- Bridget Drake: I tell you this is an awfully hard age for a good woman to live in - I mean a woman who wants to have any fun. The old instincts of right and wrong merely hold you back. You're neither one thing nor the other. You're neither happy and bad, nor good and contented. You're just discontentedly decent.
- Bridget Drake: [outside on Mary's balcony] Ooh, my, but it's hot. Will I stick to that chair, Jimmie?
- Jimmie: You know better than I do how sticky you are!
- Clare: You are a darling.
- Bridget Drake: And here's the nightie and the kimono.
- Clare: Of course, I shan't be able to sleep a wink for admiring them.
- Mary Howard: Bridgie's things are so alluring, they're indecent!
- Bridget Drake: Well, why not? I believe in keeping up your standards - at night.
- Bridget Drake: Good night, Clara.
- Clare: Good night.
- Bridget Drake: I'm awfully glad you're here. You know, I like you. I like you because most women who know anything always treat me as though I didn't. And you don't.
- Jimmie: Where do you sleep, Walt?
- Walter: Down at the end of the hall.
- Jimmie: Oh.
- Mary Howard: And that's my room in there. That's where I sleep. And here I am.
- Clare: And that's where I sleep. In case you want to know.
- Jimmie: I certainly do. I was in a house once that caught fire in the middle of the night, and people came out of the strangest places.
- Mary Howard: Can't a man fall as deeply and honestly in love as a woman?
- Clare: Of course! And if he does honestly love this other woman and if the wife still loves him, I think that's the most tragic thing in the world for all three of them.
- Mary Howard: Oh, you don't know anything about women.
- Jimmie: Oh, yes, I do! All kinds: good and bad, straight and loose. Some of the loose ones are the best; they're honest, anyway. A woman who pretends to be decent and isn't is just a so-and-so. If she's good, she's good. If she's bad, she's bad. That's all there is to it.
- Mary Howard: Oh, that's Victorian bunk. You're even out of touch with your own sex, Jimmie.
- Bridget Drake: Oh! I had lunch yesterday afternoon with Laura Mills. And I'll bet it's true!
- Jimmie: What's true?
- Bridget Drake: About she and Phil Lawrence. I never believed it before, actually, but I do now.
- Jimmie: Why now? Does she look guilty?
- Bridget Drake: Guilty? On the contrary, she looks satisfied.
- Jimmie: What?
- Bridget Drake: I mean complacent.
- Bridget Drake: Well, after all, why control yourself? Nobody else does. I know I'm a fool being so decent about Walter. Everybody else does exactly as they please. So, why shouldn't I? But, I don't. And the funny thing is that I actually don't know whether it's because I'm too good or I haven't got the nerve.
- Bridget Drake: You know, you can't get men to come out to the country and stay there. Of course, I could fill the house full of women easily, but oh my goodness, I'm so sick of females!
- Rogers: You've got the best looking feet in the world. Thoroughbred!
- Mary Howard: Yes? They've escaped notice until now. Odd compliments. I like it.
- Bridget Drake: Jimmie, what's the matter with you? Are you tight?
- Jimmie: No, no. That's why I'm nervous.
- Mary Howard: You're so interesting and so contradictory.
- Clare: Oh, why?
- Mary Howard: Oh, you're so full of everything worthwhile. You simply vibrate with it.
- Clare: Well, my vibrations have been just a little on the subdued side of late. You and Jimmie have keyed them up some.
- Mary Howard: Jimmie certainly is good at keying people up.
- Mary Howard: You know, I'd like awfully to know what you'd think of my book.
- Clare: I want very much to read it.
- Mary Howard: Two men have told me two different things, but I care a lot more about what women think. That is, my own kind of women.
- Clare: Oh, yes. Socialize our writing. Women can't fool women - about women.
- Mary Howard: You have the best looking feet. Thoroughbred.
- Clare: Thank you. I'm really grateful! I haven't heard that about my feet for a long time.
- [last lines]
- Jimmie: I see that polka dots are coming back this year for evening wear. Say, you know I'm awfully glad about that. If there's one thing in the world I was worried about, it was polka dots.
- Bridget Drake: Jimmie says Mrs. Clare is some kind of a cousin, Mary.
- Mary Howard: Oh, indeed. I didn't know Jimmie had a cousin.
- Jimmie: Oh, there are cousins and cousins. She's the kind that you don't talk about.
- Jimmie: Well, when will you marry me?
- Mary Howard: Never.
- Jimmie: Three thousand years ago, when a guy swam the Tiber, his gal used to marry him as soon as he came out.
- Mary Howard: Three hours ago, a guy swam the Hudson and kept his gal waiting all that time for supper. If you're not ready in five minutes, I'll eat without you.
- Jimmie: Dictator!
- Rogers: I should think even you might know better than this.
- Mary Howard: Rogers, what are you saying?
- Rogers: Didn't you know that I never meant this to happen?
- Mary Howard: Certainly not. You mean that you've been lying to me, Rogers?
- Rogers: Mary, you were lying to yourself.
- Jimmie: Good afternoon.
- Mary Howard: I'm not speaking to you.
- Jimmie: Good, then that'll give me a chance to say something.
- Jimmie: Do you want me to give you a word picture of what's going on in that man's mind when he's talking to you about your book?
- Mary Howard: Listen, Jimmie, are you talking about my work or are you talking about me?
- Jimmie: On the level, I'm darned if I know.
- Bridget Drake: You like this hat?
- Mary Howard: Well, I like it if you want to look like a hussy!
- Bridget Drake: Well, I do.
- Bridget Drake: Oh, Jimmie, you'll have to give us a lift uptown. I mean, will you? You know, the taxis are terrible down here, darling. I always feel exactly as though I will pay my income tax all over again.
- Walter: I'm the right man. Why don't you marry me?
- Bridget Drake: To be 10 years older than a man is the only reason on earth for not marrying him. Now you see, because I'm honest enough to say 10. You probably think it's 20.
- Mary Howard: Well, now, in my book, the girl is perfectly straight, and she doesn't want to marry him.
- Clare: Why?
- Mary Howard: He's married already.
- Clare: Can't he get a divorce?
- Mary Howard: She doesn't want him to.
- Clare: Oh, the wife doesn't?
- Mary Howard: Oh, no. No, the one he's in love with. She wants to be sure she loves him enough to marry him. She wants to be sure he isn't making another mistake before she lets him give up the wife. So, she lives with him first. That's perfectly natural and believable, isn't it?
- Clare: Oh, if she loves him terrifically, certainly. But...
- Mary Howard: Don't you think what she does is right? Do you think it's moral or immoral?
- Clare: If she honestly believes its right, its perfectly moral - for her. But...
- Mary Howard: Go on.
- Clare: Well, the hard thing for me to believe is that she'd believe this man.
- Mary Howard: Good heavens, why? A woman knows when a man's in love.
- Clare: Perhaps, I suppose any married woman would think that this other woman ought to know enough not to believe a married man if he's making love to her.
- Jimmie: A man wants a decent woman to stay decent. And if she doesn't, why he bawls her out for doing the one thing in the world that he always told her was the greatest thing a woman can do: giving him all for love.
- Jimmie: If your girl ever did what she wanted to do, the guy'd get so sick of her in about a year he'd poke her in the nose. Gosh, I've persuaded so many women and hated them afterwards.
- Bridget Drake: When do you work, Jimmie?
- Jimmie: I don't. Why don't you let me go and shake up a cocktail?
- Bridget Drake: We went down to MacDougal Alley to look at some pictures, and I said to Walter, "As long as we've come this far, we might as well go the whole way."
- Jimmie: You said that to Walter?
- Bridget Drake: About the pictures, idiot!
- Bridget Drake: There's a long distance for you Rogers.
- Rogers: Oh, the devil.
- Mary Howard: Who can it be?
- Rogers: I left the phone number at the office. I never tell them where I am when I break away. I just leave the telephone number in case something really important comes up. If you'll excuse me.
- [exits]
- Mary Howard: Was it the office, Bridgie?
- Bridget Drake: What? Oh, I don't know, but it sounded like the office. I mean, it didn't sound like his wife, if that's what you mean. Sounded perfectly impersonal, like a hotel or something.
- Clare: Oh, this is the funniest thing that ever happened to me. Why me? Why didn't you pick some beautiful, sweet young thing that she'd be jealous of?
- Jimmie: Oh, she'd know I wouldn't fall for anything like that. I - oh, I mean, that you're the kind that she would be jealous of.
- Clare: That's better.
- Bridget Drake: I saw you sitting around with a pencil in your hand, but I didn't know anything was going on. Anything creative, I mean. This creative business is so funny. You never do know when its going on. I suppose people themselves don't. Are you creative, Mrs. Clare? I know I would be - if I just let go.
- Jimmie: That's when I'm creative.
- Bridget Drake: Shall I ask them to stay for dinner?
- Mary Howard: No.
- Bridget Drake: It seems so nasty not to. And look, it's raining dogs and cats.
- Mary Howard: Jimmie, I want you to be awfully happy.
- Jimmie: When a woman says anything like that to a man, it means that she's in love with another one. Are you, Mary?
- Mary Howard: Don't be silly.
- Jimmie: It sticks out all over you!
- Bridget Drake: I'll just get you a nightie and toothbrush and things.
- Clare: Oh, I am being a lot of trouble.
- Bridget Drake: Not at all. I'm tickled to death to have someone to use one of them. I've had them on hand for years, and nobody ever needs them.
- Clare: Men are so proper and conventional about their own good women, aren't they.
- Mary Howard: Yes.
- Clare: So much more so than the women themselves.
- Bridget Drake: What's the matter with you people? Don't you know what beds are for, or do you? Or is that the wrong thing to say?
- Mary Howard: You know me. I'm the girl who writes books, very smart books about modern people, very smart people. I know exactly how everybody feels, exactly what everybody's thinking. That's how smart I am! I couldn't be fooled. I know all the jokes. Even when they're on me.
- Bridget Drake: When a strong, intelligent woman, like you, finally persuades herself that a man is the thing in life; well, of course, she's the biggest fool of all!
- Mary Howard: Oh, I adore Bridgie. She's the most intelligent fool I've ever known.
- Clare: Well, it's refreshing to run into somebody who doesn't think they know everything.