George Bailey: Just a minute... Just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was... Why, in the 25 years since he and his brother, Uncle Billy, started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry away to college, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter, and what's wrong with that? Why... Here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You... You said...what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Kosti: Enlightenment is the curse of civilization. A man who wastes his energy on knowledge is a fool. The more he learns, the more he wants and the more unhappy he becomes. Tear down the schoolhouses! Burn the books! Strangle the teachers! Then the world will get somewhere.
Marie Derry: Say, who is this Peggy Stephenson?
Fred Derry: She's a girl.
Marie Derry: I didn't think she was a kangaroo.
Miranda Wells: Nicholas - you do believe in God?
Nicholas Van Ryn: I believe in myself, and I am answerable to myself! I will not live according to printed mottoes like the directions on a medicine bottle.
Alexander Sebastian: I'm not afraid to die.
Devlin: You've got your chance, here and now.
Wyatt Earp: Mac, have you ever been in love?
Mac the Barman: No. I've been a bartender all my life.
Gilda: If you're worried about Johnny Farrell, don't be. I hate him.
Ballin Mundson: And he hates you. That's very apparent. But hate can be a very exciting emotion. Very exciting. Haven't you noticed that?
Gilda: You make it s.
Ballin Mundson: There is a heat in it, that one can feel. Didn't you feel it tonight?
Gilda: No.
Ballin Mundson: I did. It warmed me. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.
Professor Charles Rankin: Murder can be a chain, Mary, one link leading to another until it circles your neck. Red was digging at the grave of the man I killed. Yes, your little man.
Mary Longstreet: You killed him?
Professor Charles Rankin: With these hands. The same hands that have held you close to me.
Cora Smith: It's too bad Nick took the car.
Frank Chambers: Even if it was here we couldn't take it, unless we'd want to spend the night in jail. Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing a man's car, that's larceny.
Captain Francis A. Thompson: Mr. Foster, remove his shirt.
2nd Mate Foster: Aye, aye, sir.
Charles Stewart: Never mind. I'll take it off.