- Tom Raikes: Have you slept at all? You look worn out.
- Marian Brook: Just what every woman wants to hear.
- Bertha Russell: It's beginning. I knew it would. Persistence is the key to everything. Patience and persistence.
- Bertha Russell: Careful, that table belonged to King Ludwig of Bavaria.
- George Russell: He had it once. I've got it now.
- Larry Russell: She's not a child anymore, and you shouldn't treat her as one.
- Bertha Russell: She's a child until I say.
- Mrs. Bauer: I think she may brighten the place up a bit.
- Ada Brook: Yes, that's rather what Mrs. Van Rhijn is afraid of.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I don't know which is worse, the noise of the builders, or the chance of running into her in the street.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Now, you need to know we only receive the old people in this house, not the new. Never the new.
- Marian Brook: What's the difference?
- Agnes Van Rhijn: The old have been in charge since before the revolution. They ruled justly until the new people invaded.
- Ada Brook: It's not quite as simple as that.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Yes, it is.
- Marian Brook: Well, I'm new. I've only just arrived.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Marian, never mind that the Brooks have been in Pennsylvania for a century and a half. My mother, your grandmother, was a Livingston of Livingston Manor, and they came to this city in 1674. You belong to old New York, my dear, and don't let anyone tell you different. You are my niece, and you belong to old New York.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: More likely, she has discovered her father left her without a penny to her name. Henry couldn't provide for a dog in a ditch. He never kept a dollar in his pocket if there were women or drink within 500 miles.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I suppose you only recently learned that your father had let you down.
- Marian Brook: Please don't speak ill of Daddy.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I will say what I like in my own house.
- Marian Brook: Not to me.
- Marian Brook: Don't worry, Mr. Raikes, I'm not beaten yet.
- Tom Raikes: At the risk of impertinence, I would say you're a long way from being beaten, Miss Brook.
- George Russell: What about your old friends? You never see them now.
- Bertha Russell: I don't want my old friends. I want new friends.
- Ada Brook: At least there's a railway station in Doylestown now, unlike in our day, but she'll need to get up early to catch the first train to Lansdale, and then she'll have to change at Bethlehem and take the Lehigh Valley Railroad to Exchange Place in Jersey City, and then catch the ferry across the Hudson to Desbrosses Street. From there, she could take an elevated train...
- Agnes Van Rhijn: And who is to support her? Exactly. Me. With the Van Rhijn money, which was not achieved at no cost to myself. You were allowed the pure and tranquil life of a spinster. I was not.
- Ada Brook: We should have gone for the funeral anyway.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: It wasn't worth an uncomfortable day of travel to make sure Henry was dead.
- Watson: I don't need protection, Mrs. Bruce, thank you. I've nothing to hide.
- Monsieur Baudin: Well, if that is true, you must be a very unusual person.
- John Thorburn: I turned down your offer because I thought you'd come back with more. It's called negotiation.
- Jack Treacher: Oh, she'll have to give in one day.
- Bannister: Why?
- Jack Treacher: Well, because they own the future, men like Mr. Russell, and Mrs. Van Rhijn will have to come to terms with it sooner or later, stands to reason.
- Bannister: What will you do if she doesn't?
- Jack Treacher: Me? Nothing, I guess.
- Bannister: Oh, I see. You spoke so definitely, I thought you had some course of action planned in protest.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Why do you bring that beastly dog? Dogs are supposed to run alongside carriages, not travel in them.
- Bertha Russell: She seems to know as few people as I do.
- Aurora Fane: Oh, I think she knows a good many of the women here.
- Anne Morris: They just don't want to know her.
- Dorothy Scott: You just remember, we are all held fast, frozen in time until you finally allow us to move forward.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: You carried a suitcase through the streets?
- Marian Brook: Oh, have I broken another rule?
- Agnes Van Rhijn: You were to check it was ready and then send the footman to collect it. And never go out unaccompanied. Please don't do such a thing again.
- George Russell: Whatever her faults, she has imagination and taste... and nerve.
- Stanford White: She will need all three in New York.
- Ada Brook: It's an invitation.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Addressed to us?
- Ada Brook: They were bound to entertain soon. They can't have built that great house to sit by the fire and read.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Well, let them entertain their own sort. Heaven knows there are plenty to choose from.
- Bertha Russell: I've decided to give an at home.
- George Russell: And what does that mean?
- Bertha Russell: You know perfectly well. I'll send cards saying we'll receive after dinner on such and such an evening, and they're welcome to look in.
- Marian Brook: Training orphans to be servants?
- Ada Brook: To save them from... something worse.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: There's no need to go into that.
- Caroline 'Carrie' Astor: Handsome young men who talk are always useful. That's what my mother says.
- Oscar Van Rhijn: And a girl should always listen to her mother.
- Mamie Fish: You must play something.
- Larry Russell: But we're having such a nice time where we are.
- Mamie Fish: What makes you think I brought you here to have a nice time?
- Bertha Russell: George, we have to start somewhere. Everyone calls on Mrs. Vanderbilt now. They're seen everywhere.
- George Russell: What's that got to do with it?
- Bertha Russell: When his grandfather arrived in New York, no one would go near him.
- George Russell: That was half a century ago. What are you saying? We have to keep this up for 50 years, and then someone may drop by?
- Bertha Russell: Things move faster nowadays.
- George Russell: That's a relief.
- Oscar Van Rhijn: She is quite a force.
- Caroline 'Carrie' Astor: A force for good, I hope.
- Oscar Van Rhijn: Well, a force to be reckoned with.
- George Russell: I'd just like you to be happy. And I know my loving you is not enough.
- Bertha Russell: It's almost enough.
- George Russell: I wish you'd invited some of the old crowd. The house will be full of strangers.
- Bertha Russell: We're headed in a different direction now, George. We're joining a different club.
- George Russell: Mm. Even if they don't want us to be members?
- Bertha Russell: Why shouldn't we be members? I'm tired of letting all those dull and stupid women dictate the way we live our lives. Why, you've done more for this city in ten years than their families have achieved in centuries.
- Turner: The evening was a folly. This house is a folly. She's built a palace to entertain the sort of people who will never come here.
- Bertha Russell: But why must I be the enemy?
- Stanford White: Well, that's easy. They have been in charge since the Mayflower landed, and now it's your turn, because you are the future, and if you are the future, then they must be the past. That's what frightens them.
- George Russell: And you've come a long way. Even I can see that.
- Bertha Russell: I don't want to come a long way. I want to go all the way.
- Ada Brook: I only ask that you never break your own moral code, for that is the soundest guide any of us can have.
- George Russell: What was it your mother used to say? 'You are the only one of my children who is worthy of my dreams.'
- Bertha Russell: Much good did those dreams do her. She had nothing while she lived and nothing when she died.