You Can't Take It with You (1938)

James Stewart: Tony Kirby

Photos 

1 more photos

Quotes 

• Tony Kirby : I can feel a scream coming on right now... it's up here, in my throat! It's fighting to get out!

  Alice Sycamore : No, please, don't scream!

  [she screams] 

  Henry - the Head Waiter : [comes over]  What happened?

  Tony Kirby : What happened? Well, there was a mouse!

  Henry - the Head Waiter : A mouse in this place?

  Tony Kirby : What do you mean, 'mouse'? It was a rat, *this* long, and it had hair on it! And there were six or seven of them!

• Tony Kirby : You're so beautiful. Like, sometimes you're so beautiful it just gags me. Maybe you're not real? Maybe you're a phantom or something? I-I keep expecting you to vanish.

• Tony Kirby : You know, every time I think about how lucky I am, I feel like screaming.

• Alice Sycamore : Well Mr. Moody, what're you thinking about?

  Tony Kirby : Me? Eh... That family of yours - boy, they knocked me for a loop. I don't know, it just seems like in their own way, they found what everybody's looking for. People spend their whole lives building castles in the air and then nothing ever comes of it. I wonder why that is? Well, it takes courage. Everybody's afraid to live.

  Alice Sycamore : You ought to hear Grandpa on that subject. You know, he says most people nowadays are run by fear; Fear of what they eat, fear of what they drink, fear of their jobs, their future, fear of their health. They're scared to save money and scared to spend it. You know what his pet aversion is? The people who commercialize on fear: you know they scare you to death so they can sell you something you don't need. So, he kinda taught all of not to be afraid of anything, but do what we want to do. Well, it's kinda fun, anyway.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, well that's it. Well that takes courage, especially that 'do what you want to do' department.

• Lord Melville : Miss Sycamore, have you a family tree?

  Tony Kirby : My dear sir, don't you know that a Sycamore *is* a tree?

• Tony Kirby : [in the car on the way to the opera]  I was just thinking about that family of yours. Living with them must be like living in a world of Walt Disney. Everybody does just as he pleases, doesn't he?

  Alice Sycamore : Yes. Grandpa started it. He just suddenly left business one day. He started up in the elevator and turned around and came right down again and never went back. He could've been a rich man, but said he wasn't having any fun.

  Tony Kirby : Oh that's wonderful.

  Alice Sycamore : Then he started collecting stamps, because that's what he liked best. You know, he gets paid just to appraise collections. He's an expert.

  Tony Kirby : That's marvelous.

  Alice Sycamore : And my dad; he, he makes fireworks because, well, because he never grew up I guess. And mother, do you know why mother writes plays?

  Tony Kirby : Well, she probably likes literature and good books and...

  Alice Sycamore : [chuckles]  Huh, nope. Because eight years ago a typewriter was delivered to the house by mistake.

  Tony Kirby : Oh, no, but eh... If it'd been a plow, she'd have taken up farming, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : I'm sure of it, if she'd liked it.

  [they smile and chuckle as the scene fades out] 

• Tony Kirby : There's a tiny little engine in the green of this grass and in the green of the trees that has the mysterious gift of being able to take energy from the rays of the sun and store it up. You see that that's how the heat and power in coal and oil and wood is stored up. Well, we thought if we could find the secret of all those millions of little engines in this green stuff, we could, we could make big ones! And then we could take all the power we could ever need, right from the sun's rays.

• Tony Kirby : [phone rings. Tony won't let go of Alice's hands]  You know, every once in a while I get a very strange sensation - I seem to hear *ringing* in my ears.

  Alice Sycamore : Me too. I thought for a moment it was the telephone.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah. I hear voices, too. Voices that say, 'if you don't kiss her soon, you're a chump.'

  Alice Sycamore : You know, uh, if I were really clever, I could answer the phone without the use of my hands.

  Tony Kirby : Saw it done in a circus once.

  Tony Kirby : [Alice picks up receiver with her teeth]  Hey, wonderful, you'd be a sensation on the trapeze!

• Tony Kirby : You know, there never was anything in my life that I couldn't get if I didn't scream loud enough.

  Alice Sycamore : Really?

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, and I've had plenty of practice with it since I was a baby. I'm pretty terrific at it now. Here, let me show you a little example.

  [he screams, and the office boy opens the door] 

  Tony Kirby : [he screams again, and the office boy leaves] 

  [both laugh] 

• Tony Kirby : We can't just pop out of the building with no place to go. Very bad idea that, you know. I know two people that did that once - they went out of the building, they were uncertain, so they just walked and walked and walked and finally they just died... of hunger. Now you wouldn't want anything like that to happen... because if, if that happened... you're so beautiful.

• Anthony P. Kirby : Say Tony, do you realize there won't be a bullet, gun, or cannon made in this country without us?

  Tony Kirby : Dad, now don't tell me you've forgotten the slingshot market.

  [makes slingshot motion/gesture, playfully pats his dad on the shoulder twice, and exits the room] 

  Anthony P. Kirby : Hehehehehehehehehehe!

  [laughs heartily before answering a phone call] 

• Penny Sycamore : [cheerfully answering the door]  How do you do, Mr. Kirby? Come right in.

  Tony Kirby : Thank you.

  Penny Sycamore : We've been expecting you... you are Mr. Kirby, aren't you?

  [asks due to prior mixup with Mr. Henderson] 

  Tony Kirby : Yes.

  Penny Sycamore : Well, thank heaven. Here he is! This is *really* Mr. Kirby.

• DePinna : Didn't I read something about your father? He was indicted or something, wasn't he?

  Tony Kirby : Oh-oh, no. He just testified before the Securities Commission.

  DePinna : Oh, I thought the cops had got him?

• Alice Sycamore : Don't ask me to go over there because I won't go.

  Tony Kirby : No, no, no, Alice. I want you to meet a four-star blue blood. Come on. Come.

• Alice Sycamore : I resent what you said about your brain. I think it's beautiful.

  Tony Kirby : You do, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : Mmmhm

  Tony Kirby : I see. Yeah, that's probably the first thing you noticed about me that you liked - my colossal brain.

  Alice Sycamore : Well, no. No, it was the back of your head.

  Tony Kirby : The back of my head? I've got a big bump back there. Well, what happened when I turned around?

  Alice Sycamore : Well, I figured I'd just have to get used to that.

  Tony Kirby : Oh, you figured.

  Alice Sycamore : And, you know, it might not take very long, but I just figured I'd...

  Tony Kirby : ...you just figured you'd just... well, I'm glad you 'figured.'

• Alice Sycamore : [while being questioned on the phone by Rheba]  Were you ever in a monastery?

  Tony Kirby : No, but I'm the fella who got caught in a cave once.

  Alice Sycamore : Haha, really? Whatever happened to you?

  Tony Kirby : Well, the cave caved in and I haven't been heard from since.

  [Alice laughs] 

• Tony Kirby : Hello dad.

  Anthony P. Kirby : Oh hello Tony, how are you?

  Tony Kirby : Good.

  Anthony P. Kirby : How's your mother?

  Tony Kirby : She's fine.

  Anthony P. Kirby : Mm, that's good. I nearly sent for you; I thought you might like th-, like the White House.

  Tony Kirby : Oh, I'm sorry you didn't.

  Anthony P. Kirby : And how do you like being a vice president?

  Tony Kirby : Eh, painless so far.

  Anthony P. Kirby : Hah!

  [to his business partners] 

  Anthony P. Kirby : He still talks as if he were having a tooth yanked.

  [playfully whacks Tony in the stomach and then proceeds to his desk for a meeting] 

• Tony Kirby : I remember in college another guy and I had an idea to... mind if I talk about myself?

  Alice Sycamore : [smiles]  If you don't, I will.

  Tony Kirby : Well, this other guy and I had this idea.

  [picks up a blade of grass and observes it while talking] 

  Tony Kirby : We, we wanted to find out what made the grass grow green.

  [Alice smirks] 

  Tony Kirby : Well that sounds silly and everything, but it's the biggest research problem in the world today, and I'll tell you why: because, there's a tiny little engine in the green of this grass and in the green of the trees that has the mysterious gift of being able to take energy from the rays of the sun and store it up. You see that that's how the heat and power in coal and oil and wood is stored up. Well, we thought if, if we could find the secret of all those millions of little engines in this green stuff, we could, we could make big ones! And then we could take all the power we could ever need right from the sun's rays. You see?

  Alice Sycamore : Well that's wonderful, I never knew that.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, yeah. We worked on it and we worked and... day and night; we got so excited about it we forgot to sleep. If, if we'd make just one little discovery, well we'd just walk on air for days.

  Alice Sycamore : And, then what?

  Tony Kirby : [starts to look disheartened]  Well, then we left school... now he's selling automobiles, and I'm in some strange thing called banking. I saw him a couple weeks ago. Poor guy - Bob Smith's his name - got all excited again and wanted to talk about anything else.

  Alice Sycamore : And?

  Tony Kirby : Well, he's married; wife just had a baby. He didn't think it was fair to gamble with the future. Anyway, that's his excuse for lack of courage.

  [acknowledges Alice's forlorn expression] 

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, it's sad. And what's my excuse, huh? Well, the Kirby's have been bankers for nine-thousand years, or something. That line just can't be broken, and that's been pounded into my head until I've had softening of the brain.

  [tosses down the blade of grass] 

  Tony Kirby : That's my excuse.

  Alice Sycamore : Tony that's kind of silly, you're pretty young to... besides I resent what you said about your brain - I think it's beautiful.

  Tony Kirby : You do, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : Mmhmm.