- Sid Jeffers: It isn't what you are, it's what you don't become that hurts. Idealism is a luxury for the very young.
- Sid Jeffers: I envy people who drink. At least they know what to blame everything on.
- Helen Wright: If it's so simple, why don't you drink?
- Sid Jeffers: I have no character.
- Paul Boray: Don't brag.
- Paul Boray: All my life I... I wanted to do the right thing, but it never worked out. I'm outside always looking in. Feeling all the time I'm far away from home, and where home is I don't know. I... I... I can't get back to the simple happy kid I used to be.
- Sid Jeffers: You'll do all right. You have all the characteristics of a successful virtuoso. You're self-indulgent, self-dedicated, and a hero of all your dreams.
- Paul Boray: You ought to try a few dreams yourself. It might make you less cynical. When I look at you, I know what I want to avoid.
- Sid Jeffers: One of us is offensive. Why don't you blow?
- Paul Boray: [speaking about swimming in the ocean] You don't know what you're missing. The water was wonderful.
- Sid Jeffers: The water knows where to find me. I believe in progress and American plumbing. When I feel the need of water, I take a shower.
- Helen Wright: Leave me alone. Go on back to your music. I'm tired of playing second fiddle to the ghost of Beethoven.
- Helen Wright: Me? There's nothing very strange about me. I was married twice before - once at sixteen, once at twenty-one. One was a crybaby and the other was a caveman. Between the two of them I said goodbye to girlhood.
- Helen Wright: Did you think you could go away for weeks, almost months, never call nor write and come back to find me hanging in a clothes closet like a suit that you might put on some day a year from now?
- Helen Wright: Don't you like martinis?
- Paul Boray: Not particularly.
- Helen Wright: They're an acquired taste, like Ravel.
- Paul Boray: I never had much time for acquired tastes, except for Ravel.
- Sid Jeffers: Oh, Mrs. Wright, this is my friend, Paul Boray, and I'm sure that any friend of mine is not welcome here.
- Helen Wright: I'd like to slap your face.
- Paul Boray: Why don't you try it?
- Helen Wright: [smashes her glass against the wall]
- Paul Boray: Evidently, you don't think too much of me.
- Helen Wright: I love you. So, I don't care what I think of you.
- Helen Wright: [drinking alone, toasting herself] Here's to love.
- [hesitates]
- Helen Wright: And here's to the time when we were little girls, and no one asked us to marry.
- Sid Jeffers: Many objectional people have talent.
- Paul Boray: Is 'at so? You know I know a lot a talented people who are objectionable.
- Sid Jeffers: [with humor] Is 'at so?