Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Quotes

Joe Blumfield: Are you all right?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Yes. Well, to take another woman's escort.

Joe Blumfield: You didn't take me. I took you. I'm sure Edythe can cope. What happened to that particularly beautiful scarf you were wearing at the fashion show?

Guinevere Pettigrew: What are you talking about?

Joe Blumfield: Despite your most elegant transformation, the body is still the same.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Mr. Blumfield!

Joe Blumfield: As are the eyes. Most fetching if I may say.

Joe Blumfield: Forgive the intrusion. I'm glad to see you're safe.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Oh yes, quite safe.

Joe Blumfield: Am I right in thinking you're no longer employed, Miss Pettigrew?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Quite correct.

Joe Blumfield: So you're free?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Quite free. Might you be looking for a social secretary?

Joe Blumfield: No, absolutely not.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Oh.

Joe Blumfield: I'm looking for you.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Me?

Joe Blumfield: I've been looking for you all night, and I believe, all of my life. If you'll have me.

[Miss Pettigrew is stunned in silence]

Joe Blumfield: A nod of the head will do me fine.

[Miss Pettigrew nods]

Joe Blumfield: And I am, at a stroke, the happiest man in London.

Delysia: [during an air-raid drill] Guinevere, I'm scared!

Guinevere Pettigrew: It's just a drill, I'm sure it's just a drill.

Delysia: But it won't always be, will it? We're going to war, aren't we?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Yes we are. And that is why you must not waste a second of this precious life. Listen to me. Once I too had ambitions. Not your grand ones, simple ambitions. Marriage, children and a house of our own. He died, in the mud in France. A good, solid man. You would call him dull, no doubt, but he smiled whenever he saw me and we could've built a life on that. Your heart knows the truth, Delysia. Trust it.

Miss Holt: [reading from a report] "Washburn, Jane. Age five."

Guinevere Pettigrew: Lovely girl.

Miss Holt: "Lost in the park."

Guinevere Pettigrew: Independence, that's all that girl needs.

Miss Holt: "For six hours. The Randle boys, John and Robin. Wrestled retired Colonel Johnson to the floor outside Fortnum and Mason's, shouting 'Nazi warmonger'. Because," and I quote, "Miss Pettigrew thought he was a German spy."

Guinevere Pettigrew: [unconvincingly] A little... joke.

Miss Holt: "Ambulance called, police called."

Guinevere Pettigrew: Mrs. Brummegen was, well, fond of the sherry, if you take my meaning. As a vicar's daughter I found her rather difficult.

Miss Holt: She found you rather difficult, Miss Pettigrew, and that is, I'm afraid, a recurring theme.

Guinevere Pettigrew: A person can change.

Miss Holt: I haven't seen any sign of that.

Guinevere Pettigrew: She could stop drinking.

Miss Holt: ...Our clients don't adapt to suit your needs, Miss Pettigrew. You adapt to them.

Guinevere Pettigrew: I'm afraid I walked in on your guest in his state of nature. I fear that I have outraged his sense of propriety.

Delysia: Oh no, Phil doesn't have one of those.

Guinevere Pettigrew: He's a much bigger boy than I had anticipated.

Delysia: [giggles] Oh you noticed that too.

Delysia: Phil's a theatre producer! Well, his father is. Phil's got his first show on at the Ambassador, and I've got the lead. Well, I'm pretty sure I have *now*

[holds up lingerie and giggles]

Nick: Since when do girls together smoke cigars, answer me that.

Guinevere Pettigrew: [bluffing] If I want to smoke cigars, I'll damned well smoke cigars, thank you very much, and to hell with your opinion.

Nick: What, they're yours?

Guinevere Pettigrew: You betcha, baby.

[coughs]

Delysia: Are you alright?

Guinevere Pettigrew: I have never sworn before in my life! Not even in my mind!

Delysia: I didn't hear you swear.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Yes I did! I said damned and hell, and I meant them.

Delysia: Oh, that's not swearing. They came out of the sinful category an age ago!

Joe Blumfield: That scarf, if I may say, looks perfect on you.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Well, thank you. It was a present. You know, I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever worn.

Joe Blumfield: The flatterer has been out-flattered.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Sorry?

Joe Blumfield: It's one of mine, the design. Last year, for Mimi Coture.

Guinevere Pettigrew: My goodness!

Joe Blumfield: You really didn't know? Well that is a compliment indeed.

Edythe: Well I didn't answer the telephone because I *couldn't* answer the telephone!

Delysia: Why not?

Edythe: I was in the bathroom.

Delysia: Having a bath?

Edythe: No, I just - didn't answer the telephone. And now Joe says the engagement's off! Just because of one stupid little misunderstanding!

Delysia: However did you get in?

Michael: One picks up a few tricks in prison, you know, breaking and entering being one of them.

Michael: Pure and simple, I want you to marry me, and it's a one word conversation Delysia.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Don't you think, that on such a momentous occasion, a little time should be allowed?

Michael: Oh, stalling tactic. Is it because I'm not rich enough for her?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Certainly not.

Michael: Well, it's true. I'm wearing most of my worldly possessions. I could never afford this kind of blackmail.

[gestures around Nick's flat]

Delysia: Oh, and who pays you for playing the piano, huh? Are you telling me you give Nick his money back after every show?

Michael: No, and every damned shilling I take hurts me to the bone, which is why it's got to change Delysia. Money or love, that's the question I'm asking. Here's the deal: I'll play for you today, Delysia, and for the rest of your life if you'll marry me. Never again if you don't.

Edythe: Transformations work both ways, Guinevere. It would take me thirty seconds to put you back in the soup kitchen queue. I told you I never forget a face. Victoria Station.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Nor have I forgotten with whom you shared a taxi last night.

Edythe: Oh, you have. If you want to continue working for Delysia, you have. Now, we all of us need things in our life. I need Joe for his, well, he's a man of connections. And you need, you need to stay off the streets, I imagine.

Delysia: Do you know what my name is, Guinevere?

Guinevere Pettigrew: I was under the impression it was Delysia Lafosse.

Delysia: Sarah Grubb. One of the Pittsburg Grubbs. My father is a steelworker. No one else in the world knows that apart from Michael. And he doesn't judge me.

Guinevere Pettigrew: No, he wouldn't.

Delysia: But you do.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Me? I certainly do not.

Delysia: Oh, you think you don't, but you do. For all the fancy apartments and fashion shows, do you know how close I am to having nothing? Every day I wake up and I think, if I make the wrong move, I could be out on that street with no clothes, no food, no job, and no friends. Just plain old Sarah Grubb again. Do you know what that's like?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Yes, I do.

Delysia: You do?

Guinevere Pettigrew: In that, at least, we are alike.

[after Delysia has refused to sing]

Michael: She said no.

Nick: What, and she does what you say?

Michael: Never once, as a matter of fact, but that's not the point.

Guinevere Pettigrew: [regarding the oncoming war] I don't think I can bear it again.

Joe Blumfield: Did you lose many?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Just one. You?

Joe Blumfield: Almost every school friend I had.

Joe Blumfield: I've distracted myself with ridiculous things; youth, parties, lingerie. I mean, I trained in *socks* for goodness sake.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Socks?

Joe Blumfield: There's a great deal on engineering in a gentlemen's sock, I'll have you know. In the stitching of the heel. By comparison, designing a brassiere is a piece of cake. Not that there aren't compensations.

Guinevere Pettigrew: None of them over 20 I imagine.

Joe Blumfield: And all very easy on the eyes. But you know what? I'm done with it. I'm going back to gentlemen's hosiery. You know where you are with an honest pair of socks.

Guinevere Pettigrew: You certainly do.

Edythe: Told you about Gerry, has she? Didn't take you long to move on, hmm Joe?

Joe Blumfield: Hello Edythe.

Edythe: Did she also tell you that she hangs around the soup kitchen at the station? A tramp masquerading as some sort of social secretary, my God.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Goodbye Mr. Blumfield.

[exits]

Joe Blumfield: No, actually, she didn't. Neither about that, nor about you and Gerry. But I'm grateful for the truth for a change.

Delysia: Is the offer still open?

Nick: Get up!

[Michael stands and nick knocks him back down with a punch to the nose]

Delysia: Well, is it a yes or is it a no?

Michael: What?

Delysia: Well will you doggone marry me or will you doggone not?

[he grins in delight, scrambles up, socks Nick square in the jaw, and pulls Delysia to her feet]

Michael: Yes. God help me, yes!

[they kiss fervently]

Guinevere Pettigrew: "Four's a Crowd"'s a wonderful movie. Who were you?

Delysia Lafosse: The crowd.

Michael: After an hour of waiting for her, I broke open the champagne.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Oh, dear.

Michael: Then floating past the Tower of London, I had a brain wave. Decided the ring I had wasn't good enough for her. And when a man wants a diamond, what better place to get it?

Joe Blumfield: I must remember that you're not like these people.

Guinevere Pettigrew: Am I terribly old fashioned?

Joe Blumfield: Yes. And all the better for it.

[at a lingerie fashion show]

Guinevere Pettigrew: She's naked!

Delysia Lefosse: Hardly! She's got so much whale boning on her that I'm looking for a tale and flippers.

Michael: Ice pick?

Delysia: It's in the drawer. Somewhere! Ice in the Fridgedair?

Michael: I want the pick for murder, not ice.

Phil: I'm sorry it's Phil Goldman. How do you do?

Guinevere Pettigrew: We've met before actually. You were entirely naked at the time.

[Last lines]

Joe Blumfield: What a night.

Guinevere Pettigrew: What a morning!

Joe Blumfield: Have you eaten, my dear Guinevere?

Guinevere Pettigrew: Oh, Joe. I have not eaten for a very, very long time.

[as the younger people at a party gaze admiringly at a squadron of military planes flying overhead]

Guinevere Pettigrew: They don't remember the last one.

Joe Blumfield: No. They don't.