Grand Hotel Quotes

Otto Kringelein: Mr. Preysing, I am not taking orders from you here.

Preysing: What is this insolence? Please go away.

Otto Kringelein: You think you have free license to be insulting? Believe me, you have not. You think you're superior, but you're quite an ordinary man. Even if you did marry money, and people like me have got to slave for you for 320 marks a month!

Preysing: Will you go away, please! You are annoying!

Flaemmchen: Mr. Preysing, please!

Otto Kringelein: You don't like to see me enjoying myself. When a man's working himself to death, that's what he's paid for. You don't care if a man can live on his wages or not.

Preysing: You have a very regular scale of wages, and there's the sick fund for you.

Otto Kringelein: [sarcastically] Oh, what a scale, and what a fund. When I was sick for four weeks, you wrote me a letter, telling me I'd be discharged if I was sick any longer. Did you write me that letter, or did you not?

Preysing: I have no idea of the letters that I write, Mr. Kringelein. I know that you're here in the Grand Hotel, living like a lord. You are probably an embezzler.

Otto Kringelein: [shocked] An embezzler?

Preysing: Yes, an embezzler!

Otto Kringelein: You will take that back, right here in the presence of this young lady! Who do you think you're talking to? You think I'm dirt? Well, if I'm dirt, you're a lot dirtier, Mr. Industrial Magnate Preysing!

Preysing: You're discharged! Get out!

Flaemmchen: You can't do that to him...

Preysing: Oh, I don't know the man. I don't know what he wants. I never saw him before.

Otto Kringelein: I know you! I've kept your books for you and I know all about you! If one of your employees was half as stupid in a small way as you are in a big way...

Preysing: [lunges for Kringelein] What do you mean

[tries to strangle him. When several people try to break them up, he finally lets go]

Preysing: You're discharged! You're discharged, you hear?

Otto Kringelein: Wait! You can't discharge me. I am my own master for the first time in my life. You can't discharge me. I'm sick. I'm going to die, you understand? I'm going to die, and nobady can do anything to me anymore. Nothing can happen to me anymore. Before I can be discharged, I'll be dead!

[laughs proudly]

Baron Felix von Geigern: [looking down from the sixth-floor balcony over the front desk] You know, I've often wondered what'd happen to that old porter if somebody jumped on him from here.

Flaemmchen: I'm sure I don't know. Why don't you try it and find out?

Grusinskaya: Who are you?

Baron Felix von Geigern: Someone who could love you, that's all. Someone who's forgotten everything else but you.

Grusinskaya: You could love me?

Baron Felix von Geigern: I've never seen anything in my life as beautiful as you are.

Grusinskaya: Can you imagine a hundred girls in the ballet school, each thinking she would become the most famous dancer in all the world? I was ambitious then. We were drilled like little soldiers. No rest, no stopping. I was little, slim, but hard as a diamond. Then I became famous and - But why am I telling you all this? Last night, I didn't know you at all. Who are you, really?

Baron Felix von Geigern: What?

Grusinskaya: I don't even know your name.

Baron Felix von Geigern: [laughs] I am Felix Benvenuto Freihern von Geigern. My mother called me "Flix".

Grusinskaya: [joyously] No! Flix! Oh, that's sweet. And how do you live? And what kind of a person are you?

Baron Felix von Geigern: I'm a prodigal son, the black sheep of a white flock. I shall die on the gallows.

[to Preysing, after he tries to get 'familiar' with her by asking her to call him by his first name]

Flaemmchen: You know I always say that nothing should be left hanging over. And names are like that. Suppose I met you next year and said, 'How do you do Mr. Preysing?' And you said, 'That's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester.' That's all quite propper. But supposing I saw you and yelled 'Hi baby. Remember Manchester.'

[he laughs]

Flaemmchen: Yeah, and you were with your wife. How would you like that?

Baron Felix von Geigern: Oh, you're a little stenographess?

Flaemmchen: Yes, I'm a little stenographess.

Baron Felix von Geigern: Fascinating. I don't suppose you'd, uh, take some dictation from me sometime, would you?

[first lines]

Senf: [talking on the phone in a phonebooth at the Grand Hotel after a brief scene of operators at the switchboard] Hello? Hello? Hello, is that the clinic? Uh this is Senf; the head porter, Grand Hotel. How's my wife? Is she in pain? Isn't the child coming soon?... Patience? Would you have patience?

Otto Kringelein: [in the next phonebooth] Uh this is Otto Kringelein. I-i-is that you Heinrich? Oh Heinrich listen, I've got to talk very quickly - with every minute costs two Marks ninety. Y-ya know that will I made before I had my operation? Well I want you to tear it up... Huh? W-e-I came to Berlin to see a great specialist about that old trouble of mine; y-you know Heinrich, i-it's pretty bad. Uh he says I haven't long to live... I say he says I won't live much longer!... No, it isn't nice to be told things like that. You plague and bother and save and all of the sudden you're dead. I want to get something out of life! Listen Heinrich, I'm *never* going back to Frieveshof, *never*. I-I'm staying here at the Grand Hotel; it's the most expensive hotel in Berlin. Y-eh all the best people stay here, even our big boss Preysing is staying here. I'm going to tell him someday just exactly what I think of him.

Preysing: [in the next phonebooth] Hello? Hello, miss? This is General Director Preysing. I want my home in Frieveshof, please. Hurry, yeah... Hello! Hello. Is that you mama? How are da children? What news have you found at da factory dear?... Ya. Is your papa there?... Good. Hello papa, is that you?... Ya. The conference with the Saxonia company's set for tomorrow morning papa... Ya, ya. If the merger does not go through, ve are in very bad shape papa... Ya, ya. Everything depends upon news from Manchester! If the deal with the Manchester Cotton Company does not go through, we are facing a very bad situation papa.

Suzette: [in the next phonebooth] I'm Suzette - Suzette: Madam Grusinskaya's maid. Madam will not dance today. No she will not go to the rehearsal; she did not sleep all night. There is something preying on her mind... No, I give her a tablet of degranol. She is sleeping now.

Baron Felix von Geigern: [in the next phonebooth] This is Baron von Geigern. Look here, I need money or I can't stay at this hotel much longer. Well I've layed the groundwork, know the exact position of her room, and I've made friends with her ballet master Pimenov.

Otto Kringelein: [back in his phonebooth, sincerely] Listen Heinrich, I've taken all my savings - everything; and I'm going to enjoy spending it, *all* of it. I-it's terribly expensive here Heinrich, oooohh but it's wonderful!

Senf: [back in his phonebooth, nervously] I can't, I'll lose my job! It's like being in jail.

Preysing: [back in his phonebooth, adamantly] Rely on me papa. I will make this merger go through, I never fail.

Suzette: [back in her phonebooth, frantically] Oh poor Madam, her mind is tortured. I'm afraid she will...

Baron Felix von Geigern: [back in his phonebooth, slyly] I don't need advice, thanks very much; I need money.

Otto Kringelein: [back in his phonebooth, excitedly] ... music all the time - oh it's wonderful.

Dr. Otternschlag: [sitting in a chair in the lobby smoking a cigar] Grand Hotel: people coming, going... nothing ever happens.

[the scene fades out]