You Can't Take It with You (1938)

Jean Arthur: Alice Sycamore

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Quotes 

• Tony Kirby : I can feel a scream coming on right now... it's up here, in my throat! It's fighting to get out!

  Alice Sycamore : No, please, don't scream!

  [she screams] 

  Henry - the Head Waiter : [comes over]  What happened?

  Tony Kirby : What happened? Well, there was a mouse!

  Henry - the Head Waiter : A mouse in this place?

  Tony Kirby : What do you mean, 'mouse'? It was a rat, *this* long, and it had hair on it! And there were six or seven of them!

• Alice Sycamore : [In a jail cell]  Mrs. Kirby, please believe me, I'm so sorry to have gotten you involved in all this trouble.

  Mrs. Anthony P. Kirby : I'll appreciate it, if you'll leave me strictly alone.

  Jailed Prostitute : Don't let it get you, sister. They're gettin' tougher everywhere. Say, where you been operatin'? You got class. That's the kind of connection I'm lookin' for.

• Alice Sycamore : Well Mr. Moody, what're you thinking about?

  Tony Kirby : Me? Eh... That family of yours - boy, they knocked me for a loop. I don't know, it just seems like in their own way, they found what everybody's looking for. People spend their whole lives building castles in the air and then nothing ever comes of it. I wonder why that is? Well, it takes courage. Everybody's afraid to live.

  Alice Sycamore : You ought to hear Grandpa on that subject. You know, he says most people nowadays are run by fear; Fear of what they eat, fear of what they drink, fear of their jobs, their future, fear of their health. They're scared to save money and scared to spend it. You know what his pet aversion is? The people who commercialize on fear: you know they scare you to death so they can sell you something you don't need. So, he kinda taught all of not to be afraid of anything, but do what we want to do. Well, it's kinda fun, anyway.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, well that's it. Well that takes courage, especially that 'do what you want to do' department.

• Alice Sycamore : It's for you.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Why bless my soul, a new harmonica.

  Alice Sycamore : I got it for you for your birthday.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : How do you know when my birthday is? Even I don't know.

  Alice Sycamore : Anytime I get an impulse to get you something, that's your birthday.

• Alice Sycamore : We're going to the Monte Carlo ballet!

  Boris Kolenkhov : ...The Monte Carlo ballet? It stinks!

• Mrs. Anthony P. Kirby : Mr. Kirby should have told you: he suffers from indigestion.

  Anthony P. Kirby : Now, now, Miriam, it isn't as serious as all that.

  Boris Kolenkhov : Perhaps it is not indigestion. Perhaps it is stomach *ulcers!*

  Anthony P. Kirby : [looks at Kolenkhov with obvious indignation]  Ulcers?

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Don't pay any attention to Mr. Kolenkhov. He's Russian, and the Russians are inclined to look on the dark side.

  Boris Kolenkhov : All right, I'm Russian! A friend of mine - a Russian - *died* from stomach ulcers!

  Alice Sycamore : Now Mr. Kolenkhov, Mr. Kirby has indigestion, and that's all.

  Boris Kolenkhov : Alright fine, let him wait!

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Oh, please folks, let's not discuss Mr. Kirby's ulcers.

• Tony Kirby : [in the car on the way to the opera]  I was just thinking about that family of yours. Living with them must be like living in a world of Walt Disney. Everybody does just as he pleases, doesn't he?

  Alice Sycamore : Yes. Grandpa started it. He just suddenly left business one day. He started up in the elevator and turned around and came right down again and never went back. He could've been a rich man, but said he wasn't having any fun.

  Tony Kirby : Oh that's wonderful.

  Alice Sycamore : Then he started collecting stamps, because that's what he liked best. You know, he gets paid just to appraise collections. He's an expert.

  Tony Kirby : That's marvelous.

  Alice Sycamore : And my dad; he, he makes fireworks because, well, because he never grew up I guess. And mother, do you know why mother writes plays?

  Tony Kirby : Well, she probably likes literature and good books and...

  Alice Sycamore : [chuckles]  Huh, nope. Because eight years ago a typewriter was delivered to the house by mistake.

  Tony Kirby : Oh, no, but eh... If it'd been a plow, she'd have taken up farming, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : I'm sure of it, if she'd liked it.

  [they smile and chuckle as the scene fades out] 

• Alice Sycamore : [to the Kirby family]  The next time you want to go slumming, stay away from our neighborhood!

• Tony Kirby : [phone rings. Tony won't let go of Alice's hands]  You know, every once in a while I get a very strange sensation - I seem to hear *ringing* in my ears.

  Alice Sycamore : Me too. I thought for a moment it was the telephone.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah. I hear voices, too. Voices that say, 'if you don't kiss her soon, you're a chump.'

  Alice Sycamore : You know, uh, if I were really clever, I could answer the phone without the use of my hands.

  Tony Kirby : Saw it done in a circus once.

  Tony Kirby : [Alice picks up receiver with her teeth]  Hey, wonderful, you'd be a sensation on the trapeze!

• Tony Kirby : You know, there never was anything in my life that I couldn't get if I didn't scream loud enough.

  Alice Sycamore : Really?

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, and I've had plenty of practice with it since I was a baby. I'm pretty terrific at it now. Here, let me show you a little example.

  [he screams, and the office boy opens the door] 

  Tony Kirby : [he screams again, and the office boy leaves] 

  [both laugh] 

• Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Listen, when I was courting your grandmother, it took me two years to propose. You know why? The moment she'd walk into a room my knees would buckle; the blood would rush up into my head and the walls would start to dance. Twice I keeled over in a dead faint.

  Alice Sycamore : [laughing]  Why, Grandpa.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Yeh. She finally dragged it outta me when I was in bed with a one hundred and four fever and in a state of hysteria. The moment she accepted, the fever went down to normal and I hopped outta bed.

  [Alice smiles and chuckles] 

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Oh, the case was written up in all the medical journals as the phenomenon of the times.

  [scoffs] 

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Nothing phenomenal about it - I just had it bad, that's all; and I never got over it either, no sir. Right up to the very last she couldn't walk into a room without my heart going 'thump, thump, thump.'

  Alice Sycamore : [hugs him]  Aw, you darling. Oh, I wish I'd known her. What was she like?

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Well, look in there.

  [points to a dresser behind him] 

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : This was her room too. Did you ever notice a peculiar fragrance in here?

  Alice Sycamore : Yes, but I never knew what it was.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : That's her. It's never left here; she hasn't either. I can still hear the tinkle of her thin little voice and see her eyes laughing. That's the reason I've lived in this house so many years and could never move out: it'd be like moving out on grandma.

• Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Incidentally, what's his name?

  Alice Sycamore : Eh, Tony Kirby.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : Not the son of - the Kirby?

  Alice Sycamore : Yes.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff : [whistles]  Pretty snooty outfit aren't they?

• Alice Sycamore : Don't ask me to go over there because I won't go.

  Tony Kirby : No, no, no, Alice. I want you to meet a four-star blue blood. Come on. Come.

• Alice Sycamore : I resent what you said about your brain. I think it's beautiful.

  Tony Kirby : You do, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : Mmmhm

  Tony Kirby : I see. Yeah, that's probably the first thing you noticed about me that you liked - my colossal brain.

  Alice Sycamore : Well, no. No, it was the back of your head.

  Tony Kirby : The back of my head? I've got a big bump back there. Well, what happened when I turned around?

  Alice Sycamore : Well, I figured I'd just have to get used to that.

  Tony Kirby : Oh, you figured.

  Alice Sycamore : And, you know, it might not take very long, but I just figured I'd...

  Tony Kirby : ...you just figured you'd just... well, I'm glad you 'figured.'

• Alice Sycamore : [while being questioned on the phone by Rheba]  Were you ever in a monastery?

  Tony Kirby : No, but I'm the fella who got caught in a cave once.

  Alice Sycamore : Haha, really? Whatever happened to you?

  Tony Kirby : Well, the cave caved in and I haven't been heard from since.

  [Alice laughs] 

• Tony Kirby : I remember in college another guy and I had an idea to... mind if I talk about myself?

  Alice Sycamore : [smiles]  If you don't, I will.

  Tony Kirby : Well, this other guy and I had this idea.

  [picks up a blade of grass and observes it while talking] 

  Tony Kirby : We, we wanted to find out what made the grass grow green.

  [Alice smirks] 

  Tony Kirby : Well that sounds silly and everything, but it's the biggest research problem in the world today, and I'll tell you why: because, there's a tiny little engine in the green of this grass and in the green of the trees that has the mysterious gift of being able to take energy from the rays of the sun and store it up. You see that that's how the heat and power in coal and oil and wood is stored up. Well, we thought if, if we could find the secret of all those millions of little engines in this green stuff, we could, we could make big ones! And then we could take all the power we could ever need right from the sun's rays. You see?

  Alice Sycamore : Well that's wonderful, I never knew that.

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, yeah. We worked on it and we worked and... day and night; we got so excited about it we forgot to sleep. If, if we'd make just one little discovery, well we'd just walk on air for days.

  Alice Sycamore : And, then what?

  Tony Kirby : [starts to look disheartened]  Well, then we left school... now he's selling automobiles, and I'm in some strange thing called banking. I saw him a couple weeks ago. Poor guy - Bob Smith's his name - got all excited again and wanted to talk about anything else.

  Alice Sycamore : And?

  Tony Kirby : Well, he's married; wife just had a baby. He didn't think it was fair to gamble with the future. Anyway, that's his excuse for lack of courage.

  [acknowledges Alice's forlorn expression] 

  Tony Kirby : Yeah, it's sad. And what's my excuse, huh? Well, the Kirby's have been bankers for nine-thousand years, or something. That line just can't be broken, and that's been pounded into my head until I've had softening of the brain.

  [tosses down the blade of grass] 

  Tony Kirby : That's my excuse.

  Alice Sycamore : Tony that's kind of silly, you're pretty young to... besides I resent what you said about your brain - I think it's beautiful.

  Tony Kirby : You do, huh?

  Alice Sycamore : Mmhmm.

• Boris Kolenkhov : The perfect hobby should improve the body as well as the mind. The Romans were great people. Why? What was their hobby? Wrestling. In wrestling you must think quick with the mind and act quick with the body.

  Anthony P. Kirby : Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I-I agree with you. When I was young I was pretty good at it myself. Unfortunately as one grows older...

  Boris Kolenkhov : Foolishness! Once a wrestler, you will never forget. I have not done it in six years, but I forget niet! Look:

  [suddenly causes a minor scene by picking up Mr. Kirby over his shoulders in a wrestling move, spinning him around, and throwing him down on the floor while everyone scrambles to their feet in shock/confusion/assistance/etc] 

  Alice Sycamore : Sit down Mr. Kirby.

  [while brushing him off] 

  Anthony P. Kirby : My glasses, where are my glasses?

  Penny Sycamore : Here they are. Oh Mr. Kirby, they're broken.

  Boris Kolenkhov : I am sorry, but when you wrestle again Mr. Kirby, you will of course not wear your glasses.

  Anthony P. Kirby : [frustrated]  I do not *intend* to wrestle again.

  Grandpa Martin Vanderhof : That was very silly Kolenkhov, I'm sorry you did that. I'm sorry Mr. Kirby.