- Mademoiselle: In your papa's time, papa kiss mama and zen marry. But this is 1887! Time of bicycle, the typewriter est arrive, soon everybody speak over ze telephone, and people have new idea of value of kiss. What was bad yesterday is lot of fun today. There is a wonderful saying in France: "Les baisers sont comme des bonbons qu'on mange parce qu'ils sont bons." This mean: "Kiss is like candy. You eat candy only for the beautiful taste, and this is enough reason to eat candy."
- Henry Van Cleve: You mean I can kiss a girl once...
- Mademoiselle: Ten times! Twenty times! And no obligation.
- His Excellency: If you meet our requirements, we'll be only too glad to accomodate you. Uh, would you be good enough to mention, for instance, some outstanding crime you've committed?
- Henry Van Cleve: Crime? Crime? I'm afraid I can't think of any, but I can safely say my whole life was one continuous misdemeanor.
- Martha: If you don't change your attitude, I shall have to complain to your employer.
- Henry Van Cleve: I'm not employed here. I'm not a book salesman. I took one look at you and followed you into the store. If you'd walked into a restaurant, I would have become a waiter. If you'd walked into a burning building, I would have become a fireman. If you'd walked into an elevator, I would have stopped it between two floors and we'd have spent the rest of our lives there. Please forgive me but you can't walk out of my life like that.
- His Excellency: When did it happen, Mr. Van Cleve?
- Henry Van Cleve: Tuesday. To be exact, I died at 9:36 in the evening.
- His Excellency: I trust you didn't suffer much.
- Henry Van Cleve: Oh, no, no, not in the least. I had finished my dinner...
- His Excellency: A good one, I hope.
- Henry Van Cleve: Oh, excellent, excellent. I ate everything the doctor forbade, and then... well, to make a long story short, shall we say, I fell asleep without realizing it. And when I awakened, there were all my relatives speaking in low tones and saying nothing but the kindest things about me. Then I knew I was dead.
- His Excellency: I presume your funeral was satisfactory.
- Henry Van Cleve: Well, there was a lot of crying, so I believe everybody had a good time.
- Henry Van Cleve: [voiceover] Here was a girl lying to her mother. Naturally that girl interested me at once.
- Henry Van Cleve: Martha, if I hadn't met you I'd hate to think where I'd be right now.
- Martha: Well, probably outside some stage door, or even inside the dressing room, and having a wonderful time.
- Jack Van Cleve, Henry's Son: Come on, how old is she?
- Henry Van Cleve: Well, uh... She's an unusually adult young woman.
- Albert Van Cleve: Marriage isn't a series of thrills. Marriage is a peaceful, well-balanced adjustment of two right-thinking people.
- Martha: I'm afraid that's only too true.
- Henry Van Cleve: I know I should change my way of living but, my boy, put yourself in my position. I'm lonesome. You're always away somewhere on business, and being alone in this big old house night after night... you don't know what it's like.
- Jack Van Cleve, Henry's Son: Neither do you, because you're never at home.
- Henry Van Cleve: But I can IMAGINE what it's like, and, Jack, it's horrible
- Albert Van Cleve: I assume you're referring to my future father-in-law, who happens to be one of the great meat packers of our time.
- Bertha Van Cleve: Yes, Father Cleve, don't you realize that every piece of beef we eat comes from one of Mr. Strable's many, many plants.
- Hugo Van Cleve: Does that include the steak I fought ten rounds with last night?
- Albert Van Cleve: Grandfather, you don't seem to have any idea of the importance of Mr. Strable. He created the most famous character in American advertising - Mable the Cow.
- Randolph Van Cleve: You've seen her, Father, on billboards.
- Bertha Van Cleve: That big happy cow smiling at you over the fence and saying in big letters, um... uh... How does it go, uh...?
- Albert Van Cleve: "To the world my name is Mabel, which you'll find on every label; I am packed by E. F. Strable for the pleasure of your table."
- Hugo Van Cleve: No cow in its right mind could have said anything like that. Sounds more like Mr. Strable.
- Albert Van Cleve: Grandfather, please, I beg of you. The family understands your humor, but it's a typical kind of New York humor.
- Hugo Van Cleve: In other words it's not for yokels, hm?
- Henry Van Cleve: Mother, when one sees a lovely rose...
- Bertha Van Cleve: ...one can be certain she comes from a fine rose bush.
- Henry Van Cleve: [regarding How to Make Your Husband Happy] Don't buy this book. You don't need it. I'll tell you something more appropriate for you: Leave Your Nest And Fly Away With Me.
- Martha: Well, I might buy that book too...
- Henry Van Cleve: Well, we don't have it in stock right now... but I'd love to discuss the idea with you...
- Martha: Don't misunderstand me. I love Kansas. It's just that I don't feel like living there. Besides that, I didn't want to be an old maid. Not in Kansas!
- Hugo Van Cleve: Albert, I'm struggling successfully against the gout, I'm waging a terrific battle with my liver, and I'm holding my own against asthma, but I doubt if I have strength enough to survive your jokes. You're a successful lawyer. Let it go at that. I love you, Albert.
- Henry Van Cleve: I'd fallen asleep, and suddenly I was awakened by a caressing touch on my forehead. I opened my eyes and there she was sitting right on the edge of the bed. Nellie Brown, registered nurse. Your Excellency, one look at her and it didn't matter whether she was registered or not. Then she took out a thermometer, and she said, 'Open your mouth.' Who wouldn't for Nellie? And then she put the thermometer in and my temperature went up to 110. Who could ask for a more beautiful death?
- Randolph Van Cleve: [coming out of his son's room] Well, this time I was firm!
- Bertha Van Cleve: Good, Randolph. What happened?
- Randolph Van Cleve: He asked for a hundred dollars, but I told HIM! I told him I'd let him have only fifty.
- Bertha Van Cleve: Randolph!
- Randolph Van Cleve: And not right away!
- Bertha Van Cleve: For the first time in twenty-seven years of marriage I feel like criticizing you.
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: Hello Mary.
- Mary, Age 9: Don't speak to me, Henry Van Cleve. You're a bad boy and my mother says I shouldn't talk to bad boys.
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: I betcha you don't know what I've got in this box.
- Mary, Age 9: And I'm not interested, Henry Van Cleve.
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: Then I won't tell ya it's a beetle.
- Mary, Age 9: A beetle!
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: D'ya like it?
- Mary, Age 9: Oh, who doesn't like beetles!
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: It's yours.
- Mary, Age 9: Thank you! Oh, thank you, Henry. I wonder if I should take it?
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: Well, if you don't want it.
- Mary, Age 9: Oh, I don't mean it that way, I was just wondering...
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: Don't worry, I've got another one.
- Mary, Age 9: Another beetle?
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: Uh-huh.
- Mary, Age 9: Oh, it's beautiful. It looks rather lonely, though. You know what I think, I think it wants to be together with mine.
- Henry Van Cleve, Age 9: You mean you want this one, too?
- Mary, Age 9: Henry Van Cleve, do you think I'm the kind of girl who would take a boy's last beetle?
- Henry Van Cleve: Suddenly I noticed a very attractive girl coming down the staircase. To me she was just another attractive girl but I must admit - attractive.
- Peggy Nash: And now you're a kind of a, mm... retired Casanova. You know it's always the same with men when they retire, some grow flowers and, uh... some grow a tummy.
- Bertha Van Cleve: And when I find a girl for you, she'll be Miss Right. And you know where we'll find her? In the home of Mr. & Mrs. Right.
- Henry Van Cleve: Flogdell, is that...?
- Flogdell, Van Cleve's First Butler: That's Mr. Strable.
- Henry Van Cleve: And that spreading chestnut tree under which grandfather is standing?
- Flogdell, Van Cleve's First Butler: That's Mrs. Strable.
- His Excellency: I hope you will not consider me inhospitable if I say, "Sorry, Mr. Van Cleve, but we don't cater to your class of people here. Please make your reservations somewhere else."
- Randolph Van Cleve: Believe me, Bertha, I never knew what a musical comedy girl looked like.
- Bertha Van Cleve: Well, what can he possibly derive from their company?
- Randolph Van Cleve: To me they were creatures from another planet.
- Bertha Van Cleve: Where does he get it from? Nobody in our family was musical.
- Randolph Van Cleve: To this day I wouldn't know how to find the stage entrance to a theatre.
- Hugo Van Cleve: It's always around in the back, up an alleyway. There's a sign over the door: 'Stage Entrance.' You can't miss it.
- Martha: Oh, Henry, I know your every move. I know your outraged indignation. I know the poor weeping little boy. I know the misunderstood, strong, silent man, the wounded lion who's too proud to explain what happened in the jungle last night.
- Peggy Nash: You know, Mr. Van Cleve, girls are awfully smart these days. It must be rather sad for the great cavalier of the gay '90s to find his technique is getting rusty.
- Martha: Oh, why did you ever come into my life?
- Henry Van Cleve: To make you happy. To hold you in my arms forever.
- Martha: I'll never be able to look my father in the face. I'll never be able to go back to Kansas again.
- Henry Van Cleve: Isn't that wonderful?
- [He kisses her]
- Martha: Oh, I wish I were dead.
- Hugo Van Cleve: She was packed by E.F. Strabel / To be served at Albert's table / But that Henry changed the label. Now that's poetry!
- Mrs. Strabel: About that barrel, the way he got out of it was a friendly snake was crawling...
- E.F. Strabel: Don't tell me! You know it's no fun unless I read it myself! What are you trying to do, ruin my Sunday?
- Mrs. Strabel: Would you tell Mr. Strabel I was talking to you, Jasper? The snake came crawling along in the desert, wound itself around the barrel, and then crunch!
- E.F. Strabel: [hits the table and stands up] I can't live in this house any longer!