- Harris: [in admiring a painting] I like the relationships. I mean, each character has his own story. The puppy is a bit too much, but you have to over look things like that in these kinds of paintings. The way he's *holding* her... it's almost... filthy. I mean, he's about to kiss her and she's pulling away. The way the leg's sort of smashed up against her... Phew... Look how he's painted the blouse sort of translucent. You can just make out her breasts underneath and it's sort of touching him about here. It's really... pretty torrid, don't you think? Then of course you have the onlookers peeking at them from behind the doorway like they're all shocked. They wish. Yeah, I must admit, when I see a painting like this, I get emotionally... erect.
- [the painting is then revealed to be solely a red rectangle]
- Harris: Why is it that we don't always recognize the moment when love begins but we always know when it ends?
- Tom: I'll have a decaf coffee.
- Trudi: I'll have a decaf espresso.
- Morris Frost: I'll have a double decaf cappuccino.
- Ted: Give me decaffeinated coffee ice cream.
- Harris: I'll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.
- Trudi: I'll have a twist of lemon.
- Tom: I'll have a twist of lemon.
- Morris Frost: I'll have a twist of lemon.
- Cynthia: I'll have a twist of lemon.
- Harris: [while showing Sara around "historical" Los Angeles] Some of these buildings are over twenty years old.
- Mr. Perdue: Your usual table, Mr. Christopher?
- Carlo Christopher: No, I'd like a good one this time.
- Mr. Perdue: I'm sorry, that is impossible.
- Carlo Christopher: Part of the new cruelty?
- Mr. Perdue: I'm afraid so.
- Harris: Forget for this moment the smog and the cars and the restaurant and the skating and remember only this. A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
- Harris: There's someone out there for everyone - even if you need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them.
- [Harris is trying to convince Sara not to go back to England]
- Harris: There comes a time in a person's life when it's now or never. It's now or never. Let me read to you from this book of poems: "O pointy birds, o pointy pointy. Anoint..."
- [Sara slams window shut]
- Harris: Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, "Hey... life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much." Of course I'm paraphrasing: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
- The Signboard: [explaining itself, quoting Shakespeare's "Hamlet"] There are more things in heaven and earth, Harry,
- The Signboard: [next board] than are dreamt of N your philosophy.
- Harris: [answering the telephone] Hello, this is Harris. I'm in right now, so you can talk to me personally. Please start talking at the sound of the beep.
- [Harris makes a beeping noise mimicking an answering machine]
- Sara: Hello?
- Harris: Hello.
- Sara: Hello?
- Harris: Hello.
- Sara: Is this a person?
- Harris: Yes, it is a person.
- Harris: I've been thinking about myself and I think I can become the kind of person that's worth you staying for. First of all, I'm a man who can cry. Now it's true, it's usually when I've hurt myself, but it's a start.
- Harris: [calling the restaurant] Hello, L'Idiot? Yes, I'd like to make reservations for two for Friday. Saturday? Sunday? Ah good. Eight-thirty. Five-thirty or ten-thirty? Um, five-thirty. Visa... I'm a weatherman... yes, I'm on TV! Renting... I just sold a condo... yes, in this "soft market"... well, I don't see how that's any of your... the low fifties.
- Harris: [in Sara, who plays the tuba unknown to Harris, asking Harris when the right time to make deep, sustained, booming sounds were in L.A] Ah - deep, sustained, booming sounds. Around nine, nine-fifteen.
- Harris: So there I was jabbering at her about my new job as a serious newsman - about anything at all - but all I could think was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful and yet again, wonderful.
- Trudi: One of the first things I always teach my clients is about the point system. You should never have more than seven things on. You know, like your earrings count for two points, those daisies count for three points. But the best thing to do is, right before you go out, look in the mirror and turn around real fast, and the first thing that catches your eye, get rid of it. I mean, I had this thing in my hair before I left, remember? And I pulled it right out, 'cause as soon as I turned, gone! Marilyn Monroe did that.
- Frank Swan: What do you do for a living, Rollie?
- Roland: I deal in English paintings.
- Frank Swan: Abstract or realistic?
- Roland: Depends on which way you look at them, I suppose.
- [Harris overhears an amorous couple in the next room]
- Harris: They're really excited. They must be cheating on someone.
- Mr. Perdue: You think with a statement like this you can have the duck?
- Chef: He can have the chicken!
- The Signboard: R.U.O.K.?
- Harris: Let us just say I was deeply unhappy, but I didn't know it because I was so happy all the time.
- Harris: [in Harris discovering his girlfriend Trudi slept with his agent] And I thought they were only supposed to take ten percent.
- Harris: Well, maybe you think it's intellectual because you were raised with a banana and an inner tube... This is an intellectual-free zone.
- Sharon: Whatever you do, don't get dumped in L.A. I mean, it's not like New York, where you can meet someone walking down the street. In L.A. you practically have to hit someone with your car. In fact, I know girls who speed just to meet cops.