- Marnie Edgar: You don't love me. I'm just something you've caught! You think I'm some sort of animal you've trapped!
- Mark Rutland: That's right - you are. And I've caught something really wild this time, haven't I? I've tracked you and caught you and by God I'm going to keep you.
- Mark Rutland: What you do need, I suspect, is a psychiatrist.
- Marnie Edgar: Oh, men! You say "no thanks" to one of them and BINGO! You're a candidate for the funny farm.
- Mark Rutland: Well why didn't you jump over the side?
- Marnie Edgar: The idea was to kill myself, not feed the damn fish.
- Marnie Edgar: The only way you can help me is to leave me alone! Can't you understand? Isn't it plain enough? I cannot bear to be handled!
- Mark Rutland: By anybody? Or just me?
- Marnie Edgar: You. Men!
- Mark Rutland: Really? You didn't seem to mind at my office that day, or at the stables. And all this last week i've handled you. Kissed you many times. Why didn't you break out in a cold sweat and back into a corner then?
- Marnie Edgar: I thought I could stand it if I had to.
- Mark Rutland: Marnie, it's time to have a little compassion for yourself. When a child, a child of any age, Marnie, can't get love, it takes what it can get, any way it can get it. It's not so hard to understand.
- Lil Mainwaring: How do you take your tea, Miss Taylor?
- Marnie Edgar: Usually with a cup of hot water and a tea bag.
- Mark Rutland: Before I was drafted into Rutland's Mrs Taylor, I had notions of being a zoologist. I still try to keep up with my field.
- Marnie Edgar: Zoos?
- Mark Rutland: Instinctual behavior.
- Marnie Edgar: Oh. Does zoology include people, Mr Rutland?
- Mark Rutland: Well, in a way. It includes all the animal ancestors from whom man derived his instincts.
- Marnie Edgar: A lady's instinct too?
- Mark Rutland: Well, that paper deals with the instincts of predators. What you might call the criminal class of the animal world. Lady animals figure very largely as predators.
- [Marnie takes a taxi back home, to a poor district by the wharf. There are girls skipping to a song]
- Girls skipping: Mother, mother, I am ill. Send for the doctor over the hill. Call for the doctor. Call for the nurse. Call for the lady with the alligator purse... Mumps, said the doctor. Measles, said the nurse. Nothing, said the lady with the alligator purse. How many years will I live? One Two Three Four...
- Mark Rutland: Did you have a tough childhood, Mrs Taylor?
- Marnie Edgar: Not particularly.
- Mark Rutland: I think you did. I think you've had a hard, tough climb. But you're a smart girl, aren't you? The careful grammar, the quiet good manners. Where did you learn them?
- Marnie Edgar: From my betters.
- Mark Rutland: When we get home, I'll explain that we had a lover's quarrel... That you ran away... That I went after you and brought you back. That'll please Dad. He admires action. Then I'll explain that we' re gonna be married before the week is out... That I can't bear to have you out of my sight. He also admires wholesome animal lust.
- [first lines]
- Sidney Strutt: Robbed! Cleaned out! $9,967! Precisely as I told you over the telephone. And that girl did it. Marion Holland. That's the girl. Marion Holland.
- First Detective: Can you describe her, Mr. Strutt?
- Sidney Strutt: Certainly I can describe her: five feet five, 110 pounds, size 8 dress, blue eyes, black wavy hair, even features, good teeth.
- [detectives unable to restrain laughter]
- Sidney Strutt: Well what's so damn funny? There's been a grand larceny committed on these premises.
- Bernice Edgar: Oh, Marnie. You shouldn't spend all your money on me like you do.
- Marnie Edgar: But that's what money's for: to spend. Like the Bible says, "Money answereth all things."
- Marnie Edgar: We don't need men, Mama. We can do very well for ourselves. You and me.
- Bernice Edgar: A decent woman don't have need for any man. Look at you, Marnie. I told Miss Cotton, look at my girl Marnie. She's too smart to go gettin' herself mixed up with men - none of 'em!
- Marnie Edgar: I don't need to read that muck to know that women are stupid and feeble and men are filthy pigs!
- Marnie Edgar: I'd like to go back to sleep now.
- Mark Rutland: Why? Your sleep seems even less agreeable than your waking hours.
- Marnie Edgar: If you don't want to go to bed, please get out.
- Mark Rutland: But I do want to go to bed, Marnie. I very much want to go to bed.
- Marnie Edgar: No!
- Marnie Edgar: Oh... it's you. Where's my mother?
- Jessica 'Jessie' Cotton: She's making a pecan pie. For me.
- Marnie Edgar: That figures.
- Mark Rutland: You should try to be Marnie's friend.
- Lil Mainwaring: I always thought a girl's best friend was her mother!
- Marnie Edgar: I'm not a bit nervous, Mark.
- Mark Rutland: You have no reason to be. You're unquestionably the best-looking woman here. The best-dressed. The most intelligent. And you're with me.
- Marnie Edgar: My God! When I think of the things I've done to try to make you love me. The things I've done! What are you thinking now, Mama? About the things I've done? What do you think they are? Things that aren't *decent*, is that it? Well, you think I'm Mr Pemberton's girl. Is that why you don't want me to touch you? Is that how you think I get the money?
- Bernice Edgar: Wake up, Marnie. You're still dreaming. Get washed up. Supper's ready.
- Marnie Edgar: I was having that old dream again. First the tapping and then...
- Bernice Edgar: I said supper's ready.
- Marnie Edgar: It's always when you come to the door. That's when the cold starts.
- Mark Rutland: Mary, this is my father.
- Marnie Edgar: How do you do, Mr Rutland?
- Mr. Rutland: A girl, is it?
- Mark Rutland: It's alright, Dad. She's not really a girl, she's a horse-fancier.
- Marnie Edgar: I don't believe in luck.
- Mark Rutland: What do you believe in?
- Marnie Edgar: Nothing. Oh, horses, maybe. At least they're beautiful, and nothing in this world like - people.
- Sidney Strutt: I knew she was too good to be true. Always so eager to work overtime, never made a mistake. Always pulling her skirt down over her knees as though they were a - national treasure. She seemed so nice. So efficient. So...
- Mark Rutland: Resourceful?
- Sidney Strutt: Mr Rutland. I didn't know you were in town. Just had a robbery. Almost $10,000.
- Mark Rutland: So I gathered. By a pretty girl with no references.
- Sidney Strutt: You remember her. I pointed her out to you last time you were here. You said something about how I was improving the looks of the place.
- Mark Rutland: Oh, that one! The brunette with the legs.
- Bernice Edgar: I see that you've lighted up your hair, Marnie.
- Marnie Edgar: A little. Why? Don't you like it?
- Bernice Edgar: No. Too blonde hair always looks like a woman's tryin' to attract the man. Men and a good name don't go together.
- Sam Ward: Now, why are we taking on someone without the proper references? You' re always such a stickler.
- Mark Rutland: Let's just say I'm an interested spectator in the - passing parade.
- Sam Ward: I don't get it.
- Mark Rutland: You're not supposed to get it.
- Lil Mainwaring: Is Mark in there? I looking for a free lunch and somebody to cash a check for me. I thought I'd stick Mark for the lunch and you for the cash.
- Marnie Edgar: Well, Mr Ward, I have good training, but I've had very little actual experience. Kendall' s was my first real job. After I finished school, I was married. My husband was a CPA and he helped me keep up with my training. I learned a great deal more from him: accounting, cost-price, - even something about computers.
- Mark Rutland: You seem to be terrified of some colors.
- Marnie Edgar: No. No, what I'm terrified of is thunder and lightning.
- Mark Rutland: You know, I wouldn't have pegged you as a woman terrified of anything.
- Marnie Edgar: Where are we going this time?
- Mark Rutland: I thought it was time I brought you home to meet my old man.
- Marnie Edgar: Well, you should've told me.
- Mark Rutland: Oh, you're alright. Dad goes by scent. If you smell anything like a horse, you're in.
- Mark Rutland: You're a cold-practised, method-actress of a liar.
- Marnie Edgar: I can't help it.
- Mark Rutland: It would appear not.
- Mark Rutland: Is Edgar your real name? And you're blonde. You'll save a good deal of time and make for better feeling all around if you just tell me the truth. Is Edgar your real name?
- Mark Rutland: I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear that the rest of the haul is with your late husband, Mr Taylor. Somewhere around these parts I expect to find him happily reincarnated and the pockets of his good blue burial suit bulging with Rutland money.
- Marnie Edgar: Oh, God, Mark, if you let me go, I swear I'll...
- Mark Rutland: I *can't* let you go, Marnie. Somebody's got to take care of you and help you. I can't turn you loose. If I let you go, I'm criminally and morally responsible.
- Mark Rutland: our dates are all wrong. Previously you were employed by the firm of Strutt and Company. I saw you there once. Mr Strutt is the tax consultant for Rutland and Company. He pointed you out to me. You were a brunette then.
- Mark Rutland: We've established that you're a thief and a liar. Now, what is the degree? Are you a compulsive thief? A pathological liar?
- Marnie Edgar: Oh, what difference does it make?
- Mark Rutland: Some! It makes some difference - to me.
- Marnie Edgar: Oh, Mark, if you love me, you'll let me go. Just let me go, Mark, please. Mark, you don't know me. Oh, listen to me, Mark. I am not like other people. I know what I am!
- Mark Rutland: I doubt that you do, Marnie. In any event, we'll just have to deal with whatever it is that you are.
- Marnie Edgar: [emphastically] I told you I've never been married.
- Mark Rutland: Near misses?
- Marnie Edgar: No! And no lovers, no steadies, no beaus, no gentlemen callers, nothing!