- Frank Hirsh: Made up your mind what you're gonna do, now that you're out of the army?
- Dave Hirsh: Sure, never to go in it again.
- Gwen French: Seriously, your first novel was more or less autobiographical, wasn't it?
- Dave Hirsh: I thought it was more or less lousy.
- Gwen French: Well, that isn't so. It might have lacked something in craftsmanship; but, it's a really powerful study of rejection.
- Dave Hirsh: Oh, that it was. It was rejected by 42 publishers and almost all of the English-reading public.
- Gwen French: Oh! We'll have no more of that. I'm not one of your barroom tarts!
- Dave Hirsh: You're right, teacher. You're a hundred percent right. I've been a bad boy. I've been naughty. Matter of fact, I don't even belong in your class.
- Gwen French: Quite possibly you don't.
- Dave Hirsh: Well, you won't get a chance to flunk me again.
- [In reference to Dave Hirsh's Brother, Frank]
- Hotel Clerk: You don't look like him.
- Dave Hirsh: Thanks
- Bama Dillert: You take my old man. Now he used to gamble when he was plowin' up his fields, hopin' for a crop. Sometimes he'd get one, sometimes he wouldn't. So figure if a man's gonna gamble, he might as well do it without plowin.'
- Bama Dillert: [in the hospital] How would you feel with strangers bopping in here day and night, turnin' you over, feeling under the covers. Boy, they sure get familiar around here in a hurry.
- Professor Robert Haven French: [Talking to Dave Hirsh] Dear Dave, first let me mix you a martini that's pure magic. It may not make one's problems disappear, but... it *does* reduce their size.
- Frank Hirsh: I told the judge you'd be leaving town.
- Dave Hirsh: Did you tell him where I was going?
- Frank Hirsh: How do I know where you're going?
- Dave Hirsh: How did you know I was leaving?
- Frank Hirsh: Aren't you?
- Dave Hirsh: Yeah, I guess so.
- Gwen French: Oh, Dave, we've met exactly three times. What do I know about you? What do you know about me?
- Dave Hirsh: I just know that I'm the kid who wants to marry you. Gwen, it's something I want more than anything else in the world.
- Dave Hirsh: That girl, uh, very attractive.
- Frank Hirsh: What girl?
- Dave Hirsh: Your secretary.
- Frank Hirsh: I never really noticed. I make it a rule not to, uh... with employees. If you're getting any ideas, forget them. She's strictly a nice girl.
- Dave Hirsh: All girls are nice, brother.
- Frank Hirsh: Yeah. You'll get no argument from me there.
- Doctor: I'm afraid we're going to have to keep you here for a while, Mr. Dillert.
- Bama Dillert: Now, what is this? A hospital or a jail?
- Doctor: It's not a question of legality. It's a question of professional responsibility. You're a sick man, Mr. Dillert. Oh, not from the knife wound - that was slight. But we discovered quite accidentally that you have rather an advanced case of... diabetes mellitus.
- Bama Dillert: I got what?
- Dave Hirsh: Diabetes?
- Doctor: I noticed there was considerable alcohol content in your blood test. How much whiskey do you drink in a day, Mr. Dillert?
- Dave Hirsh: That's a pretty good question.
- Bama Dillert: Oh, I don't rightly know, Doc. Maybe a fifth, maybe less. I don't know.
- Dave Hirsh: Maybe more...
- Doctor: Of course, you'll have to stop drinking, Mr. Dillert. Alcohol adds an enormous amount of sugar to the blood. You need treatment, Mr. Dillert. Immediate treatment.
- Dave Hirsh: You mean it's that serious?
- Doctor: The rate Mr. Dillert is going now, it's more than serious.
- Bama Dillert: All right, you've done your duty, doc. Now, you just tell me what I have to do to get out of this place without busting down that door and I'll be obliged.
- Doctor: [Reluctantly] I'll, uh... send up a release for you to sign.
- Ginnie Moorehead: You know the only time you talk nice to me is when you're loaded?
- Dave Hirsh: Let's get loaded.
- Al - Jewelry Store Clerk: Well, what can I show you, sir?
- Dave Hirsh: Got something in nose rings?
- Al - Jewelry Store Clerk: Huh?
- Dave Hirsh: Nothing too expensive. I know a little kid in the Congo. She gets restless.
- Dave Hirsh: I asked you?
- Ginnie Moorehead: Well, if you didn't, you don't think I would've come do you? What am I? A tramp or something?
- Frank Hirsh: A man ought to pick his spot - not go wandering all over the world.
- Dave Hirsh: Isn't that what they told Columbus?
- Dave Hirsh: [to Dawn] I hardly know you. Last time I saw you, you were stark naked in your bathtub.
- Agnes Hirsh: Oh, Dave, you rascal, you're making her blush.
- Dawn Hirsh: Not me.
- Dave Hirsh: I'm told that you teach creative writing.
- Gwen French: Yes, I do.
- Dave Hirsh: Would you like to teach me?
- Agnes Hirsh: Poppy's famous for his Manhattans. Only, one's my limit.
- Frank Hirsh: Oh, not tonight. Tonight, you're among friends.
- Agnes Hirsh: Oh, now, Poppy, you've got to promise not to let me have more than one drink. I get giggly.
- Frank Hirsh: I like my girls giggly.
- Dawn Hirsh: I envy you, Dave.
- Dave Hirsh: You do? Why?
- Dawn Hirsh: Well, you left home on your own before you were my age, lived your own life, had experiences. A girl couldn't do that.
- Dave Hirsh: Why would she want to?
- Dawn Hirsh: Bumming around, doing all sorts of jobs. Didn't that help to make you a writer?
- Dave Hirsh: Dawn, honey, bummin' around can only help make you a bum.
- Frank Hirsh: Say, are you folks ready for some elbow-bending?
- Professor Robert Haven French: I am.
- Agnes Hirsh: Elbow-bending. He's used to talking down to traveling salesmen. Sweetheart, our guests are intellectuals.
- Professor Robert Haven French: What are intellectuals?
- Dave Hirsh: Underpaid.
- Gwen French: I wear my hair this way to please the school board. If you wanna flatter me, I've only one good feature: my mind. You'd be on safer ground.
- Dave Hirsh: Who wants to be on safer ground?
- Gwen French: [Dave moves close to Gwen while she's driving] I have a theory that writers create to compensate for some lack in their personal lives.
- Dave Hirsh: That's because we need to be stimulated.
- Gwen French: When I suggested there might be a lack in your life, I wasn't offering myself as compensation.
- Dave Hirsh: No, but that's a peachy idea. Why don't we just go park somewhere and talk it over?
- Gwen French: Mr. Hirsh, do I look like a delinquent teenager?
- Dave Hirsh: No, you don't, teacher.
- Ginnie Moorehead: What I really wanna do is modeling. But you gotta have a figure like a boy.
- Dave Hirsh: Yeah. And that you haven't got.
- Bama Dillert: How about a little relaxation?
- Dave Hirsh: You know these dames?
- Bama Dillert: Well, who don't? That's the night shift from the brassiere factory.
- Ginnie Moorehead: I drink too much, and the first thing you know, you get bloated.
- Dave Hirsh: Well, life fluctuates, you know
- Frank Hirsh: You know something, you're still the prettiest girl in Parkland. Of course, there's a little more of you; but, that just means there's a little more to love. What do you say we go up - and sort of relax, huh? What do you say?
- Agnes Hirsh: Don't be silly Frank, I've got a headache.
- Frank Hirsh: How could you do this to *me*?
- Dave Hirsh: Me, me, me, me. Don't you ever get tired of thinking about your dull, greedy, small self?
- Dave Hirsh: You know what I don't figure? You drink three drinks to my one - and you look like a milk-fed quarterback.
- Bama Dillert: Well, now, that all depends on what a man's cut out for.
- Bama Dillert: Look, let's drink up and all go to my place.
- Ginnie Moorehead: What's doing there?
- Bama Dillert: Let's get over there and find out.
- Frank Hirsh: You know, what I should do is take you across my knee and paddle you.
- Edith Barclay: Working's better than sitting home alone.
- Frank Hirsh: You're an attractive girl, you ought to have more fun. All work and no play, you know.
- Frank Hirsh: Edith, I hope you don't think I'm being fresh or anything like that, but, I got the blues tonight. I was just wondering if we could drive around for awhile?
- Frank Hirsh: If I ran my business the way you run this house, we'd be bankrupt.
- Agnes Hirsh: Your business? You seem to forget it was my father's store.
- Frank Hirsh: Forget? How can I forget? You've been reminding me twice a day for 18 years.
- Bama Dillert: I don't pretend to be no authority on dames, but, there's one thing I sure do know, they either take orders or they give 'em. And once they get an idea they're runnin' menfolks, they get mean on you.
- Ginnie Moorehead: Gee, you don't look like a schoolteacher.
- Gwen French: Thank you. I assume that was a compliment.
- Dawn Hirsh: We just met today. Teddy's a traveling salesman.
- [giggle]
- Dawn Hirsh: And I - I am the farmer's daughter.
- Edith Barclay: Oh, Frank. Why didn't I meet you first?
- Frank Hirsh: I've often thought about that. I don't know if whether you realize this; but, when I married Agnes, you were just 4 years old.
- Dave Hirsh: What are you going to prove by becoming a tramp?
- Dawn Hirsh: I'm not going to become a tramp.
- Dave Hirsh: It doesn't take long, honey. A couple of more goons like that guy who picked you up back there and a little booze and - well, I ought to know, I'm an expert on tramps.