Spencer TracyQuotes

Stanley Banks: Now look Ellie, I know how anxious you've been to get your hooks into that baby, but the answer is NO. I've been through all that you know, the two o'clock feedings, the colic and the measles & all the rest of it & I'm not going through all of it again, especially with somebody else's baby

Ellie Banks: It wouldn't be like that, Stanley, it'll be fun to have a baby

Stanley Banks: You can go over and see the baby at their apartment when they get it all washed & ironed, but it's not coming here and THAT'S FINAL!

Stanley Banks: [Telephone rings at night] Hello. Buckley, do you know what time it is? It's a quarter to three.

Buckley Dunstan: I'm sorry, I didn't realize. Is Kay there?

Stanley Banks: [Sarcastically; Whispers; Puts down the receiver & quietly tiptoes downstairs to hall, then picks up the extension phone] But of course she, where would she be? Hello, I'll take this downstairs, hang on. What do you mean. is she here?

Buckley Dunstan: Well, I thought if she were there I could come and pick her up if she were there.

Stanley Banks: When did she leave? What time did she leave?

Buckley Dunstan: I don't know, I've been out for a few hours, I just got back a little while ago.

Stanley Banks: What was it, a fight?

Stanley Banks: DID you have a FIGHT?

Buckley Dunstan: We had an argument, yes. Look if anything happens to her, I'll kill myself.

Stanley Banks: Don't worry, I'll do it for you. Did she take anything, a bag or anything?

Buckley Dunstan: She took her hatbox, umbrella & toilet case & a toothbrush.

Stanley Banks: Don't worry about it then, if she took her toothbrush, she's not headed for the river.

Stanley Banks: [after someone called him 'Grampa' at the announcement event] Somewhere there was a fly in the ointment... Grampa, that was the fly. Grampa.

Stanley Banks: [to Ellie] You're more excited about this baby than you were any of ours.

Tess Harding: Sam, why can't we sit down like adults and patch this thing up?

Sam Craig: I'm afraid that might become a habit. Then we'd wind up with a patchwork quilt for a marriage.

Sam Craig: [in front of the airport] Could I drop you someplace, Miss Whitcomb?

Ellen Whitcomb: You can drop that "Miss Whitcomb.

Sam Craig: I don't want to be married to Tess Harding any more than I want you to be just Mrs. Sam Craig. Why can't you be Tess Harding Craig?

Tess Harding: I think it's a wonderful name.

Tess Harding: I'm going to be your wife. You don't think that I can do the little ordinary things that any idiot can do, do you?

Sam Craig: No.

Tess Harding: Why not?

Sam Craig: Because you're incapable of doing them, that's why. You can't expect Seabiscuit to stop in the middle of the stretch, drink a glass of water, and count to seven at the same time, you know. That takes training.

Tess Harding: Well, I'm not Seabiscuit.

Tess Harding: [attending a baseball game] You mean our paper sends two people to cover the game?

Phil Whittaker: No, I cover the game, he just kicks it around in his column.

Tess Harding: We've got only one man at Vichy...

Sam Craig: Vichy, are they still in the league?

Tess Harding: [attending a baseball game] Are all these people unemployed?

Sam Craig: No, they're all attending their grandmother's funeral.

Sam Craig: [Sam and Tess are both mildly drunk. Tess's head is resting on Sam] There's something I have to get off my chest...

Tess Harding: [starts to get up] I'm too heavy...

Sam Craig: [smiles] No. I love you.

Tess Harding: You do?

Sam Craig: Positive.

Tess Harding: [sighs] That's nice. Even when I'm sober?

Sam Craig: Even when you're brilliant.

Sam Craig: [on his and Tess's very short wedding ceremony] No one will ever believe we were married sober.

Ben Banks: Can't be June. I've got my final. Why not May?

Ellie Banks: May's too early.

Tommy Banks: July's out. I'm going to camp.

Kay Banks: This isn't a kids party. It's my wedding and my friends.

Stanley T. Banks: Ellie, what did you mean by?

Kay Banks: No one has to raise a finger. When the time comes, I'll do everything. And I mean everything.

Ellie Banks: I can imagine that.

Ben Banks: I'm not going.

Kay Banks: Listen! I don't care if you come or not!

Stanley T. Banks: Right then I knew we'd lost her. She'll always love us of course, but not in the old way. From now on her love will be handed out like a farmer's wife tossing scraps to the family rooster.

Stanley T. Banks: I would like to say a few words about weddings. I've just been through one. Not my own. My daughter's. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence, but not now. I always used to think that marriages were a simple affair. Boy meets girl. Fall in love. They get married. Have babies. Eventually the babies grow up and meet other babies. They fall in love. Get married. Have babies. And so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it's not only simple, it's downright monotonous. But I was wrong. I figured without the wedding.

Amanda Bonner: [addressing the court] For years, women have been ridiculed, pampered, chucked under the chin. I ask you, on behalf of us all, be fair to the fair sex.

Adam Bonner: We'll be here a year.

Kip Lurie: Well, good luck tomorrow, Amanda. I'm on your side, I guess you know that. You've got me so convinced, I may even go out and become a woman. Goodnight.

Adam Bonner: And he wouldn't have far to go, either.

Amanda Bonner: Shh!

Adam Bonner: What's a matter?

Kip Lurie: [steps back into the kitchen and whispers] He can hear you.

Adam Bonner: What are ya? Sore about a little slap?

Amanda Bonner: No.

Adam Bonner: Well, what then?

Amanda Bonner: [outraged] You meant that, didn't you? You really meant that.

Adam Bonner: Why, no, I...

Amanda Bonner: Yes, you did. I can tell. I know your type. I know a slap from a slug.

Adam Bonner: Well, OK, OK.

Amanda Bonner: I'm not so sure it is. I'm not so sure I care to expose myself to typical instinctive masculine brutality.

Adam Bonner: Oh come now.

Amanda Bonner: And it felt not only as though you meant it, but as though you felt you had a right to. I can tell.

Adam Bonner: What've you got back there? Radar equipment?

Amanda Bonner: What I said was true, there's no difference between the sexes. Men, women, the same.

Adam Bonner: They are?

Amanda Bonner: Well, maybe there is a difference, but it's a little difference.

Adam Bonner: Well, you know as the French say...

Amanda Bonner: What do they say?

Adam Bonner: Vive la difference!

Amanda Bonner: Which means?

Adam Bonner: Which means hurrah for that little difference.

Adam Bonner: [to Amanda] No matter what you think you think, you think the same as I think.

Adam Bonner: First of all, I should like to say that I think the arguments advanced by the counsel for the defense were sound... MERE sound!

Warren Haggerty: She may be his wife, but she's engaged to me!

Joe Wilson: Your honor, I am Joseph Wilson.

Court Bailiff: Keep your seat!

Judge Daniel Hopkins: Go on.

Joe Wilson: I know that by coming here, I saved the lives of these 22 people, but that isn't why I'm here. I don't care anything about saving them. They're murderers. I know the law says they're not because I'm still alive, but that's not their fault. And the law doesn't know that a lot of things that were very important to me, silly things maybe, like a belief in justice, and an idea that men were civilized, and a feeling of pride that this country of mine was different from all others. The law doesn't know that those things were burned to death within me that night. I came here today for my own sake. I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't stop thinking about them with every step and every breath I took, and I didn't believe Katherine when she said... Katherine is the young lady who was going to marry me. Maybe someday after I've paid for what I did, they'll be a chance to begin again, and then maybe Katherine and I...

Katherine Grant: Joe.

Joe Wilson: I got you a little momentum." (He meant memento.)

Joe Wilson: I'll give them a chance that they didn't give me. They will get a legal trial in a legal courtroom. They will have a legal judge and a legal defense. They will get a legal sentence and a legal death.

Joe Wilson: The mob doesn't think. It has no mind of its own.

Matt Drayton: Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?

Matt Drayton: [Matthew's voice softening] Now, Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me, but wants to know if I'm some kind of a nut. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband, I'm a burnt-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue. Because I think you're wrong. You're as wrong as you can be.I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that your son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old? Yes. Burnt out? Certainly. But I can tell you the memories are still there – clear, intact, indestructible. And they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake, I think, was attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think. Because in the final analysis, it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other. And if it's half of what we felt, that's everything.As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable. But you'll have no problem with me. And I think that uh, when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him, you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know – I'm sure you know – what you're up against. There'll be a hundred million people right here in this country who'll be shocked and offended and appalled at the two of you. And the two of you will just have to ride that out. Maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You can try to ignore those people or you can feel sorry for them and for their prejudices and their bigotry and their blind hatreds and stupid fears. But where necessary, you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say screw all those people! Anybody could make a case, and a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happen to have a pigmentation problem. And I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse. And that would be if – knowing what you two are, knowing what you two have, and knowing what you two feel – you didn't get married.

Dan Farrow: [panicky, about to die in the electric chair] How much time have I got, Father?

Father Flanagan: Eternity begins in forty-five minutes, Dan.

Dan Farrow: What happens then?

Father Flanagan: Oh, a bad minute or two.

Dan Farrow: And after that?

Father Flanagan: Well, Dan, that's a question that scientists and philosophers have been asking for a million years.

Father Flanagan: There is no such thing as a bad boy.

Father Flanagan: I know that a mother can take a whip to the toughest boy in the world, and he forgets it because he knows that she loves him.