The Philadelphia Story

The Philadelphia Story Quotes

When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.

Tracy Lord: The time to make up your mind about people is never.
Librarian: What is thee wish?
Macaulay Connor: I'm looking for some local b - what'd you say?
Librarian: What is thee wish?
Macaulay Connor: Um, local biography or history.
Librarian: If thee will consult with my colleague in there.
Macaulay Connor: Mm-hm. Dost thou have a washroom?
[the librarian points]
Macaulay Connor: Thank thee.
George Kittredge: But a man expects his wife to...
Tracy Lord: Behave herself. Naturally.
C. K. Dexter Haven: To behave herself naturally.
[George gives him a look]
C. K. Dexter Haven: Sorry.
C. K. Dexter Haven: You'll never be a first class human being or a first class woman until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty.
Macaulay Connor: Doggone it, C.K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Shall we toss a coin?
Macaulay Connor: Tracy.
Tracy Lord: What do you want?
Macaulay Connor: You're wonderful. There's a magnificence in you, Tracy.
Tracy Lord: Now I'm getting self-conscious. It's funny. I - Mike? Let's...
Macaulay Connor: Yeah?
Tracy Lord: I don't know - go up, I guess, it's late.
Macaulay Connor: A magnificence that comes out of your eyes, in your voice, in the way you stand there, in the way you walk. You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts.
Tracy Lord: I don't seem to you made of bronze?
Macaulay Connor: No, you're made out of flesh and blood. That's the blank, unholy surprise of it. You're the golden girl, Tracy. Full of life and warmth and delight. What goes on? You've got tears in your eyes.
Tracy Lord: Shut up, shut up. Oh, Mike. Keep talking, keep talking. Talk, will you?
Macaulay Connor: You've got all the arrogance of your class, haven't you?
Tracy Lord: What have classes to do with it? What do they matter except for the people in them? George comes from the so-called lower class, Dexter, the upper. Well?
Macaulay Connor: Well...
Tracy Lord: Mac the night watchman is a prince among men, Uncle Willie is a... pincher. Upper and lower my eye. I'll take the lower, thanks.
Macaulay Connor: If you can't get a drawing room.
Tracy Lord: What does that mean?
Macaulay Connor: My mistake.
Tracy Lord: Decidedly. You're insulting!
Macaulay Connor: Sorry.
Tracy Lord: Oh, don't apologize!
Macaulay Connor: Well, who's apologizing?
Tracy Lord: I never knew such a man.
Macaulay Connor: You wouldn't be likely to, from where you sit!
Tracy Lord: Talk about arrogance.
Macaulay Connor: Tracy.
Tracy Lord: What do you want?
Macaulay Connor: [pause] You're wonderful.
Macaulay Connor: I'm testing the air. I like it but it doesn't like me.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Where's my wandering parakeet?
Margaret Lord: The course of true love...
Macaulay Connor: ...gathers no moss.
Macaulay Connor: This is the Bridal Suite. Would you send up a couple of caviar sandwiches and a bottle of beer?
Margaret Lord: What? Who is this?
Macaulay Connor: This is the Voice of Doom calling. Your days are numbered, to the seventh son of the seventh son.
Margaret Lord: Hello? Hello?
Tracy Lord: What's the matter?
Margaret Lord: One of the servants has been at the sherry again.
Tracy Lord: You hardly know him.
C. K. Dexter Haven: To hardly know him is to know him well.
Tracy Lord: You're too good for me, George. You're a hundred times too good. And I'd make you most unhappy, most. That is, I'd do my best to.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: What's this room? I've forgotten my compass.
Macaulay Connor: I'd say, south-by-southwest parlor-by-living-room.
Tracy Lord: [a very drunk Tracy] My feet are made of clay. Made of clay, did you know? Good niiiggghhhttt little man!
C. K. Dexter Haven: Sometimes, for your own sake, Red, I think you should've stuck to me longer.
Tracy Lord: I thought it was for life, but the nice judge gave me a full pardon.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Aaah, that's the old redhead. No bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left to the jaw.
C. K. Dexter Haven: I'm sorry, but I thought I better hit you before he did. He's in better shape than I am.
Macaulay Connor: Well you'll do!
Macaulay Connor: My father was a history teacher.
Tracy Lord: English history has always fascinated me. Robin Hood, Cromwell, Jack the Ripper. Where did he teach? Your father I mean.
Macaulay Connor: The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.
Margaret Lord: Oh, dear. Is there no such thing as privacy any more?
Tracy Lord: Only in bed, mother, and not always there.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Oh it's all right Tracy. We all go haywire at times and if we don't, maybe we ought to.
Tracy Lord: Dexter, say something.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Well, I...
Tracy Lord: Oh, Dexter, I'm such an unholy mess of a girl.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Well, that's no good. That's not even conversation.
Macaulay Connor: I would sell my grandmother for a drink - and you know how I love my grandmother.
[Dexter has just proposed]
Tracy Lord: Oh Dexter you're not doing it just to soften the blow?
C. K. Dexter Haven: No.
Tracy Lord: Nor to save my face?
C. K. Dexter Haven: Oh, it's a nice little face.
Tracy Lord: Oh Dexter, I'll be yar now, I promise to be yar.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Be whatever you like, you're my redhead.
Uncle Willie: [hung over] Awww... this is one of those days that the pages of history teach us are best spent lying in bed.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: There's a cousin, Joanna, who's definitely crazy.
Macaulay Connor: Who told you that.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Dinah.
Macaulay Connor: Well Dinah would know.
Tracy Lord: [Tracy and Mike have almost kissed. Both are very drunk] Has your mind taken hold again, dear professor?
Macaulay Connor: Good thing, don't you agree?
Tracy Lord: No, professor.
Macaulay Connor: [angrily] Alright, lay off that "professor" stuff! Now, do you hear me?
Tracy Lord: Yes, professor...
Macaulay Connor: [drunk] You going my way miss?
Tracy Lord: [drunk] That's "Miss Goddess" to you
Macaulay Connor: Okay, Miss Goddess To Me.
Tracy Lord: Hello you.
Macaulay Connor: Hello.
Tracy Lord: You look fine.
Macaulay Connor: I feel fine.
Tracy Lord: [normal voice] Hello, Dexter.
[lower voice]
Tracy Lord: Hello, George.
[high childish voice]
Tracy Lord: Hello, Mike.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Of course, Mr. Connor, she's a girl who is generous to a fault.
Tracy Lord: To a fault.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Except to other people's faults.
Tracy Lord: You're just a mass of prejudices, aren't you? You're so much thought and so little feeling, Professor.
Macaulay Connor: [telling off Sidney Kidd, his boss] Quote: No hunter of buckshot in the rear is cagey, crafty Connor. Un-quote. Close paragraph.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Close job. Close bank account.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: [referring to Dinah] What's this?
Macaulay Connor: Idiot, probably.
Macaulay Connor: [drunk] I bring you greetings and Cinderella's slipper, champagne. Champagne is a great leveleler... leveleler. It makes you my equal.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Not quite.
Macaulay Connor: Well, almost my equal.
Tracy Lord: South Bend, it sounds almost like dancing.
Tracy Lord: Put me in your pocket, Mike.
Seth Lord: You have everything it takes to make a lovely woman except the one essential: an understanding heart. And without that you might just as well be made of bronze.
Tracy Lord: [on her wedding day] Do you like my dress, Dinah?
Dinah Lord: Oh, yes. Ever so much.
Tracy Lord: Feels awfully heavy.
Macaulay Connor: It can't be anything like love, can it?
Tracy Lord: No, no, it can't be.
Macaulay Connor: Would it be inconvenient?
Tracy Lord: Terribly.
Tracy Lord: Only for the moment, I'm not interested in myself.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Not interested in yourself, Red, you're fascinated. You're far and away your favorite person in the world.
Macaulay Connor: [after Tracy has declined his last-minute marriage proposal] But they're in there! They're waiting!
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Don't get too conventional all at once, will you? There'll be a reaction.
George Kittredge: I'm going to build you an ivory tower with my own two hands.
Tracy Lord: Like fun you are.
Sidney Kidd: You really hate me, don't you Connor?
Macaulay Connor: Oh no!
[pause]
Macaulay Connor: I don't like you very much though.
Dinah Lord: Nothing ever possibly in the least ever happens here. Mother, how do you get smallpox?
George Kittredge: You're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue.
Tracy Lord: George...
George Kittredge: Oh, it's grand, Tracy. It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshipped you for from afar.
Tracy Lord: I don't want to be worshipped. I want to be loved.
Uncle Willie: [watching Kittredge clumsily mount a horse] Heigh Ho Silver.
Macaulay Connor: I don't think you're being fair to me, Mr. Kidd.
Sidney Kidd: No?
Macaulay Connor: No. You're treating me like you treat all your other writers.
Macaulay Connor: C.K. Dexter Haven, I would like to talk to you.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Well, let's go in the talking room.
Tracy Lord: English history has always facinated me. Cromwell, Robin Hood, Jack the Ripper. Where did he teach? You're father, I mean.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: We've come for the body of Macaulay Connor.
C. K. Dexter Haven: I'm so glad you came. Can you use a typewriter?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: No, thanks, I've got one at home.
Tracy Lord: You haven't switched from liquor to dope, by any chance, have you Dexter?
Macaulay Connor: Oh Tracy darling...
Tracy Lord: Mike...
Macaulay Connor: What can I say to you? Tell me darling.
Tracy Lord: Not anything - don't say anything. And especially not "darling."
Macaulay Connor: Tell four footmen to call me in time for lunch will you?
Tracy Lord: How do I look?
Seth Lord: Like a queen. Like a goddess.
Tracy Lord: And do you know how I feel?
Seth Lord: How?
Tracy Lord: Like a human. Like a human being.
George Kittredge: [walks in on Tracy and Dexter together] Well, I suppose I should object to this twosome.
C. K. Dexter Haven: That would be most objectionable.
Macaulay Connor: [after learning that Dexter is Tracy's ex-husband and is going to help with introducing him and Liz] Holy mackerel. What goes on here?
Margaret Lord: We both might face the facts that neither of us has proved to be a very great success as a wife.
Tracy Lord: We just picked the wrong first husband.
C. K. Dexter Haven: The moon is also a goddess, chaste and virginal.
Tracy Lord: Stop using those foul words.
Sidney Kidd: Anyway, presented for the first time, quote: A wedding day inside mainline society.
Macaulay Connor: Or what the kitchen maid saw through the keyhole. Unquote.
Tracy Lord: I never knew such a man.
Macaulay Connor: You're not likely to dear. Not from where you sit.
Tracy Lord: These stories are beautiful. Why, Mike, they're almost poetry.
Macaulay Connor: Don't kid yourself, they are.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: I remember your honeymoon quite well. You and she on a little sail boat, the "True Love", wasn't it?
C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes it was. How did you know?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: I was the only photographer whose camera you didn't smash. You were terribly nice about it. You threw it in the ocean.
Macaulay Connor: Oh, one of those.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes I had the strange notion that our honeymoon was our own.
C. K. Dexter Haven: I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer.
Dinah Lord: Oh, it won't rain. Tracy won't stand for it.
Seth Lord: What most wives fail to realize is that their husband's philandering has nothing whatever to do with them.
Tracy Lord: Oh? Then what has it to do with?
Seth Lord: A reluctance to go grow old, I think.
Macaulay Connor: [drunk, to driver] Well, this is where Cinderella gets off, now you hurry back to the ball before you turn into a pumpkin and six white mice, goodbye.
Tracy Lord: Dexter, would you mind doing something for me?
C. K. Dexter Haven: Anything. What?
Tracy Lord: Get the heck out of here.
[Mike discovers the intercom in the Lords' house]
Macaulay Connor: Uh-oh, Liz, what did I tell you? Look, how do you like this - living room, sitting room, terrace, pool, stables.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: That's probably so they can talk to the horses without having them in the house.
Macaulay Connor: [to the butler] The Queen will have bread and honey at the usual time.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Orange juice, certainly.
Tracy Lord: Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whisky and whiskies.
C. K. Dexter Haven: No-no-no-no. I've just changed their colour, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. They're more becoming of me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don't you - alcohol, I mean?
Macaulay Connor: Oh, a little.
C. K. Dexter Haven: [Amused] A little? And you a writer? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know, at one time I think I secretly wanted to be a writer.
[He and Tracy exchange scornful looks]
Tracy Lord: Aren't you coming Liz?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Well, it seems I've got to commit suicide first.
Margaret Lord: Are you one of the musicians?
Macaulay Connor: No!
Margaret Lord: Oh of course, you're Junius's friend. Only you're not. Do you have any violin strings?
Macaulay Connor: [digs in his pocket] I have an aspirin. Will that work?
Margaret Lord: I don't think so! It's for a violin. Oh well, no matter!
C. K. Dexter Haven: [looking for the "hair of the dog"] Do you s'pose, sir, speaking of eye-openers...?
Uncle Willie: Oh, that's the first sane remark I've heard today. C'malong, Dexter, I know a formula that's said to pop the pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen.
Macaulay Connor: Look, who's doing the interviewing here?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Do you think she caught on somehow?
Macaulay Connor: No, she was born like that, don't let her throw you.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Do you want to take over?
Macaulay Connor: I want to go home!
Macaulay Connor: C.K. Dexter Haven, what kind of a name is that?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Macaulay Connor is no homespun tag, my pet.
Macaulay Connor: Yeah, well you just try calling him Macaulay.
Sidney Kidd: You hate me, I trust, Miss Imbrie.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: No, I-I can't afford to hate anybody. I'm only a photographer.
George Kittredge: [Dexter has butted in] You keep out of this.
C. K. Dexter Haven: You forget I am out of it.
Tracy Lord: I never thought that alcohol would - Oh shut up.
Macaulay Connor: [speaking of Tracy] What are her leading characteristics?
C. K. Dexter Haven: She has a horror of men who wear their hats in the house.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Leading characteristics to be filled in later.
Macaulay Connor: I can fill them in right now: the rich, rapacious, American female. There's no other country where she exists.
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: And would I change places with Tracy Samantha Lord for all her wealth and beauty? Oh boy just ask me.
Uncle Willie: Must we ride in this thing? Wouldn't we be more comfortable on pogo sticks?
[Liz screams as Uncle Willie pinches her on the rear]
Macaulay Connor: Don't DO that!
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: I... I feel exactly as though I'd been pinched.
Seth Lord: Don't you think you weren't.
Tracy Lord: I can't make you out at all now.
Macaulay Connor: I thought I was easy.
Tracy Lord: So did I. But you're not. You talk so big and tough and then you write like this. Which is which?
Macaulay Connor: Both. I guess.
Tracy Lord: No. No, I believe you put the toughness down to save your skin.
Macaulay Connor: You think so?
Tracy Lord: Yes. I know a little about that.
Macaulay Connor: You do?
Tracy Lord: Quite a lot.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Hello friends and enemies.
Uncle Willie: Young man, remove yourself!
C. K. Dexter Haven: How are you, sir?
Uncle Willie: I don't know. Get along! Get along!
Tracy Lord: [taking the perfume out of the car] This is your Uncle Willy's favorite, Complete Surrender.
Uncle Willie: [hung over, moans as the pony cart Dinah's driving hits a bump]
Dinah Lord: What's wrong?
Uncle Willie: Oh, nothing, nothing. My head just fell off, that's all.
Macaulay Connor: Champagne's funny stuff. I'm used to whiskey. Whiskey is a slap on the back, and champagne's heavy mist before my eyes.
Uncle Willie: [leering at Liz] Ah Ms. Embry, you're a vision of lovliness. May I offer you a cocktail? Or champagne?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: Oh champagne, I've never had enough.
Uncle Willie: You will... tonight.
Margaret Lord: I think that dress hikes up a little behind...
Dinah Lord: No, it's me that does.
Tracy Lord: Oh, we're going to talk about me again, are we? Goody.
Tracy Lord: You seem quite contemptuous of me all of the sudden.
C. K. Dexter Haven: No Red, not of you, never of you.
Tracy Lord: I'm going crazy. I'm standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy.
Macaulay Connor: [calling outside his house] C.K. Dexter Haven! Oh, C.K. Dexter Haven!
C. K. Dexter Haven: [coming to the door in his pajamas] What's up?
Macaulay Connor: You are.
C. K. Dexter Haven: I only hope it's worth it. Come in.
George Kittredge: [to horse] What's the matter, Bessie? You seem worried.
Dinah Lord: Maybe that's because his name is Jack.
Tracy Lord: My, she was yar...
Macaulay Connor: What's this? Is it my book?
C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes.
Macaulay Connor: C. K. Dexter Haven you have unsuspected depth!
C. K. Dexter Haven: Thanks, old chap.
Macaulay Connor: But have you read it?
C. K. Dexter Haven: When I was trying to stop drinking, I read anything.
Macaulay Connor: And did you stop drinking?
C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes. Your book didn't do it though.
C. K. Dexter Haven: Can you use a typewriter?
Elizabeth (Liz) Imbrie: No, thanks. I have one at home.
Dinah Lord: [describing her "dream" to Tracy] Do you know what I saw coming out of the woods?
Tracy Lord: I haven't the faintest idea, a skunk?
Sidney Kidd: I understand we understand each other.

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