Memorable quotes for
Laura (1944)

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Waldo Lydecker: How singularly innocent I look this morning.

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Bessie Clary: I ain't afraid of cops. I was brought up to spit whenever I saw one.
Mark McPherson: OK, go ahead and spit if that'll make you feel better.

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Waldo Lydecker: Love is eternal. It has been the strongest motivation for human actions throughout history. Love is stronger than life. It reaches beyond the dark shadow of death.

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Mark McPherson: Yeah, dames are always pulling a switch on you.

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Mark McPherson: When a dame gets killed, she doesn't worry about how she looks.
Waldo Lydecker: Will you stop calling her a dame!

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Waldo Lydecker: I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves.

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Waldo Lydecker: I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.

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Waldo Lydecker: In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.

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Shelby Carpenter: I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes.

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Mark McPherson: I must say, for a charming, intelligent girl, you certainly surrounded yourself with a remarkable collection of dopes.

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Waldo Lydecker: I'm not kind, I'm vicious. It's the secret of my charm.

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Waldo Lydecker: I cannot stand these morons any longer. If you don't come with me this instant I shall run amok.

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Waldo Lydecker: You'd better watch out, McPherson, or you'll finish up in a psychiatric ward. I doubt they've ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse.

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Waldo Lydecker: It's lavish, but I call it home.

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Laura Hunt: [referring to Waldo] I owe him everything I am.
Mark McPherson: Just because he endorsed that pen, 5 years ago, for a nice fat check?
Laura Hunt: He told you that story too?
Mark McPherson: Well it's true, isn't it?
Laura Hunt: Well you see, Mark. You simply don't understand Waldo. He dramatises everything. To him, I, like everything else, am only half real. The other half exists only in his own mind. The story he told you about the pen was one he had written for his column. Once he writes something he believes it. Do you know where he actually first found me? In a night court. I had been picked up for vagrancy.
Mark McPherson: Vagrancy?
Laura Hunt: Oh I wasn't guilty. It was just something that happens everyday I suppose. I came to New York, looking for a career. Highest honours in art school back home. The usual background. But I couldn't get a start. One night I found myself locked out of my room. They picked me up on a bench in Central Park. The judge wouldn't believe my hard luck story but Waldo believed me. He was in court, gathering material for his column. He came forward and paid my fine. Then he called Bullet and Company and got me a job. I went to work the same day. It isn't easy to forget anything so wonderful as that.

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Waldo Lydecker: I shall never forget the weekend Laura died. A silver sun burned through the sky like a huge magnifying glass. It was the hottest Sunday in my recollection. I felt as if I were the only human being left in New York... I had just begun Laura's story when another of those detectives came to see me. I had him wait.

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Mark MacPherson: When the police told you on Saturday that Layra Hunt was dead you seemed sincerely shocked
Shelby Carpender: I was, I wasn't expecting that mistake.
Mark MacPherson: But you had your alibi ready no matter who was dead.

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Waldo Lydecker: Have you ever been in love?
Mark McPherson: A doll in Washington Heights once got a fox fur outta me.

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Shelby Carpender: I don't know a lot about anything, but I know a little about practically everything.

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Waldo Lydecker: Let's not be psychiatric. But in a word, yes.

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Shelby Carpenter: I forgot to tell you, I also read palms, I swallow swords, I mend my own socks, I never eat garlic or onions, what more could you want of a man?

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Shelby Carpenter: I knew there was something on my mind. Ah yes, will you dine with me tomorrow night?
Laura Hunt: Yes.
Shelby Carpenter: No, it's not that - it's the next night. And what about three weeks from tonight? And all the nights in between?
Laura Hunt: Shelby, you talk as if I had no other engagements!
Shelby Carpenter: And two months from now? And the month after that?
Laura Hunt: What about next year?
Shelby Carpenter: Oh, that's all settled. What about breakfast?
Laura Hunt: What about dancing?
Shelby Carpenter: What about lunch? Beautiful lunches, day after day after day?

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Shelby Carpenter: For the last time, Louise, will you marry me?
Louise, Ann's Cook: No, but I cooked some chicken liver for you.

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Waldo Lydecker: My dear, either you were born on a extremely rustic community, where good manners are unknown, or you suffer from a common feminine delusion that the mere fact of being a woman exempts you from the rules of civilized conduct.

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Laura Hunt: [Explaining why she broke a promise] You forced me to give you my word. I never have been and I never will be bound by anything I don't do of my own free will.

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Waldo Lydecker: [Scene deleted from theater version and restored in 1990] She was quick to seize upon anything that would improve her mind or her appearance. Laura had innate breeding, but she deferred to my judgment and taste. I selected a more attractive hairdress for her. I taught her what clothes were more becoming to her. Through me, she met everyone: The famous and the infamous. Her youth and beauty, her poise and charm of manner captivated them all. She had warmth, vitality. She had authentic magnetism. Wherever we went, she stood out. Men admired her; women envied her. She became as famous as Waldo Lydecker's walking stick and his white carnation.

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