- Terry Randall: [delivering her opening speech in the play within the movie] The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.
- Eve: [after a dinner where Terry Randall has evidently spoken very eloquently about Shakespeare] Well, I don't like to gossip, but that new gal seems to have an awful crush on Shakespeare!
- Susan: [jokingly] I wouldn't be surprised if they get married!
- Mary Lou: [with genuine naiveté] Oh, you're foolin'! Shakespeare's dead!
- Susan: [Feigning surprise, playing along to entertain the others] No!
- Mary Lou: Well, if he's the same one that wrote "Hamlet", he is!
- Eve: [playing along, too] Never heard of it.
- Mary Lou: Well, certainly you must have heard of "Hamlet"!
- Eve: Well, I meet so many people.
- Terry Randall: I see that, in addition to your other charms, you have that insolence generated by an inferior upbringing.
- Jean Maitland: Hmm! Fancy clothes, fancy language and everything!
- Terry Randall: Unfortunately, I learned to speak English correctly.
- Jean Maitland: That won't be of much use to you here. We all talk pig latin.
- Jean Maitland: Hey, that's a kind of good-lookin' piece of jackrabbit you got there.
- Linda Shaw: Oh, it's just a little trinket my "Aunt Susan" sent over.
- Jean Maitland: Say, I think it's very unselfish of those little animals to give up their lives to keep other animals warm.
- Linda Shaw: You know, they're very smart little animals. They never give up their lives for the wrong people.
- Jean Maitland: Well, you understand the rodent family much better than I do.
- Terry Randall: [With a superior air, leaving the crowded living room of girls after many snappy wisecracks and lively banter among the group] It'd be a terrific innovation if you could get your minds stretched a little further than the next wisecrack.
- Terry Randall: [giving her curtain speech at the end of a trimphant opening night performance of the play within the movie] The person you should be applauding died a few hours ago. I hope that wherever she is, she knows and understands and forgives.
- Jean Maitland: [crassly screaming from the bottom of the stairs] OH, LINDA!
- Linda Shaw: [coming down the stairs] Maybe if you spoke a little LOUDER next time, everyone in the whole HOUSE could hear you.
- Jean Maitland: [sarcastically] Oh, I'm sorry, I forget that you're old and deaf.
- Judy Canfield: Do you want a date?
- Jean Maitland: To some other lumberman?
- Judy Canfield: Am I supposed to apologize for being born in Seattle?
- Jean Maitland: Well, the last couple we went stepping with were made of lumber. Especially their feet.
- Judy Canfield: All right, all right, you can stay here and gorge yourself on lamb stew again. Hey, Pat, wanna...
- Jean Maitland: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Wait! Is it for dinner?
- Judy Canfield: Yes!
- Jean Maitland: Well, why didn't you say so before you spoke. That lamb stew has got me counting sheep at night.
- Terry Randall: [entering the boarding house after trying the wrong door] How many doors are there to this place?
- Jean Maitland: Well, there's the trap door, the humidor, and the cuspidor. How many doors would you like?
- Linda Shaw: If you were a little more considerate of your elders, maybe Mr. Powell would send his car for you someday. Of course, he would probably take one look at you and send you right back again, but then you have to expect that.
- Jean Maitland: Is that so?
- Linda Shaw: You know, I think I could fix you up with Mr. Powell's chauffeur. The chauffeur has a very nice car too.
- Jean Maitland: Yes, but I understand Mr. Powell's chauffeur doesn't go as far in his car as Mr. Powell does.
- Linda Shaw: Even a chauffer has to have an incentive!
- Jean Maitland: Well, you should know!
- Jean Maitland: Do you mind if I ask a personal question?
- Terry Randall: Another one?
- Jean Maitland: Are these trunks full of bodies?
- Terry Randall: Just those, but I don't intend to unpack them.
- Bill: One of the best press campaigns...
- [Offers Jean a cigarette]
- Jean Maitland: No thanks. Gave it up when I was seven.
- Bill: Bright girl. Busy tonight?
- Jean Maitland: Yes.
- [Following routine lines omitted]
- Bill: Well, you haven't given up eating, have you?
- Jean Maitland: It isn't that. It's just that I think we hadn't better see each other for a while.
- Bill: Why?
- Jean Maitland: I just think it's better, that's all.
- Bill: [long pause] O-h-h-h.
- Jean Maitland: Why do you say "o-h-h-h" like that?
- Bill: Well, how would you say it?
- Jean Maitland: You make it sound like it meant something else.
- Bill: Well, does it?
- Jean Maitland: Whatever I do is my own business.
- Annie: Are you coming or aren't you?
- Jean Maitland: Oh, shut up.
- Bill: Did you eat something sour for lunch today?
- Jean Maitland: [to Linda Shaw as she is leaving for a dinner date] Don't chew the bones and give yourself away!
- Jean Maitland: Hey Kay! Why didn't you say hello to me?
- Kay Hamilton: I'm sorry, I didn't see you.
- Jean Maitland: Well, you couldn't help but hear me.
- Jean Maitland: We could leave the trunks here and sleep in the hall. There's no use crowding the trunks.
- Terry Randall: [meeting sarcasm with sarcasm] I don't know what we're going to do when the wolf hounds arrive. I hope you don't mind animals.
- Jean Maitland: Oh, not at all. I roomed with a great many of them before.
- Eve: It must have been counterfeit. There's no such thing as a fifty dollar bill.
- Judy Canfield: You know, I think she's as phony as that bill.
- Terry Randall: The trouble with you is you're all trying to be comics. Don't you ever take anything seriously?
- Judy Canfield: After you've sat around for a year trying to get a job, you won't take anything seriously either.
- Terry Randall: Well, do you have to just sit around and do nothing about it?
- Judy Canfield: Maybe it's in the blood. My grandfather sat around until he was 80.
- Terry Randall: Well, my grandfather didn't. And if he and a lot of others hadn't crossed the country in a covered wagon, there'd still be Indians living in Wichita.
- Eve: Who do you think's living there now?
- Anthony Powell: You girls rehearsing for a musical?
- Jean Maitland: No, we're just getting over the DTs.
- Kay Hamilton: Do you have appointments too?
- Judy Canfield: We're waiting for Randall. If she doesn't crack Powell's office by two o'clock, she's buying us lunch.
- Eve: We're starting off with caviar. Oh, not that small sturgeon kind; but, nice big whale caviar.
- Judy Canfield: She doesn't even know what a pheasant is.
- Linda Shaw: Naturally, there's a difference between pheasant and peasant.
- Jean Maitland: Oh, my friend wouldn't think of serving peasants.
- Linda Shaw: No, but he's willing to take them out once or twice.
- Jean Maitland: That's a wonderful view.
- Anthony Powell: Oh, yes. It is.
- Jean Maitland: Wonderful.
- Anthony Powell: It's a wonderful little view. It's a beautiful city! Just like a fairyland. It's full of color, romance, illusion, glamour.
- Jean Maitland: Maybe it depends on which window you see it from.
- Terry Randall: Anyhow, I wanted to show that I could act.
- Anthony Powell: You are a faker!
- Terry Randall: Oh, we're both fakers. Isn't faking the essence of acting?
- Anthony Powell: Well, it may apply to acting, but it does not apply to me.
- Terry Randall: You, you're a bigger faker than I am.
- Anthony Powell: That's libel!
- Terry Randall: Not if I can prove it.
- Anthony Powell: How long have you been coaching this girl?
- Miss Luther: I've only had her a month.
- Anthony Powell: Incredible! No one could possibly get that bad in a month's time.
- Miss Luther: Would you mind a suggestion?
- Anthony Powell: Anything, please!
- Miss Luther: I was wondering, could you possibly see an older woman in the part?
- Kay Hamilton: Here, you sit down and I'll get you some tea.
- Terry Randall: The condemned woman drank her hearty supper.
- Kay Hamilton: I felt the same way. I felt like running and hiding from everyone. But, after that opening speech, there's a thrill you'll never forget. It's a thrill that only comes once.
- Terry Randall: Thrill? I can't make out whether it's a thrill or agony.
- Kay Hamilton: It's both.
- Miss Luther: You can't leave now! There are people here. The press. Photographers. You're an actress now. You belong to them!
- [last lines]
- Mrs. Orcutt: I think you'll be interested in this. It's one of the features of the Footlights Club. It's the chair Bernhardt sat in when she read Queen Elizabeth over here. I was in the company! I think you'll like it here. We're one great big family. I'll show you your room. I hope you don't mind sharing...
- Jean Maitland: Hey, you're not gonna catch the opening tonight, huh?
- Eve: No, I'm going tomorrow and catch the closing.
- Jean Maitland: Maybe I could fix you up with Mr. Powell's chauffeur. The chauffeur has a very nice car too.
- Linda Shaw: Yes, but I'm told the chauffeur doesn't go as far in his car as Mr. Powell does.
- Linda Shaw: [to Anthony Powell] If I have to have a stooge, would you mind at least getting me somebody interesting.
- Harcourt: I hate that word "stooge," I'm retained as an *escort*.
- Linda Shaw: Stooge is good enough.
- Jean Maitland: Where is she? Oh, you. Come on, take 'em off.
- Linda Shaw: Are you speaking to me?
- Jean Maitland: You heard what I said! Take off those stockings or I will! And take a little of your hide off with 'em.
- Linda Shaw: What do you mean? They are my stockings.
- Jean Maitland: They are not! If you think I'm going to give up my lunch to buy you stockings, you're crazy.
- Linda Shaw: Well, you owe me a pair anyway.
- Jean Maitland: From now on you wear your own stockings or go barelegged! The places you go, it doesn't make any difference anyway.
- Jean Maitland: I'll slap her ears flat against the back of her head.
- Linda Shaw: I'd like to see you try it.
- Jean Maitland: Come on down here!
- Judy Canfield: Well, at least you know there is such an animal. What'd he look like?
- Kay Hamilton: Like any other animal. He had on pants, tie and collar.
- Jean Maitland: What's the matter?
- Kay Hamilton: Oh, it's just one of those days. Let's sit down and have a good cry.
- Jean Maitland: All right. You can cry on my shoulder. I'm gonna go bathe anyhow.
- Kay Hamilton: Oh, Jean, I've got to get that part in "Enchanted April." It's been my whole life! It's me. No one else can play that part! It belongs to me! Oh, Jean, I've got to get that part! I've got to!
- Terry Randall: You sound very superior. What have you ever done in the theater?
- Eve: Everything but burst out of a pie at a Rotarian banquet.
- Jean Maitland: Did you ever dance with one of those Seattle romeos?
- Terry Randall: Maybe. I don't remember.
- Jean Maitland: Well, if you did, you'd remember it all right.
- Terry Randall: Why do you go out with them?
- Jean Maitland: I'll bite, why do I? They not only jump on you but they bore you to death.
- Jean Maitland: Why don't you sell some of those clothes and live in a decent place?
- Terry Randall: Isn't this a decent place?
- Jean Maitland: No!
- Jean Maitland: I didn't like the way he looked at me.
- Annie: You should be glad he looked at you at all.
- Judy Canfield: Yeah.
- Jean Maitland: He kinda makes you feel like you ought to run home and put on a tin overcoat.
- Jean Maitland: He wasn't looking for an act, he was putting one on!
- Annie: You ought to stop at a filling station and get pumped up!
- Judy Canfield: Ah, she ain't exactly a flat, dearie, just a slow leak.
- Olga: If it's not food, it's men. Can't you talk about anything else?
- Judy Canfield: And what else is there?
- Linda Shaw: [Sees Jean and Annie dancing on stage] Well, well, life is full of surprises.
- Anthony Powell: Cute kids, aren't they?
- Linda Shaw: You think so?
- Anthony Powell: I wonder who they are.
- Linda Shaw: Just a lot of riffraff they pick up around town.
- Carmichael: Who's the girl?
- Anthony Powell: Oh, I haven't the faintest idea - some stage-struck damsel suffering from overexcitement.