- Marian Brook: This is wonderful news.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: May I know this wonderful news?
- Marian Brook: You'll be thrilled.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I haven't been thrilled since 1865.
- Arthur Scott: [struggling to get the meat from a crab leg] I am at war with this crab.
- Dorothy Scott: I think you should surrender.
- Arthur Scott: You think this is bad, you never ate with my Uncle William. He'd make you lose your whole appetite. He'd take a fork full of eggs, then dip that same fork into the jelly. I was always picking little bits of egg out of my jelly.
- Dorothy Scott: Are you trying to ruin our luncheon?
- Arthur Scott: He ruined my breakfast for years!
- Marian Brook: ...I cannot make vague promises about unforeseeable circumstances in an unknown future.
- Peggy Scott: And you could be a bride, if you give Mr. Raikes an answer.
- Marian Brook: I still can't believe he asked the question. Maybe he didn't. Maybe I was mistaken.
- Peggy Scott: Do you hope you were mistaken?
- Marian Brook: Not exactly.
- Charles Fane: Are you a member of the club?
- George Russell: Don't worry-- their entry standards haven't sunk that low.
- Ada Brook: But what if he's found by an unscrupulous thief? Someone might pay $50 for him.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Only if they do not know the breed.
- Bertha Russell: You are a young girl. And I am your mother, and I have every right to know who's corresponding with you.
- Gladys Russell: I'm not a girl. I am a woman, whether it suits you or not.
- Monsieur Baudin: Uh, those are tomorrow's menus. I write out the final list, and Madam approves it before she goes up to dress.
- Bannister: I see. Heavens! Chicken soup for luncheon. That's not something with which I'm familiar.
- Church: Chicken soup?
- Bannister: Soup at luncheon. Or is it chilled?
- Monsieur Baudin: No. It's hot.
- Bannister: Well, well, every day you learn something. What's this? Trifle?
- Church: Don't you like trifle either?
- Bannister: It's not that exactly. We would think of it as a nursery dish. Still, one man's meat is another man's poison, as they say.
- Peggy Scott: A Mr. Fortune, the editor of "The New York Globe," is going to publish one of my stories-- "Alone in the City."
- Marian Brook: What's it about?
- Peggy Scott: A young colored woman living on the Upper East Side.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: It's about you, in other words.
- Peggy Scott: All writers write about themselves, at least at the start. But Mr. Fortune wants my next article to be more political.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Just make sure that if you do, I never find out.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Aurora Fane has invited you to the Academy of Music. You will hear John Knowles Paine conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is raising money for your Miss Barton.
- Marian Brook: When is it?
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Friday. Aurora will collect you on her way.
- Marian Brook: That sounds fun. Will you come?
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I'd rather be put to death.
- Bannister: But, of course, there's no right or wrong about these things. They're simply a matter of taste.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: You'll squeeze that dog to death.
- Ada Brook: Oh, I just want to cuddle him and cuddle him and never let him go.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I should watch out. He'll take off again. I would.
- George Russell: Couldn't she have a maid instead?
- Bertha Russell: She has a maid.
- George Russell: I mean a real lady's maid that could accompany her when she goes out. Although why that's considered necessary beats me.
- Bertha Russell: Well, I'll see her, I suppose.
- Larry Russell: There was a time when you would've run a red carpet to the edge of the sidewalk if you thought Mrs. Charles Fane might pay you a visit.
- Bertha Russell: I'm stronger now than I was.
- Mrs. Bruce: And you lay the table as you've always laid the table.
- Church: True, but I did not know there were such differences between English customs and American.
- Monsieur Baudin: So what? You're American. Mr. and Mrs. Russell are American.
- Monsieur Baudin: You sound so angry all the time.
- Turner: I'm wasting my life here.
- Monsieur Baudin: Then leave. Or change things.
- Ada Brook: Why would you not promise Aunt Agnes to marry someone suitable?
- Marian Brook: Dearest Aunt Ada, how could I... when someone who is suitable to me may not be suitable to her?
- Ada Brook: You think me a weaker person than Agnes, and maybe I am. But even I know that marrying beneath oneself is no guarantee of happiness.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Marian, I cannot have an object in the house if I'm not allowed to know its provenance.
- Sylvia Chamberlain: We're what your aunt would call "new people." But my husband had something better than birth.
- Marian Brook: What was that?
- Sylvia Chamberlain: Luck. Right from the start.
- Sylvia Chamberlain: Mr. Chamberlain was a widower when he married me. He and his first wife did not fully understand the power that money had put into their hands. I showed him.
- Marian Brook: So you taught him how to live.
- George Russell: Is it time to approach Morgan?
- Richard Clay: If you dine with J.P. Morgan, you should use a long spoon.
- Ada Brook: She had the taste, the looks, and the brains. He had the money.
- Marian Brook: Rather sharp for you, Aunt Ada.
- Oscar Van Rhijn: Why would you want to go to Brooklyn?
- Marian Brook: As a matter of fact, I'm thinking of paying someone a surprise visit. She may need cheering up.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: So should I if I lived in Brooklyn.
- Arthur Scott: Dorothy... our responsibility is to raise a child with a sense of right and wrong. I cannot put that aside to play Happy Families.
- Dorothy Scott: No. And it's not a game we are very well equipped for, is it?
- Marian Brook: Why are you here, really?
- Tom Raikes: My lady was in a high window, so I realized I needed a long ladder.
- Bertha Russell: Does he have money, your Mr. Raikes?
- Marian Brook: I don't think so. Not what you would call money.
- Bertha Russell: Pity, when he's enjoying himself so much. He may find it hard to keep up without it.
- Aurora Fane: Now for the third movement-- "A Romance of Springtime," how lovely. What's the matter, Marian? Don't you like the sound of it?
- Marian Brook: I like it very much. As long as there's a happy ending.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: We don't know her at all, of course.
- Ada Brook: We know she's a kind person, Agnes. And I do not believe she would ever do anything self-destructive.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: "Self-destructive"? You've been reading those German books again. I've warned you before, just stick to Louisa May Alcott.
- Ada Brook: I will try to be your friend, whatever comes. But it'll be simpler if you can find your beloved among Mr. McAllister's 400.
- Bertha Russell: How can you be sure that Mr. McAllister will want to meet me?
- Aurora Fane: He's dying to see this house. It's one of the only palaces on the avenue he's never been inside. And...
- Bertha Russell: And?
- Aurora Fane: He loves money.
- Bertha Russell: I'm to lunch with Mr. McAllister but not with Mrs. Astor?
- Aurora Fane: I'm afraid she always wants a list of her fellow guests and seldom agrees to sit at a table with strangers.
- Bertha Russell: Especially strangers like me.
- Aurora Fane: That's not true. She does let new people in. She has to, or they'll forge an alternative society and keep her and the old crowd out.
- Bertha Russell: Won't they anyway?
- Aurora Fane: Probably, but not in her time.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: If they'd found the dog, why not send a footman to return it? No, if you ask me, they kidnapped it so Mrs. Russell could deliver it in person. I said this would happen, when Oscar brought her son to tea. She wants to force us to receive her. Mark my words... any minute now, Mrs. Russell will arrive with the dog tucked underneath her arm.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: Pull yourself together, for heaven's sake. You're a soldier's daughter. Remember it.
- Aurora Fane: He's a sort of henchman to Mrs. Astor. He helps her in her work of shaping society.
- Bertha Russell: And Mrs. Astor takes his advice?
- Aurora Fane: I don't know that she ever takes advice exactly, but she allows him to help her. He is her amanuensis.
- Agnes Van Rhijn: I can manage opera as long as I can talk, but sitting through a symphony is beyond me.
- George Russell: Coroner's verdict on Patrick Morris... suicide.
- Bertha Russell: How could he say anything else?
- George Russell: They'll blame me.
- Bertha Russell: You were strong. He was weak. Who's to blame for that?