The Philadelphia Story poster

The Philadelphia Story Quotes

"Broadway's howling year-run comedy hit of the snooty society beauty who slipped and fell - IN LOVE!"

NR 1941 · 1h 53m
75
Audience
75
Audience
13 quotes
Playful Rich and Their Bedtime Stories
Taglines Uncle Leo's bedtime story for you older tots! The things they do among the playful rich - Oh, boy!
A Toast to Changing Tastes
Dexter Orange juice, certainly.
Tracy Don't tell me you've forsaken your beloved whiskey and whiskeys.
Dexter No, no, no, no. I've just changed their color, that's all. I'm going for the pale pastel shades now. They're more becoming to me. How about you, Mr. Connor? You drink, don't you? Alcohol, I mean.
Mike Oh, a little.
Dexter A little, little. And you a writer? I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time, I think I secretly wanted to be a writer.
Love and Society in Broadway Comedy
Taglines Broadway's howling year-run comedy hit of the snooty society beauty who slipped and fell - IN LOVE!
Conflicting Perspectives on Love and Strength
Dexter How in the world could you even think of it?
[about marrying George]
Tracy Because he is everything you're not. He's been poor. He's had to work and he's had to fight for everything. And I love him, as I never even began to love you.
Dexter Maybe so, but I doubt it. I think he's just a swing from me. But it's too violent a swing. Kittredge is no great tower of strength, you know, Tracy. He's just a tower.
Tracy You hardly know him.
Dexter To hardly know him is to know him well. And perhaps it offends my vanity to have anyone who is even remotely my wife re-marry so obviously beneath her.
Tracy How dare you! Any of you in this day and age use such an idiotic...
Dexter I'm talking about the difference in mind and spirit...Kittredge is not for you.
Tracy You bet he's for me. He's a great man and a good man. Already, he's of national importance.
Dexter You sound like Spy Magazine talking. But whatever he is, toots, you'll have to stick. He'll give you no out as I did.
Tracy I won't require one.
Dexter I suppose you'd still be attractive to any man of spirit, though. There's something engaging about it, this goddess business. There's something more challenging to the male than the, uh, more obvious charms.
Tracy Really?
Dexter Really. We're very vain, you know - This citadel can and shall be taken, and I'm the boy to do it.
Tracy You seem quite contemptuous of me all of a sudden.
Dexter No, Red, not of you, never of you. Red, you could be the finest woman on this earth. I'm contemptuous of something inside of you you either can't help, or make no attempt to; your so-called strength - your prejudice against weakness - your blank intolerance.
Tracy Is that all?
Dexter That's the gist of it; because 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. It's a pity your own foot can't slip a little sometime - but your sense of inner divinity wouldn't allow that. This goddess must and shall remain intact. There are more of you than people realize - a special class of the American Female. The Married Maidens.
Tracy So help me, Dexter, if you say another word, I'll...
Dexter I'm through, Red. For the moment, I've had my say.
Desire for Change in a Boring Life
Dinah Lord Oh, I wish something would happen! Nothing ever possibly in the least ever happens here!
Inside the Life of Tracy Lord
Kidd Your assignment will be Spy's most sensational achievement - Tracy Lord. Big game hunting in Africa, fox hunting in Pennsylvania. Married on impulse and divorced in a rage. And always unapproachable by the press. The Unapproachable Miss Lord. The Philadelphia Story'...quote A Wedding Day Inside Mainline Society.
Mike Or: What the Kitchen Maid Saw Through the Keyhole. unquote...quote No hunter of buckshot in the rear is Cagey Crafty Connor unquote, close paragraph.
Liz Close job, close bank account. But Mr. Kidd, how can you possibly get inside the Lord estate, let alone the house?
Mike Now we're not gonna do it, Liz, dawgonnit, it's degrading. It's undignified.
Liz And so is an empty stomach. How do we get in?
Confidence and Beauty in Conversation
Tracy How do I look?
Mr. Lord Like a queen - like a goddess.
Tracy And do you know how I feel?
Mr. Lord How?
Tracy Like a human. Like a human being.
Mr. Lord Do you know how I feel?
Tracy How?
Mr. Lord Proud.
Acknowledgment of Personal Achievement
Dinah Lord I did it. I did it all!
[watching the wedding, triumphant]
Class Privilege and Romantic Decisions in Conflict
Mike The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.
Tracy You're a snob, Connor.
Mike No doubt, no doubt...Tracy. You can't marry that guy.
Tracy George? I'm going to. Why, why not?
Mike Well, I don't know. I thought I'd be for it at first, but you just don't seem to match up.
Tracy Then the fault's with me.
Mike Well, maybe so, but all the same now, you can't do it.
Tracy No?
Mike No.
Tracy Come around about noon tomorrow. I mean today. Snob.
Mike What do ya mean, snob?
Tracy You're the worst kind there is. An intellectual snob. You made up your mind awfully young, it seems to me.
Mike Well, thirty's about time to make up your mind. And I'm nothing of the sort, not Mr. Connor.
Tracy The time to make up your mind about people - is never.
Reflections on Marriage and Choices
Tracy If you just face the facts squarely as I did.
Margaret We both might face the fact that neither of us have proved to be a very great success as a wife.
Tracy We just picked the wrong first husbands, that's all.
The Influence of Wealth on Perception
Dexter I never saw you looking better, Red. You're getting that fine, tawny look.
Tracy Oh, we're going to talk about me, are we? Goody.
Dexter It's astonishing what money can do for people, don't you agree, Mr. Connor? Not too much, you know - just more than enough. Now take Tracy for example. Never a blow that hasn't been softened for her. Never a blow that won't be softened. As a matter of fact, she's even changed her shape - she was a dumpy little thing at one time.
Tracy Only as it happens, I'm not interested in myself, for the moment.
Dexter Not interested in yourself! You're fascinated, Red. You're far and away your favorite person in the world.
Tracy Dexter, in case you don't know it -
Dexter Of course, Mr. Connor, she's a girl who's generous to a fault.
Tracy To a fault, Mr. Connor.
Dexter Except to other people's faults. For instance, she never had any understanding of my deep and gorgeous thirst.
Tracy That was your problem.
Dexter Granted. But you took on that problem with me when you took me, Red. You were no help-mate there. You were a scold.
Tracy It was disgusting. It made you so unattractive.
Dexter A weakness, sure, and strength is her religion, Mr. Connor. She finds human imperfection unforgiveable. And when I gradually discovered that my relationship to her was supposed to be not that of a loving husband and a good companion, but - Oh, never mind.
[He turns away from her]
Tracy Say it.
Dexter But that of a kind of high priest to a virgin goddess, then my drinks grew deeper and more frequent, that's all.
[Mike slides off his chair and leaves them.]
Tracy I never considered you as that, nor myself.
Dexter You did without knowing it. Oh, and the night that you got drunk on champagne and climbed out on the roof and stood there, NAKED, with your arms out to the moon, wailing like a banshee -
[Dexter laughs at the thought.]
Tracy I told you I never had the slightest recollection of doing any such thing.
Dexter I know. You drew a blank. You wanted to. Mr. Connor, what would you... Oh.
[He turns and notices Mike has gone]
Tracy A nice story for spies, incidentally.
Dexter Too bad we can't supply photographs of you on the roof.
Taking Risks in Relationships
Tracy Dexter, are you sure?
[after Dexter has proposed]
Dexter Not in the least. But I'll risk it. Will you?
Tracy You bet! You didn't do it just to soften the blow?
Dexter No.
Tracy Nor to save my face?
Dexter Oh, it's a nice little face.
Tracy Oh Dexter, I'll be yar now, I promise to be yar.
Dexter Be whatever you like, you're my redhead.
The Nature of Relationships and Identity
George You know, we're gonna represent something, Tracy, you and I in our home, something straight, sound, and fine. Then perhaps your friend Mr. Haven will be somewhat less condescending.
Tracy George, you, you don't really mind him, do you? I mean, the fact of him...I mean...that he ever was my lord and master. That we ever were...
George I don't believe he ever was, Tracy, not really. I don't believe that anyone ever was - or ever will be. That's the wonderful thing about you, Tracy.
Tracy What? How?
George Well, you're like some marvelous, distant, well, queen, I guess. You're so cool and fine and - and always so much your own. There's a kind of beautiful purity about you, Tracy, like, like a statue...
Tracy George -
George Oh, it's grand, Tracy. It's what everybody feels about you. It's what I first worshiped you for from afar.
Tracy George, listen -
George First, now, and always! Only from a little nearer now, eh, darling!
Tracy I-I don't want to be worshiped. I want to be loved!
George Well, you're that too, Tracy. Oh, you're that all right.
Tracy I mean really loved.
George But that goes without saying, Tracy.
Tracy No. No, now it's you who doesn't see what I mean.