-
Phillip Carlyle: I can't just run off and join the circus.
P.T. Barnum: Why not? You clearly have a flair for show business.
-
P.T. Barnum: Hyperbole isn't the worst crime. Men suffer more from imagining too little than too much.
-
Phillip Carlyle: They come to see you... *Your* crazy ideas, *your* new acts. The unusual...
P.T. Barnum: Well then how about you show them a smile? That'd be unusual.
-
P.T. Barnum: Hey sweetie, who's that young man over there?
Charity Barnum: Oh that's Phillip Carlyle. A bit of a scandal, they say. His last play was a hit in London.
P.T. Barnum: Play? Pay good money to watch people stand around and talk for two hours and they call *me* a conman.
-
Queen Victoria: You're even smaller than I imagined!
Tom Thumb: Well you're not exactly reaching the top shelf yourself, sweetheart.
-
P.T. Barnum: [from trailer] No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.
-
P.T. Barnum: P. T. Barnum, at your service.
[shakes Tom's hand, then gets down on his knee to his height]
P.T. Barnum: I am putting together a show, and I need a star.
Tom Thumb: You want people to laugh at me.
P.T. Barnum: [smiling] Well they're laughing anyway, kid, so you might as well get paid.
-
P.T. Barnum: [singing] Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for/Been searching in the dark, your sweat soakin' through the floor/And buried in your bones there's an ache that you can't ignore/Taking your breath, stealing your mind/And all that was real is left behind...
-
Lettie Lutz: [singing] When the sharpest words wanna cut me down/Gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out/This is brave, this is bruised, this is who I'm meant to be/This is me.
-
Anne Wheeler: [singing to Philip] You know I want you/It's not a secret I try to hide/But I can't have you/We're bound to break and my hands are tied.
-
P.T. Barnum: Where is that singing coming from?
[Barnum spots Lettie behind a curtain. She stops singing]
P.T. Barnum: Ma'am, you are...
[he pulls the curtain back, revealing Lettie's bearded face. Barnum pauses]
Lettie Lutz: You need to leave, sir.
P.T. Barnum: You are beautiful. You are unique.
-
P.T. Barnum: My father was treated like dirt. I was treated like dirt. My children won't be.
-
Lettie Lutz: Don't start acting sensible now.
-
Lettie Lutz: You don't get it, Barnum. It's not about the money. Our own mothers were ashamed of us, they hid us our whole lives.
-
Young Barnum: How did you get out?
Young Charity: The window.
-
P.T. Barnum: Trust me, they don't know it yet, but they're going to love you.
-
P.T. Barnum: [hands Phillip his top hat] This is for you.
Phillip Carlyle: What will *you* be doing?
P.T. Barnum: Watch my girls grow up. The show must go on.
-
Phillip Carlyle: They're small minded people.
-
Anne Wheeler: Everyone's got an act.
-
Jenny Lind: It is hard to understand wealth and privilege when you're born to it.
-
Charity Barnum: You don't need everyone to love you, Phin. Just a few good people!
-
[after Barnum becomes 50/50 partners with Phillip Calyle]
Phillip Carlyle: The only thing is I don't know how we are ever going to afford a building.
P.T. Barnum: Right.
[Long and deep sigh]
P.T. Barnum: We don't need a building. Real estate in Manhattan is a terrible investment. Why, I can get land down by the docks for almost nothing. All we need is a tent!
-
James Gordon Bennett: Tell me, Mr. Barnum, does it bother you that everything you're selling is fake?
P.T. Barnum: Do these smiles seem fake? It doesn't matter where they come from. The joy is real.
James Gordon Bennett: So you are a philanthropist?
P.T. Barnum: Well, hyperbole isn't the worst crime. Men suffer more from imagining too little than too much.
James Gordon Bennett: The creed of a true fraud.
P.T. Barnum: Mr Bennett, when was the last time you smiled? Or had a good laugh? A real laugh. A theater critic who can't find joy in the theater. Now who is the fraud?
-
P.T. Barnum: Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.
-
Jenny Lind: You are the American. I believe I might have heard of you.
P.T. Barnum: Oh well, If you've heard of me all the way over here, I must have been doing something right.
Jenny Lind: That, or something very wrong.
P.T. Barnum: In the world of publicity there is hardly any difference.
Jenny Lind: I believe those are the words of a scoundrel, Mr Barnum.
P.T. Barnum: A showman, Miss Lind, just a showman. The best on my side of the Atlantic.
-
P.T. Barnum: I can't fool the bank into loaning me more money, so... I'm really sorry to disappoint you all.
Tom Thumb: Don't worry, Barnum. We've gotten used to it by now.
-
James Gordon Bennett: I never liked your show, but I always thought the people did
P.T. Barnum: They did. They do!
James Gordon Bennett: Putting people of all Shapes, Sizes, Colours. Putting them on stage together and presenting them as equals, another critic might have even called it a celebration of humanity.
P.T. Barnum: I would've liked that.
-
P.T. Barnum: [seeing Jenny for the first time] Who's that?
Phillip Carlyle: The opera singer?
P.T. Barnum: Singer, huh?
Phillip Carlyle: She's the most famous performer in all of Europe. She sold out La Scala a dozen times. Not to mention the French Opera.
P.T. Barnum: Ah.
[he grabs Phillip's arm and leads him forward]
Phillip Carlyle: What are you doing?
P.T. Barnum: Following you, so you can introduce me to Ms. Lynd.
Phillip Carlyle: Introduce you?
P.T. Barnum: Yeah.
Phillip Carlyle: I don't know her.
P.T. Barnum: Everybody knows her. You just said so yourself.
Phillip Carlyle: Yeah, exactly. You don't just march up to someone like this.
P.T. Barnum: Why not? We're personable. She's a person.
-
Charity Barnum: [seeing the house Phineas bought for them] Don't tell me bought this house just to rub my parents' noses in your success.
P.T. Barnum: Well, that wasn't the only reason. This is the life I promised you.
-
Mr. O'Malley: [showing Phineas one of Bennett's reviews] This is bad.
P.T. Barnum: "Criminal". "Degrading". "A circus". I like "circus".
-
Mr. Carlyle: Philip, have you no shame? Associating yourself with the Barnum business is one thing, but parading around with the help!
[Anne leaves, humiliated]
Phillip Carlyle: Anne! Anne!
Phillip Carlyle: [turns coldly to his father] How dare you speak to her like that.
Mrs. Carlyle: You forget your place, Philip.
Phillip Carlyle: My place? Mother if this is my place, then I don't want any part of it.
-
Phillip Carlyle: Anne, they're small minded people. Why do you care what they think?
Anne Wheeler: It's not just them. You've never had anyone look at you the way your parents just looked at me. The way everyone would look at us.
-
P.T. Barnum: [last-credits] The noblest art is that of making others happy
-
P.T. Barnum: I've brought hardship on you and on our family. You warned me. I wouldn't listen. I just... I wanted to be more than I was.
Charity Barnum: I never wanted anything but the man I fell in love with.
P.T. Barnum: [Sung] And let this promise/in me start/like an anthem in my heart/
Charity Barnum: However big/however small
P.T. Barnum: From now on... from now on
-
P.T. Barnum: Folks, if you're looking to get paid, the money's gone. There's nothing left to give...
Lettie Lutz: Shut up, Barnum. You just don't get it. Our own mothers were ashamed of us. Hid us our whole lives. Then you pull us out of the shadows. Now you're giving up on us too. Maybe you are a fraud. Maybe it was about making a buck. But you gave us a real family.
W.D. Wheeler: And the circus... that was our home. We want our home back.
-
P.T. Barnum: Nothing happened!
Charity Barnum: Oh, nothing happened... it's on the front of every paper in New York.
P.T. Barnum: That's because she orchestrated the photo. I'm not in love with her!
Charity Barnum: Of course you're not. Not with her, not with me, not with anybody. Just you and your show.
-
Phillip Carlyle: Before I met you, I had a name, an inheritance, and an invitation to every party in town. Now thanks to you, all that's gone. All I have is love, friendship, and a work that I adore. You brought joy into my life.
Lettie Lutz: Into all our lives.
Lord of Leeds: Hear, hear!
P.T. Barnum: If only the bank would take joy as collateral.
Phillip Carlyle: Well they might not, but I will. I own 10% of the show. Knowing who I was working for, I had the good sense to take my cut weekly.
P.T. Barnum: Phillip, I can't let you gamble it on me.
Anne Wheeler: Sure you can!
Lettie Lutz: Don't turn sensible on us now!
Phillip Carlyle: Partners. 50/50.
-
Charity Barnum: They'd have to stop judging people and actually start doing something with their lives.
-
P.T. Barnum: All of New York read him. He does there thinking for them.
-
Mr. Hallett: She'll be back. Sooner or later, she'll tire of your life... of having nothing, and she'll come running back home.
-
Caroline Barnum: I think you have too many dead things in your museum, Daddy.
-
Man playing cards: Hey! You looking for freaks?
-
P.T. Barnum: It only took me 25 years, but welcome home, Charity Barnum.
-
P.T. Barnum: Comfort, the enemy of progress.
-
P.T. Barnum: [to Lettie and the others] Who's gonna pay admission if you're out there for all the world to see?
-
P.T. Barnum: Charity. This isn't the life I promised you.
Charity Barnum: But I have everything I want.
P.T. Barnum: What about the magic?
Charity Barnum: What do you call those two girls?
-
Jenny Lind: Why me?
P.T. Barnum: People come to my show for the pleasure of being hoodwinked. Just once, I'd love to give them something real.
The Greatest Showman Quotes
Extended Reading