- Dr. Tom Owen: [on the phone with his wife] Oh, I'm interviewing nurses, of course... Don't be silly, darling - of course she'll be fat and ugly. I do insist on good legs, though.
- Joan Lasher: [gives him a present to open] This is from me.
- Dr. Jim Crowley: Well! A letter opener!
- Joan Lasher: No doctor should be without one. Use it this way. You take off serious symptoms in your fingers and impress your patients.
- Dr. Jim Crowley: Does it also open letters?
- Joan Lasher: [laughs] Only when they contain checks.
- Dr. Jim Crowley: This, and the scalpel. I'm in business!
- Dr. Tom Owen: What are you looking for? Another moose head on your wall?
- Helen Curtis: [laughs] You might be a good looking moose head, at that!
- Dr. Tom Owen: Nobody's gonna collect me and hang me on any wall.
- Helen Curtis: Any experienced collector will tell you, colonel, that prized items are always given special treatment.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Just how much experience have you had?
- Helen Curtis: A great deal. Perhaps too much. Twice married, twice divorced.
- Dr. Tom Owen: I've met women like you in half the capitals of the world. You've been everywhere, done everything, seen everything, had everything, and that's still not good enough.
- Helen Curtis: I'm not interested in your diagnosis.
- [She starts to leave; he grabs her and they kiss]
- Dr. Tom Owen: [showing her his new doctor's office] What do you think?
- Mrs. Mary Owen: I was in an office like this once before. Floyd's. It ruined him.
- Dr. Tom Owen: What ruined Floyd was that he forgot he came out of a hole in the ground. He wanted a social career. I want only one thing: Money. Look, Mom - I've got a chance at a jackpot. A lot of people with a lot of money think I'm a colorful character. Because I have the right sponsorship, they think I'm more than average.
- Mrs. Mary Owen: You are more than average.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Well, I'm not. But by the time they find that out, I'll have the security I want; then it won't matter.
- Mrs. Mary Owen: You don't mean that. You're just saying it.
- Dr. Tom Owen: How do you know what I mean?
- Mrs. Mary Owen: I'm your mother.
- Dr. Tom Owen: [looking around his old home] It feels like I've been gone about two days.
- Mrs. Mary Owen: Ten years! I can't believe it. All the places you've been, and all the things you've done. You look bigger.
- Dr. Tom Owen: [laughs] It's the uniform.
- [looking at his hands]
- Dr. Tom Owen: Look, no coal dirt under the fingernails. Pop's scrubbing brush and your laundry soap finally paid off. Clean.
- Mrs. Mary Owen: They're good hands. You're a good doctor.
- Mrs. Mary Owen: When you were a little boy, when you first said to me you wanted to be a doctor, I was so happy. I thought, a doctor's like a priest. My Tom will be a doctor. He'll be able to help people.
- Dr. Tom Owen: It's been my experience that women who drink too much aren't silly - they're frustrated.
- Helen Curtis: I don't like to be kept waiting.
- Dr. Tom Owen: You'll learn, if you hang around doctors long enough.
- Helen Curtis: Colonel, all I'm suggesting is that you take off your uniform and accept Dr. Gleeson's offer.
- Dr. Tom Owen: His offer to do what? Patch up a bunch of neurotics and rich alcoholics like Rita Thornberg? In the army, I'm a doctor treating real patients. Here?
- Helen Curtis: The rich get just as sick as the poor.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Of course they do. When they're really sick, not developing imaginary illnesses.
- Helen Curtis: May I pay you a small compliment?
- Dr. Tom Owen: If it's not too small.
- Helen Curtis: I didn't get much sleep this morning because of you. There were four calls. All women. Asking about Colonel Tom Owen.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Did you take their numbers?
- Helen Curtis: I told them I saw you first. Occupied territory.
- Dr. Tom Owen: You know, that might be fun. Being occupied.
- Helen Curtis: It could be.
- Dr. Tom Owen: I asked you to marry me. I'd still like you to.
- Helen Curtis: [laughs] Are you sure you want to marry a girl who can't do anything except write checks?
- Dr. Tom Owen: You'll have a chance to learn a lot more than that. I'm quitting Gleeson.
- Helen Curtis: You're going back to Coalville?
- Dr. Tom Owen: I'm going back to medicine. There was no ghost surgery down in that mine tonight. I wasn't standing in for Gleeson or anybody else. I was on my own. That's the way it's got to be from now on. A man had to die to drive that into me.
- Helen Curtis: What difference does it matter where you practice? A few hours ago, right here in this house, you told my aunt that a doctor's business was saving lives, no matter whose they were.
- Dr. Tom Owen: A few hours ago, I was still looking for guarantees. I thought that's what I wanted: Security. I just learned that the only security, the only guarantees, the only chance a man's got to win is the way he uses what is given to work with. That's why I'm quitting Gleeson and going back to Coalville.
- Helen Curtis: I could never get used to Coalville.
- Mrs. Roger Nelson: [elegantly holding her cane] I haven't decided yet whether I should recuperate in the south of France or northern Africa.
- Dan Reasonover: [reading the engagement notice in the newspaper] Is this true?
- Dr. Tom Owen: There's no reason to sound like a district attorney, Dan. Of course it's true. We were going to tell you tonight.
- Dan Reasonover: I'd better tell you a few things first. You know what Helen means to me; I'd do anything in the world to make her happy. You don't know what you're stepping into.
- Dr. Tom Owen: I'll take my chances on her.
- Dan Reasonover: You'll never get a chance. It's not easy for a man to say things like this about his own daughter, but she'll destroy you the same way she destroyed the others. Her backyard is full of the bones of explorers.
- Joan Lasher: I haven't seen all the surgery in the world, but I know the best when I see it. And surgeons like you come along only once in a long, long while. You are a fine doctor. All you need is your hands. Keep them clean.
- Dr. Tom Owen: I intend to.
- Joan Lasher: You can't. Not the way you've been going. Good night, doctor!
- Dr. Tom Owen: [following his examination] I'm afraid you'll have to cut down on cigarettes.
- Lucille Grellett: [coyly] No, seriously. Am I alright?
- Dr. Tom Owen: You just need something to quiet your nerves.
- Lucille Grellett: Well, I'm sorry to have caused you all this trouble, Tom.
- Dr. Tom Owen: No trouble at all, Lucille. As long as you feel relief.
- Lucille Grellett: I certainly do.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Glad I was able to help. You can get dressed now, Lucille.
- Lucille Grellett: Will I be seeing you at the Sutton's party Friday night?
- Dr. Tom Owen: Helen did say something about it, yes.
- Lucille Grellett: Good! I hope you'll recognize me with my clothes on!
- Mrs. Roger Nelson: I've waited six weeks to say this to you: Thank you for saving my life.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Dr. Gleeson did that.
- Mrs. Roger Nelson: You've already demonstrated that you're a brilliant surgeon. Now, don't try to prove you're a bad liar.
- Dr. Tom Owen: You've been around long enough to know that a doctor's success depends on who he treats, not how well.
- Joan Lasher: [angrily] I'm sorry, doctor. I haven't been around that long.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Well, what have we here? A nurse with ideals?
- Joan Lasher: My father taught me to believe that everybody had them.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Small towns are just like big ones, except in one way: They have less of everything.
- Joan Lasher: They have enough for me.
- Dr. Tom Owen: The only difference between Crowley's patients and mine is that mine pay more.
- Joan Lasher: I'm sorry you see it that way.
- Dr. Homer Gleeson: Did you find anything wrong with Miss Grellett?
- Dr. Tom Owen: There was nothing to find.
- Dr. Homer Gleeson: I figured that. The lengths to which that type of girl will go to get attention.
- Dr. Tom Owen: [smiles] She got attention. $250 worth.
- Dan Reasonover: When she was 21, I gave her a fortune. Parasites of two continents clustered around her like bees around a honeypot.
- Dr. Tom Owen: I'm interested in your daughter - not her money.
- Dan Reasonover: Maybe right now you're not. Funny thing about money - it's very easy to get used to. I don't want you to be like the others, Tom. I want you to be a man with a profession, not just the husband of a rich woman.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Look. I'm a doctor. I'll always be a doctor. No matter whom I marry.
- Dan Reasonover: Are you sure?
- Dr. Tom Owen: You know, you were beginning to impress me - money, style, honesty; I might have known there'd be something wrong with you.
- Mrs. Roger Nelson: I don't own modern paintings. Now, I like a nice, comfortable painter like Rembrandt; when he painted a naked woman, you knew it was a woman, and not an order of scrambled eggs.
- Helen Curtis: Are you quite sure she'll be alright?
- Dr. Tom Owen: She lost about three ounces of blood; the human body contains thirteen pints, so I don't think she has much to worry about.
- Helen Curtis: I must say, you were very impressive, the way you handled it.
- Dr. Tom Owen: Cub Scouts do it every day, for merit badges.