An Affair to Remember

“Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but my own! I was looking up… it was the nearest thing to heaven! You were there…”

"This ship is going much too fast.

"I was bored to death. I hadn't seen one attractive woman on this ship since we left. Now, isn't that terrible? I was alarmed. I said to myself, 'Don't beautiful women travel any more?' And then I saw you, and I was saved -- I hope."
"Tell me, have you been getting results with a line like that, or would I be surprised."
"If you'd be surprised, I'd be surprised."

"He's always attracted by the art he isn't practicing, the place he hasn't been, the girl he hasn't met."

"It's not that I'm prudish. It's just that my mother told me never to enter any man's room in months ending in 'R.'"

"I'll just take my ego for a walk."

"The Empire State Building is the closest thing to heaven in this city."

"Winter must be very cold for those who have no memories to keep them warm, and we have already missed the spring."

"What makes life so difficult?"
"People."

"The artist in him would create, the critic would destroy."

Chasing Amy

"I love you. And not, not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. I love you. Very, very simple, very truly. You are the-the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being... I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't-I can't look into your eyes without feeling that-that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. And I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, 'cause I've never felt this way before, and I-I don't care... 
Because it is there between you and me. You can't deny that. Even if, you know, even if we never talk again after tonight, please know that I am forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of it." 

"I feel a hate crime coming on." 

"To cut oneself off from finding that person, to immediately halve your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender, that just seemed stupid to me. So I didn't. But then you came along. You, the one least likely. I mean, you were a guy...

And while I was falling for you I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place: to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who'd complement me so completely." 

"Ménage à trois, I believe it's called. Now this just blows my mind, right? I mean, I am not used to this sort of thing. I mean, I was raised Catholic, for God's sake."

"I love you, I always will. Know that. But I'm not your fucking whore."

"I didn't hate her. I wasn't disgusted with her. I was afraid. At that moment, I felt small, like... like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level, like I'd never be enough for her or something like that, you know what I'm saying? But, what I did not get, she didn't care. She wasn't looking for that guy anymore. She was... she was looking for me, for the Bob. But, uh, by the time I figure this all out, it was too late, man. She moved on, and all I had to show for it was some foolish pride, which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away. So, I've spent every day since then chasing Amy... so to speak." 

Holden: "Alyssa from last night Alyssa?"

Hooper: "How do you begin and end a question with the same word like that? You got skill."

"Since you like chicks, right, do you just look at yourself naked in the mirror all the time?" 

"Well, I don't need a magic 8-ball to look into your future. You want a forecast? Here, will Holden ever f- Alyssa? Oh, what a shock, "Not f-ing Likely." 

Banky: "No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The male-friendly lesbian, the man-hating dyke, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?"

Holden: "The man-hating dyke."

Banky: "Good. Why?"

Holden: "I don't know."

Banky: "Because the other three are figments of your f-ing imagination!"

"What does it matter if I refer to her as a dyke? Or if I call the Whalers a bunch of faggots in the privacy of my own office, far from the sensitive ears of the rest of the world?" 

Hooper: "Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!"

Banky"What's a Nubian?"

Hooper: "Shut the f- up! Now... Vader, he's a spiritual brother, y'know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he's gonna run the f-ing universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader's hood, the Death Star. Now what the f- do you call that?"

Banky: "Intergalactic civil war?"

Hooper: "Gentrification! They gon' drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white folks. And Jedi's the most insulting installment! Because Vader's beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin' to tell us that deep inside we all wants to be white!"

Banky:"Well, isn't that true?"

"It all goes back to something my grandmother told me when I was a kid. "Holden," she said, "the big bucks are in d- and fart jokes." She was a church goer." 

Breakfast At Tiffany's

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself." - Paul

"I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other." - Holly

"I'm a very stylish girl." - Holly

"Let me make one thing clear. I am not now - nor have I ever been - named Fred". - Paul

"If we're going to be friends, lets get one thing straight now. I hate snoops!" - Holly

Paul: "I love you."

Holly: "So what."

Paul: "So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!"

Holly : "No. People don't belong to people."

Paul: "Of course they do!"

Holly: "I'll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage."

Paul: "I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!"

Doc Golightly: "I love you Lula Mae."

Holly: "I know you do, and that's just the trouble. It's the mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing. You were always lugging home wild things. Once it was a hawk with a broken wing... and another time it was a full-grown wildcat with a broken leg. Remember?"

Doc Golightly: "Lula Mae there's something..."

Holly: "You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky."

"A girl can't read that sort of thing without her lipstick." - Holly

Holly: "You know those days when you get the mean reds?"

Paul: "The mean reds, you mean like the blues?"

Holly: "No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"

Paul: "Sure."

Holly: "Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!"

Holly: "I'll tell you one thing, Fred, darling... I'd marry you for your money in a minute. Would you marry me for my money?"

Paul: "In a minute."

Holly: "I guess it's pretty lucky neither of us is rich, huh?"

Paul: "Yeah."

"Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot." - Holly

"It should take you exactly four seconds to cross from here to that door. I'll give you two." - Holly

"Promise me one thing: don't take me home until I'm drunk - very drunk indeed." - Holly

Holly: "What do you do, anyway?"

Paul: "I'm a writer, I guess."

Holly: "You guess? Don't you know?"

Paul: "OK, positive statement. Ringing affirmative. I'm a writer."

"I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead." - Holly

"It's useful being top banana in the shock department." - Holly

"It's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear." - Holly

"You know what's gonna happen to you? I am gonna march you over to the zoo and feed you to the yak." - Mag

"You disapprove of me, and I do not accept drinks from gentlemen who disapprove of me." - Holly

Holly: "He's all right! Aren't you, cat? Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven't got the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's."

Paul: "Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry store."

Holly: "That's right. I'm just CRAZY about Tiffany's!"

"I don't think I've ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never before, before." - Paul

Holly: "Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?"

Paul: "No. Amusingly and superficially talented, yes. But deeply and importantly, no."

"And I always heard people in New York never get to know their neighbors." - Paul

Holly: "Thursday! It can't be! It's too gruesome!"

Paul: "What's so gruesome about Thursday?"

Holly: "Nothing, except I can never remember when it's coming up."

Paul: "They're not the kind of stories you can really tell."

Holly: "Too dirty?"

Paul: "Yeah, I suppose they're dirty, too, but only incidentally. Mainly they're angry, sensitive, intensely felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words - promising. Or so said The Times Book Review, October 1, 1956."