- Frank Medlin: [He's just arrived home drunk] You know what happened to me today? A very funny thing. I was asleep in a nice, comfortable gutter. I mean, there were no rents to pay, no novels to write, no nothing... But all of a sudden I remembered that I was a man of responsibilities. Ha ha! A man of responsibilities - that's me!
- Frank Medlin: You know, sometimes a man goes from wanting too much, to wanting nothing. He ought to do it gradually, or he gets all mixed up.
- Frank Medlin: [In his goodbye note] Dear Louise - Our love is dying a tawdry death - my fault - so at midnight I ship out for a new horizon. Good-bye. - Frank
- Ned Elliott: Rose, maybe when a man has everything he wants, it's time to die. He waits too long; it's liable to turn sour on him.
- Grace Elliott Knivel: I'm afraid of being unhappy.
- Ned Elliott: Unhappiness ain't so bad... kind of makes happiness all the keener.
- Louise Elliott Medlin: Frank, I can't have you running off like this.
- Frank Medlin: If you really love me, come with me to San Francisco tonight. Will you?
- Louise Elliott Medlin: Yes.
- Frank Medlin: [Asking the City Editor for a raise] I'm a married man with responsibilities, and all I'm asking you for is enough money to live like a human being.
- City Editor: You can't come around here complaining about "hard times" when you smell like a saloon most of the time!
- Frank Medlin: Ha! You're a fine one to preach! Why, you've had your nose in a whiskey bottle so long it looks like an old cork!
- City Editor: I've had enough out of you, Medlin. You're fired!
- Frank Medlin: [Slightly taken aback] Fired?... That's fine. I'll go get myself a decent job, now. Merry Christmas!
- Tim Hazelton: [He's just returned to San Francisco after a long time away at sea] You look like someone they forgot to bury.
- Frank Medlin: They didn't forget - I just wasn't there when they came around.
- Frank Medlin: [Anxious to know Tim's opinion of his novel in progress] Well, are you through?
- Tim Hazelton: Yes.
- Frank Medlin: Pretty bad, ay?
- Tim Hazelton: Well, I'm no literary critic.
- Frank Medlin: [laughs derisively] You don't have to be. All you've got to be is be able to smell.
- Louise Elliott Medlin: [to Grace] But if you love a man, you've got to understand his weaknesses as well as take pride in his strengths. and if you love him, you'll fight for him 'til you know he belongs to another woman.