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for.
- George Bailey: [softly] You're wonderful... wonderful.
- Mary: Bread... that this house may never know hunger.
- [Mary hands a loaf of bread to Mrs. Martini]
- Mary: Salt... that life may always have flavor.
- [Mary hands a box of salt to Mrs. Martini]
- George Bailey: And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.
- [George hands Mr. Martini a bottle of wine]
- George Bailey: Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me
- [begins crying]
- George Bailey: show me the way... show me the way.
- George Bailey: Mary Hatch, why in the world did you ever marry a guy like me?
- Mary: To keep from being an old maid!
- George Bailey: You could have married Sam Wainright, or anybody else in town...
- Mary: I didn't want to marry anybody else in town. I want my baby to look like you.
- George Bailey: You didn't even have a honeymoon. I promised you...
- [stops]
- George Bailey: Your what?
- Mary: My baby!
- George Bailey: [stuttering] Your, your, your, ba- Mary, you on the nest?
- Mary: George Baily Lassos Stork!
- George Bailey: [still stuttering] Lassos a stork?
- [Mary nods]
- George Bailey: What're'ya... You mean you're... What is it, a boy or a girl?
- Mary: [nods enthusiastically] Mmmm-hmmm!
- George Bailey: [on Mary being caught naked in the bushes after her robe slips off] This is a very interesting situation!
- Mary: Please give me my robe.
- George Bailey: A man doesn't get in a situation like this every day.
- Mary: I'd like to have my robe.
- George Bailey: Not in Bedford Falls anyway.
- Mary: [after the bushes' thorns starting hurting her] Ouch! Oh!
- George Bailey: Gesundheit.
- Mary: George Bailey!
- George Bailey: Inspires a little thought!
- Mary: Give me my robe.
- George Bailey: I've read about things like this.
- Mary: Shame on you! I'm going to tell your mother on you.
- George Bailey: Well, my mother is way up on the corner.
- Mary: I'll call the police!
- George Bailey: Well, they're all the way downtown. They'd be on my side.
- Mary: Then I'll scream!
- George Bailey: Maybe I can sell tickets.
- [a car pulls up, and George is told that his father has suffered a stroke]
- George Bailey: How old are you anyway?
- Mary: 18.
- George Bailey: 18! Why it was only last year you were 17.
- George Bailey: Look, who are you? Who are you really?
- Clarence: I told you, George. I'm your guardian angel.
- George Bailey: Yeah, well what else are you? Are you a hypnotist?
- Clarence: No, of course not.
- George Bailey: Then why am I seeing all these strange things?
- Clarence: Don't you understand, George? It's because you were never born.
- George Bailey: Well, if I was never born... who am I?
- Clarence: You're nobody. You have no identity.
- George Bailey: What do you mean no identity? My name is George Bailey!
- Clarence: There is no George Bailey.
- [George searches his pockets for identification, finds none]
- Clarence: You have no papers, no cards, no driver's license, no 4F card, no insurance policy.
- [George finally searches his watch pocket for the rose petals from Zuzu]
- Clarence: They're not there either.
- George Bailey: What?
- Clarence: Zuzu's petals... You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you.
- Mrs. Hatch: Who is down there with you, Mary?
- Mary: It's George Bailey, mother.
- Mrs. Hatch: George Bailey? What does he want?
- Mary: I don't know!
- [to George]
- Mary: What do you want?
- George Bailey: Me? Nothing! I just came in to get warm.
- Mary: [pause] He's making violent love to me, mother!
- Ma Bailey: [speaking of Mary Hatch] Why, she lights up like a firefly whenever you are around. Besides, Sam Wainright is off in New York, and you're here in Bedford Falls...
- George Bailey: And all's fair in love and war, right?
- Ma Bailey: [fixing his collar] Well, I don't know about war...
- George Bailey: Well, you look about the kind of angel I'd get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren't you? What happened to your wings?
- Clarence: I haven't won my wings, yet. That's why I'm called an Angel Second Class. I have to earn them. And you'll help me will you?
- George Bailey: [sarcastic] Sure, sure. How?
- Clarence: By letting me help you.
- George Bailey: I know one way you can help me. You don't happen to have 8,000 bucks on you?
- Clarence: No, we don't use money in Heaven.
- George Bailey: Well, it comes in real handy down here, bud!
- George Bailey: You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider! And...
- [turning to his aide]
- George Bailey: And that goes for you, too!
- Clarence: [hearing Nick's cash register ding] Oh-oh. Somebody's just made it.
- George Bailey: Made what?
- Clarence: Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel's just got his wings.
- George Bailey: [George hears a train whistle] There she blows. You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?
- Uncle Billy: Uh huh. Breakfast is served; lunch is served; dinner...
- George Bailey: No no no no. Anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles.