- Olaf Johnson: She's 37 today. She wants me to go to her birthday party - her 37th birthday... so she says.
- Jonah Goodwin: 37! She's fifteen minutes younger than the Roman Empire.
- Igor Propotkin: All men are created free and equal, so it says in the books. Who am I equal to? Nobody. Throw away the books.
- George Watkins: Just doin' the simple things - takin' a walk on the boardwalk on Sunday afternoon, watchin' the people and the ocean. I could get a real kick outta just watchin' you put on a new dress. It's inside of you, Stella - with your heart spillin' over with love for the things you've got, that you can hold on to forever; that's where you'll find what you're lookin' for.
- Olaf Johnson: Now, Jonah, please - will you throw away the wallet?
- Jonah Goodwin: For your sake, Olaf.
- Officer Magruder: [interrupting as Jonah starts to throw] Make a wish as you throw it, Jonah - and while you're throwin' that old hunk of bait away, make a wish for me. See you later, boys.
- [first lines]
- Sam Pepper: It's your turn - you take a card.
- Igor Propotkin: This is not cards - this is torture. I could do better sitting in a rocking chair and knitting.
- Jonah Goodwin: What's there so wonderful about me? I'm just an ordinary person, like - like everybody else around here. Like Olaf, like George, like Magruder. Yes, Stella - your father's just an ordinary man. And his daughter? She's an ordinary woman. But there's one thing ordinary people can do just as well as anybody: They can love each other like - like millionaires or poets. That's why it's not such a terrible thing to be an ordinary person, Stella.
- Jonah Goodwin: If you lived in the jungle, and a tiger stole your food and ran off with your children, what would you do?
- Olaf Johnson: I don't know.
- Jonah Goodwin: You'd kill him.
- Igor Propotkin: I am the victim of people who don't understand my accounts, just because I kept them in my own way. Everybody has different tastes in clothes - why can't I have different tastes in bookkeeping?
- [last lines]
- Jonah Goodwin: You know, Stella, off the coast of Cuba in the Gulf Stream, where the sun shines eleven months of the year, they catch fish that weigh from seven hundred to a thousand pounds. Fish with spears in their noses!
- Stella Goodwin: Swordfish, papa. They call 'em swordfish.
- Jonah Goodwin: That's it, Stella - swordfish!
- Olaf Johnson: How long can the ocean hide a man, Jonah?
- Jonah Goodwin: Could hide him 'til the last fish is caught.
- Jonah Goodwin: Here, have a cigarette.
- Stella Goodwin: Gee, Pop! That's the first time you've ever offered me a cigarette.