- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: I said, turn it off! Nobody laughs at me! Because I laugh first. At me! Me, from Seattle! Me, with no education. Me, with no talent, as you kept reminding me my whole life! Well, Mama look at me now. I'm a star! Look! Look how I live! Look at my friends! Look where I'm going! I'm not staying in burlesque! I'm moving, mabye up, maybe down! But wherever it is, I'm enjoying it. I'm having the time of my life! Because for the first time, it is my life! And I love it. I love every second of it! And I'll be damned if you're gonna take it away from me! I am Gypsy Rose Lee! And I love her! And if you don't, you can just clear out now!
- Rose Hovick: Just walk and dip. Remember, you're a lady. You make 'em beg for more and then - don't give it to 'em.
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: [singing] Let me entertain you, Let me make you smile, Let me do a few tricks, Some old and then some new tricks, I'm very versatile, And if you're real good, I'll make you feel good, I want your spirits to climb, So let me entertain you, And we'll have a real good time; Yes, sir!, We'll have a real good time.
- Rose Hovick: [on remarrying] After three husbands, it takes a lot of butter to get you back in the frying pan.
- Herbie Sommers: How much butter, Rose?
- Rose Hovick: All depends on who's dishing it out.
- Rose Hovick: You need something to remind you your goal was to be a great actress. Not a cheap stripper.
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: My sister's the actress, mother. And I'm *not* a cheap stripper. I'm the highest-paid in the business.
- Rose Hovick: You won't be ready for vaudeville when it comes back.
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: No, I'll be *dead*.
- Rose Hovick: [singing] You'll be swell, you'll be great. Gonna have the whole world on a plate! Starting here, starting now. Honey, everything's coming up roses...
- Tessie Tura: But take it from me, to be a stripper, all you need to have is no talent.
- Mazeppa: You'll pardon me, but to have no talent is not enough. What you need to have is an idea that makes your strip special.
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: You really would have been something, Mother.
- Rose Hovick: Think so?
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: If you had had someone to push you like I had.
- Rose Hovick: If I could've been, I would've been. That's show business.
- Louise "Gypsy Rose Lee" Hovick: [singing] Little cat, little cat, why do you look so blue? Did somebody paint you to look like that, or is it your birthday, too? Little lamb, little lamb, I wonder how old I am.
- Herbie Sommers: Can I use your phone? I've gotta call the police. This little girl, underage, who married a boy.
- Station Master: How old are they. Mister?
- Herbie Sommers: The girl's 13. The boy is 17, 18.
- Station Master: Well, there's nothing illegal about that in this state. It's legal for a girl at 12 and legal for a boy at 16. This is pioneer country and we've never changed the law.
- Rose Hovick: Oh, Mr. Electrical! Would you please spot Baby June? She's the one with the movement. And every little movement has a meaning all its own. So, hit her with something pink!
- Herbie Sommers: I had this candy bar proposition for a long time and I'm singing like a bird. I tip the fedora to you. Name is Sommers. Herbie Sommers.
- Rose Hovick: Hovick. Rose Hovick.
- Rose Hovick: [contemplating an unneeded wig] You know, we could get a nice refund on this... if we'd ever paid for it.
- Rose Hovick: Would you mind holding Chowsie? That's short for "chow mein." Mama just *loves* chow mein. Doesn't she, Chowsie.
- 'Baby' Louise: The trouble's got to be in either the universal joint or the rear end.
- Rose Hovick: Now, now, now, now, now. No dirty talk.
- Rose Hovick: Didn't I see your sensitive face at the Odd Fellows Hall? My first husband was an Old Fellow.
- Herbie Sommers: Now, Mr. Willis, don't give me that stuff about what the other salesman used to sell you. How much of his candy did you sell? Practically zero. He steered you wrong! You're not on the ball with your patrons, selling plain chocolate bars, Mr. Willis, it's like women wearing bustles. Now, this is an era of flaming youth. Of flappers, of shifters. It's a world that crunches! So, what should you sell? Crunchy Butterfingers. Crispy Baby Ruths covered with our nourishing milk chocolate - safe for a baby. I'm gonna put you down for a hundred gross, Mr. Willis.
- Herbie Sommers: Say, it's that fashionable cocktail hour again, Rose. I would like to buy you a small booze and a bite to eat. Now, there's a local speak which has fair gin, but dandy chow mein, if you happen to go for Chinese food.
- Rose Hovick: Is there any other kind?
- Herbie Sommers: Lady, eh, Rose, the profession is making a buck the hard way.
- Rose Hovick: Not if it's in your blood.
- [opens her coat, puts her hand on her hip, Herbie gives her the once over]
- Herbie Sommers: When you say that, you look like a pioneer woman without a frontier.
- Rose Hovick: Is that good or bad?
- Herbie Sommers: Oh, it's good. You've got what it takes. You won't let the world push you around.
- Herbie Sommers: We had so many stage mothers there and I - and I hate to see mothers exploiting their kids.
- Rose Hovick: Not me. I'm a mother first, and don't you forget it.
- Herbie Sommers: I never married. You see, I had five sisters and the ugly one didn't get married till a year ago. She's pregnant now.
- Rose Hovick: I don't like dirty talk.
- Herbie Sommers: Oh, I apologize.
- Rose Hovick: No need to. You're a gent and I like gents.
- Rose Hovick: I like you, but I don't want marriage. You like me, you don't want show business.
- Herbie Sommers: Well, that seems to leave you there - and me here.
- Rose Hovick: Oh, now, that depends on how you look at it. You look at what we don't have. I look at what we do have.
- Herbie Sommers: I knew you were a good mother. You wanna know something? I'm crazy for mothers.
- Rose Hovick: Yeah?
- Rose Hovick: June is already the showbiz whiz.
- Herbie Sommers: She's a worker, all right.
- Rose Hovick: I'd like to see her in a big flash act. A lot of scenery. And maybe six little girls behind her. All brunettes to show off her blondness.
- Herbie Sommers: If you wanna show her off, Rose, you ought to back her up with some boys the way Ziegfeld does.
- Rose Hovick: What does Ziegfeld know about vaudeville?
- Rose Hovick: Herbie drove us all the way to Seattle. It was a pleasure to have a man behind the wheel.
- [with a Mae West droll]
- Rose Hovick: All right, let's face it, it was a pleasure to have a man.
- Rose Hovick: Something wonderful's gonna happen for my girls, Pa.
- Grandpa: Bunk.
- Rose Hovick: I've had a dream, Pa.
- Grandpa: Aren't you ashamed of yourself, fooling our kids with those dreams?
- Rose Hovick: They're real dreams and I'm gonna make them come real for my kids.
- Herbie Sommers: Abyssinia, Rose.
- Rose Hovick: Abyssinia, Herbie.
- Herbie Sommers: Abyssinia, kids.
- 'Baby' Louise, Baby June: Abyssinia, Herbie.
- Grandpa: Abyssinia. Abyssinia.
- [disgusted]
- Grandpa: More show talk.
- Jack Benny: My girl was so dumb, she was fired from the 5-and-10 cent store - because she couldn't remember the prices.
- Rose Hovick: [singing] Hey, New York, I'm coming your way, Some people sit on their butts, Got the dream, yeah, but not the guts...
- Grandpa: You belong home, instead of running around the country like a *gypsy*.
- Rose Hovick: Anybody that stays home is dead. If I die it won't be from sittin'. It'll be from fightin' to get up and get out!
- [singing]
- Rose Hovick: Some people can get a thrill, Knitting sweaters and sittin' still, That's okay for some people, Who don't know they're alive...
- Grandpa: It's not too late for you to get a husband to support you.
- Rose Hovick: After three husbands, I'm through with marriage. I wanna enjoy myself.
- Rose Hovick: That plaque - from your grateful railroad company to say congratulations. For 50 years you did the same dull thing every dull day.
- Mr. Kringelein: Why, it's a damned zoo!
- Rose Hovick: Profanity in front of my babies. June, get the Bible. Get the Bible! Oh, will I report you to the Board of Health! And my friends. Hello, Gladys.
- Mr. Kringelein: You can pack up this - menagerie and get out!
- Rose Hovick: You'll have to throw us out, you heartless animal hater. That's what he is. Send for the SPCA.
- Mr. Kringelein: Send for the police!
- Rose Hovick: Herbie booked in Newark. Newark is in New Jersey and New Jersey is only one big, deep breath from New York.
- Jack Benny: She's got an uncle. I won't say that he drank too much, you see, but two years after he died - his liver won a Charleston contest.
- Rose Hovick: Oh, can you imagine? Ooh, these dangerous middle-aged men. Oh, you never know what sort of beasts and brutes you're gonna meet up with.
- Herbie Sommers: I don't get you. You're so high and mighty with a suite at the Astor and you're still stealing the cutlery.
- Rose Hovick: You got to grasp every opportunity.
- Rose Hovick: The wonton soup is better in San Francisco. The foo young has more egg in it in St. Louis. But, I will say for New York City, it's got the best doggone subgum chicken chow mein I ever did taste.