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Horace: Advice is cheap, Ms. Molloy. It's the things that come gift wrapped that count!
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Horace: It takes a woman all powdered and pink to joyously clean out the drain in the sink!
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Dolly Levi: Here, let me cut your wings!
Horace: I don't want my wings cut!
Dolly Levi: No man does, Horace, no man does.
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Dolly Levi: Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow.
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Barnaby Tucker: Holy cabooses!
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Cornelius Hackl: We're gonna close the store.
Barnaby Tucker: Close the store?
Cornelius Hackl: We have to, 'cause some rotten cans of chicken mash are going to explode.
Barnaby Tucker: Holy cabooses, how do you know?
Cornelius Hackl: Because I'm gonna light some candles under them.
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Dolly Levi: [singing] It takes a woman to quietly plan to take him and change him to her kind of man and to gently lead him where fortune can find him and not let him know that the power behind him was that dainty woman, that fragile woman, that sweetheart, that mistress, that wife.
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Joe, Vandergelder's barber: You'll have to sit still, Mr Vandergelder. If I cut your throat it'll be practically unintentional.
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Horace: I'm going to march in the 14th street parade with the only kind of people I can trust: 700 men.
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Horace: Ninety percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in danger of contamination.
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Dolly Levi: And on those cold winter nights, Horace, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It's a little lumpy, but it rings!
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Dolly Levi: Hello! Hello there, how are you? Oh Hello!
Horace: You know too many people.
Dolly Levi: Total strangers!
Horace: Then why do you greet them?
Dolly Levi: It makes me feel good to have so many friends.
Horace: Oh, say hello for me too then.
Dolly Levi: I already did.
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Dolly Levi: As my late husband, Ephraim Levi, used to say, 'If you have to live from hand-to-mouth, you'd better be ambidextrous.'
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Ambrose Kemper: This doesn't concern her!
Dolly Levi: Mr. Kemper, everything concerns Dolly Levi!
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Horace: You are a seven-foot-tall nincompoop!
Ambrose Kemper: That's an insult!
Horace: All the facts about you are insults!
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Sullivan, ticket seller: Where to, Dolly?
Dolly Levi: Yonkers, New York, to handle a highly personal matter for Mr. Horace Vandergelder, the well-known, unmarried, half-a-millionaire.
Sullivan, ticket seller: Gonna marry him yourself, Dolly?
Dolly Levi: Why, Mr. Sullivan, what ever put such a preposterous idea into my head... er, your head!
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Irene Molloy: Do get done with that, Minnie. The men are eyeing us for the wrong reasons.
Minnie Fay: A banana a day keeps the doctor away.
Irene Molloy: You mean an apple a day.
Minnie Fay: Who ever heard of a doctor slipping on an apple peel?
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Rudolph Reisenweber: No expression. Let the food smile.
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Irene Molloy: Minnie, I don't mind that you never finish your lunch, but I do mind that you never finish your sentences.
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Dolly Levi: Goodness, the whole room is crawling with men. Irene, my dear, congratulations.
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Irene Molloy: What's this? A return from Miss Mortimer again?
Minnie Fay: Same old story, cherries and feathers, cherries and feathers. To catch a beau I suppose.
Irene Molloy: If you ask me, she'd do better with a heavy veil.
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Cornelius Hackl: I've lost everything: my job, my future, everything people *think* is important, but I don't care - because even if I have to dig ditches for the rest of my life, I shall be a ditch-digger who once had a wonderful day.
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Gussie Granger: [dressed as Ernestina Simple] What do you mean, oysters aren't *in season*? Anyone can have oysters *in season*, I want them out of season!
Horace: They don't have any Miss Simple.
Gussie Granger: Then tell them to go out and dig for some!
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Dolly Levi: Mr. Kemper, do you mind if we go inside? I'm feeling an updraft in my underpants!
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Ermengarde Vandergelder: But if I can't marry Ambrose, I know I'll die!
Horace: Of what?
Ermengarde Vandergelder: A broken heart.
Horace: Never heard of it.
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Cornelius Hackl: Cornelius Hackl here.
Barnaby Tucker: Barnaby Tucker here.
Irene Molloy: Irene Malloy here.
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Cornelius Hackl: [infatuated with Irene] Well, you see, we're two ladies about town and we're looking for a had to Malloy and...
Barnaby Tucker: We're hats, you see, and we're looking for a lady to Malloy with for the af...
Cornelius Hackl: [signals Barnaby to be quiet] We want a hat!
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Horace: Mrs. Malloy, I shan't bother you again. And I hope vice versa.
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Cornelius Hackl: Look, I'm dancing!
[carelessly backs into a chair and falls]
Cornelius Hackl: Uh, I was.
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Horace: Dolly Levi, you are a damned exasperating woman.
Dolly Levi: Why Horace Vandergelder. That is the nicest thing you have ever said to me. Ha ha.
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[upon seeing where they are going to eat]
Irene Molloy: How beautiful!
Minnie Fay: How elegant!
Barnaby Tucker: [uneasily] How much?
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Ambrose Kemper: If you're going to spend the whole evening acting like a scared rabbit, maybe I'd better order some lettuce.
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Fritz, German waiter: And what would you like, sir.
Cornelius Hackl: Six months off for good behavior.
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Cornelius Hackl: I've never touched a woman before.
Irene Molloy: You still haven't. That's my corset.
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Horace: Corneilius Hackl! What are you doing in New York?
Cornelius Hackl: Oh, I'm just delivering some oats.
Horace: Delivering some oats? With my former intended? You're discharged!
Cornelius Hackl: You can't fire me. I quit!
Irene Molloy: So do I!
Horace: Barnaby Tucker, you're discharged.
Barnaby Tucker: You can't fire me. I quit!
Minnie Fay: So do I!
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Cornelius Hackl: Smile Barnaby.
Barnaby Tucker: [forcing a smile] I'm smiling.
Cornelius Hackl: Look rich, gay, and charming.
Barnaby Tucker: [a small beat] I'm looking gay and charming.
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Horace: Any man who goes to a big city deserves what happens to him.
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Cornelius Hackl: Barnaby, you don't know anything about women.
Barnaby Tucker: Only that we can't afford them.
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Horace: I've worked hard and I've become rich and friendless and mean. In America, that's about as far as you can go.
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Dolly Levi: [after Cornelius attempts a dance lesson from Dolly] Oh, that's just absolutely wonderful, Mr. Hackl. When I think of the lucky women who'll find Heaven in your arms... I think we'll go back to Lesson One. Shall we?
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Horace: You are a disgrace to Yonkers!
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Horace: Save your tears for New York, where they won't be noticed.
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Horace: You artists, you painters, produce nothing that nobody needs never.
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Barnaby Tucker: Why are you getting married?
Horace: Let me tell you something, son. I've worked hard and I've become rich... and friendless and mean. And in America, that's about as far as you can go. It's time to be doing something a little bit fresh. Besides, I need a steady housekeeper.
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Barnaby Tucker: Are you sure this is an adventure, Cornelius?
Cornelius Hackl: You don't have to ask, Barnaby. When you're in one, you'll know it all right.
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Horace: Look! There's that millinery woman dancing with a man. I think it's a man.
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Cornelius Hackl: I mean it isn't the money or anything.
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Dolly Levi: Not acquaintances, Mr. Kemper, friends. Dear friends from days gone by. My late husband Ephraim Levi believed in life and anyplace you can find it... cafes, ballrooms, yes even theatres! Why, even when times were bad, every Saturday night like clockwork down those stars at the Harmonia Gardens we came, Ephraim and me...
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Horace: Now in honor of the occasion, I'm going to promote you both. Cornelius, how old are you?
Cornelius Hackl: Twenty-eight and three-quarters, Mr. Vandergelder.
Horace: Is that all? That's a foolish age to be at. I thought you were 40.
Cornelius Hackl: No, I'm 28 and three-quarters.
Horace: Well, a man's not worth a cent until he's 40. We just pay him wages until then to make mistakes.
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Horace: Anyway, I've decided to promote you to chief clerk.
Cornelius Hackl: Chief clerk?
Horace: Yes.
Cornelius Hackl: Well, what am I now?
Horace: You're an impertinent fool, that's what you are! Now if you behave yourself, I'll promote you from impertinent fool to chief clerk, with a raise in your wages.
Cornelius Hackl: Ah. Thank you, Mr. Vandergelder.
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Horace: You, Barnaby, I'm promoting you from idiot apprentice to incompetent clerk.
Barnaby Tucker: Thank you, Mr. Vandergelder.
Hello, Dolly! Quotes
Extended Reading
