- Frank Hawkins: [when Matilda shows up in his caravan with a bottle and glasses] I don't drink.
- Matilda: [pouring herself one] Then watch me.
- Monica Rivers: There's nothing certain in show business. We've eaten caviar, and we've eaten sawdust
- Wanda: [after Matilda is thrown out of Frank's trailer] Matilda, darling, you should be careful about leaving like that; you'll damage your brain.
- Monica Rivers: [after Matilda is thrown out of Frank's trailer] Quite a party.
- Frank Hawkins: Don't get the wrong idea.
- Monica Rivers: What? That you've been entertaining a woman in your caravan dressed like that?
- Frank Hawkins: She came in and I threw her out
- Monica Rivers: After two hours?
- Frank Hawkins: Right away!
- Monica Rivers: But why?
- Frank Hawkins: What do you mean?
- Monica Rivers: Well, you're no saint and she's attractive in a common sort of way. Why did you throw her out.
- Monica Rivers: Oh, you miserable, gutless adding machine! What are you trying to do, ruin my circus?
- Frank Hawkins: You sure know how to put out a fire.
- Monica Rivers: If you want me to spell it out for you, I will. To me, what we have is no more important than a greeting card, sometimes maybe not as friendly.
- Albert Dorando: It's a good thing you're inhuman.
- Monica Rivers: We're running a circus, not a charm school!
- Monica Rivers: The French Revolution could have been avoided if Louis XVI had given the people a reason to celebrate.
- Frank Hawkins: Don't forget what happened to Marie Antoinette.
- Monica Rivers: Leave the comedy to Bruno and the rest of the clowns. I haven't time for your grisly jokes.
- Monica Rivers: Look, don't waste my time with these broken-down has-beens. Some of them are as old as my elephants and twice as wrinkled. I want something fresh! A new face with an exciting act.
- Monica Rivers: Poor Dorando. Why are you always so depressed? What can I do to cheer you up? You know what? I just may let you tuck me in tonight.
- Superintendent Brooks: I guess I'm like most people, sir, reading about murder gives me a thrill.
- Commissioner Dalby: Yes. Well, your job is to stop it!
- Commissioner Dalby: Tell me, Superintendent, when you were a little boy, did you ever want to run away and join a circus?
- Superintendent Brooks: No, sir, not at all. No, I had a very happy life with love on both sides, plus a liberal allowance and two doting aunts.
- Strong Man: I am stronger than two horses! You all know that when I bend an iron bar with my teeth, if is for real. Iron! But, even I cannot fight what I cannot see.
- Commissioner Dalby: Dressing smartly is a fetish of yours.
- Superintendent Brooks: Well, sir, I don't drink or gamble.
- Commissioner Dalby: I know. Your only passion, apart from your work, is your wardrobe.
- Superintendent Brooks: Yes, sir. Your advice?
- Commissioner Dalby: Just this: leave your expensive feathers in their moth-proof containers. You'll find the circus is a rather untidy place.
- Commissioner Dalby: You hunt a wild animal in his native habitat. You don't bring a tiger up from the jungles of Asia to shoot it in Hyde Park.
- Frank Hawkins: Do you make a habit of this?
- Matilda: Drinking?
- Frank Hawkins: Coming to men's cabins at 12 o'clock at night.
- Matilda: Only if I like them.
- Frank Hawkins: Isn't this a little dangerous? Doesn't it worry you that Lazlo might find out?
- Matilda: At this moment, Lazlo is snoring away in the bed. That's all he ever does do in bed.
- [kiss]
- Frank Hawkins: Monica, you're playing a dangerous game. Every lie is a trap. When Dorando was killed, I heard you say you were asleep.
- Monica Rivers: Well, I was in bed. Who should know that better than you?
- Matilda: There's no need to be so rough, Frank. I was just trying to be friendly.
- Frank Hawkins: I hope your timing in your act is better than it is here.
- Matilda: My timing is - very good.
- Frank Hawkins: You knock me out, Matilda. You really do.
- Frank Hawkins: With you a man never knows where he stands! First you give and then you hold back. I know you like to let men dangle. Well, that might have worked with Dorando, but, it doesn't with me.
- Monica Rivers: You got Dorando on the brain.
- Monica Rivers: Naturally, as you say, we did become good friends.
- Superintendent Brooks: Intimate friends?
- Monica Rivers: If what you're trying to find out is whether or not I slept with Dorando, the answer is no.
- Superintendent Brooks: I was sorry I had to press the point, Miss Rivers. You'll understand that we cannot rule out a sex motive for the murder.
- Monica Rivers: Matilda, I left instructions for you to report to me in my caravan before you went on.
- Matilda: I was resting.
- Monica Rivers: Not all of you. Your poisonous tongue, as usual, was very busy.
- Angela Rivers: I still hoped I had a mother. But, it's funny. All my memories of mother are of teachers and other people who brought me up. I was shuttered around from place to place like a piece of baggage with the wrong address pasted on it.
- Monica Rivers: But, you certainly never *lacked* anything.
- Angela Rivers: No. Except what I needed most. You.