Thelma Ritter Quotes

How the West Was Won

Unexpected Partnerships and Ambitions in Agriculture

Agatha Clegg You know something ? I got a hunch you're gonna draw men like fish to bait. Maybe I can catch one of them while they swim by. You got yourself a partner.

[Lily has asked to partner-up with Agatha in a wagon train]

Cpl. Peterson Mrs. Rawlings, there ain't much glory in trompin behind a plow.

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Rear Window

Reflections on Privacy and Observation

Stella The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the work house...They got no windows in the work house. You know, in the old days, they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker. Any of those bikini bombshells you're always watchin worth a red-hot poker? Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Pillow Talk

Understanding What You're Missing in Life

Jan Well, what am I missing?

[about living alone]

Alma If you have to ask, you're missing it!

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Pickup on South Street

Betrayal Among Friends in Unlikely Circumstances

Moe Williams What's the matter with you? Playing footsie with the Commies!

Skip McCoy You waving the flag, too?

Moe Williams Listen, I knew you since you was a little kid. You was always a regular kind of crook. I never figured you for a louse.

Skip McCoy Stop, you're breaking my heart.

Moe Williams Even in our crummy line of business you gotta draw the line somewhere.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Rear Window

Suspicion and Cleanup in Rear Window

Lisa What's he doing? Cleaning house?

Jeff He's washing and scrubbing down the bathroom walls.

Stella Must've splattered a lot.

Stella Come on, that's what were all thinkin'. He killed her in there, now he has to clean up those stains before he leaves.

Lisa Stella... your choice of words!

Stella Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killin yet.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Pickup on South Street

Caution in Handling Money Matters

Moe Williams I've got almost enough to buy both the stone and the plot.

Capt. Dan Tiger If you lost that kitty, it's Potter's Field.

Moe Williams This I do not think is a very funny joke, Captain Tiger!

Capt. Dan Tiger I just meant you ought to be careful how you carry your bankroll.

Moe Williams Look, Tiger, if I was to be buried in Potter's Field, it would just about kill me.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Pickup on South Street

The Burden of Survival and Acceptance

Moe Williams Listen, Mister. When I come in here tonight, you seen an old clock runnin down. I'm tired. I'm through. Happens to everybody sometime. It'll happen to you too, someday. With me it's a little bit of everything. Backaches and headaches. I can't sleep nights. It's so hard to get up in the morning, and get dressed and walk the streets. Climb the stairs. I go right on doin it! Well, what am I gonna do, knock it? I have to go on makin a livin'... so I can die. But even a fancy funeral ain't worth waitin fer if I gotta do bus'ness with crumbs like you.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Titanic

Recognizing the Signs of a Runaway

Maude Young I've seen that look before. He's a runaway.

Earl Meeker From what, some woman?

Maude Young No, he's running too fast for that.

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Pickup on South Street

Betrayal and Trust in a Deal

Joey You'd sell anybody for buttons.

Moe Williams Yeah, but not to you, Mister!

Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.

Rear Window

Anticipating Trouble in a Constrained Environment

Stella I got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. I can see you in court now, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers in double-breasted suits. You're pleading: Judge, it was only a little bit of innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father. And the Judge says, Well, congratulations, you've just given birth to three years in Dannemora.

Jeff Yeah, right now I'd welcome trouble...You know, I think you're right. I think there is going to be trouble around here.

Stella ...What kind of trouble?

Jeff Lisa Fremont.

Stella Are you kidding? She's a beautiful young girl and you're a reasonably healthy young man.

Jeff She expects me to marry her.

Stella That's normal.

Jeff I don't want to.

Stella That's abnormal.

Jeff I'm just not ready for marriage.

Stella Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along. And Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain who can get one eye open.

Jeff Oh, she's all right.

Stella What did you do? Have a fight?

Jeff No.

Stella Her father loading up the shotgun?

Jeff What? Please, Stella.

Stella It's happened before you know. Some of the world's happiest marriages have, uh, started under the gun, as you might say.

Jeff No, she's just not the girl for me.

Stella Yeah, she's only perfect.

Jeff She's too perfect. She's too talented, she's too beautiful. She's too sophisticated. She's too everything but what I want.

Stella Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?

Jeff Well, it's very simple, Stella. She belongs to that rarified atmosphere of Park Avenue, you know. Expensive restaurants, literary cocktail parties...Can you imagine her tramping around the world with a camera bum who never has more than a week's salary in the bank? If she was only ordinary.

Stella You ever gonna get married?

Jeff I'll probably get married one of these days, and when I do, it's gonna be to someone who thinks of life not just as a new dress, and a lobster dinner, the latest scandal. I need a woman who's willing...to go anywhere and do anything and love it. So the honest thing for me to do is just to call the whole thing off and let her find somebody else.

Stella Yeah, I can hear you now. Get out of my life. You're a perfectly wonderful woman - you're too good for me. Look, Mr. Jefferies, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and a woman see each other and like each other they ought to come together - wham! Like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.

Jeff There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.

Stella Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence. Hah! Modern marriage!

Pickup on South Street

The Ethics of Informing in Crime

Candy You've been recommended as the best pickpocket stoolie in the business.

Moe Williams What kind of talk is that, calling me a stoolie? I was brought up to report any injustice to the police authority. I call that being a solid citizen.

Candy But you get paid for it.

Moe Williams You gonna knock it?

Pickup on South Street

Consequences of Asking Silly Questions

Moe Williams Ask a silly question, you get a dopey look.

Pickup on South Street

The Concept of Happy Money

Moe Williams You got any Happy Money?

Candy Happy Money?

Moe Williams Yeah, money that's gonna make me happy.

Rear Window

Searching for Clues in the Garden

Lisa The last thing Mrs. Thorwald would leave behind would be her wedding ring. Stella, do you ever leave yours at home?

Stella The only way somebody would get that would be to chop off my - finger. Let's go down to the garden and find out what's buried there.

Lisa Why not? I always wanted to meet Mrs. Thorwald.

Pillow Talk

The Paradox of Solitude and Acceptance

Alma If there's anything worse than a woman living alone, it's a woman saying she likes it.

How the West Was Won

Invitations and Unspoken Concerns in Relationships

Roger Morgan Well, ain't that what I been doin'? Invitin you? Invitin you to share my life, Miss Prescott.

Lilith Prescott I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan.

Roger Morgan It's somethin else, ain't it? Must be something else naggin at ya. Well, I don't aim to let it stop me, Miss Prescott. You can count on that.

Agatha Clegg What'd he want?

Lilith Prescott Children.

Agatha Clegg Children? Well, I'll be... Why didn't he come shoppin at the right store?

Memorable Quotes from Thelma Ritter