- Georges Iscovescu: [to Emmy] You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown. Not a bit. You see, we are like ... two trains, halted for a moment at the same station. But we're going in different directions. We can't change our course, any more than we can hold back the dawn.
- Emmy Brown: This is America! For the Rockefellers and the Joneses. For the Mcgonigles and the Frankfurters. For the Jeffersons and the Slavinskies. You see, its, its like, um, like a lake. Clear and fresh and it'll never get stagnant while new streams are flowing in.
- Georges Iscovescu: Well, your people are building pretty high dams to stop those streams.
- Emmy Brown: Just to keep out the scum, Georges.
- Georges Iscovescu: [having just let Anita know that he prefers the company of Emmy] You've got enough money to get you back to New York. I'll find you there when I'm ready.
- Anita Dixon: Thanks! You just stand right in the middle of Times Square ... and whistle!
- Georges Iscovescu: Emmy, I've always been full of words. You know, big ones, fancy ones. Just one more word: thanks.
- Emmy Brown: No. You see, I come from a small town. We don't have any of those fine hotels. We eat at the drugstore. But, we leave a tip just the same.
- Georges Iscovescu: My own name is George Iscovescu. I was born in Romania. But, I have spent most of my life in Paris and Biarritz... at the Lido; you know, following the seasons, going where rich people went to - rich women to be exact... My papers give my occupation as a dancer, which is correct, in a general way. It was an easy life - if you had a deep voice and you knew how to look at the woman. But, the war came.
- Georges Iscovescu: So, I went to Mexico, to a little town that straddles the border to California. There is a wire fence. You can see right through it into the United States. If you're an American or if you have a visa, you just walk in. Yes, the wire fence - don't let them tell you its only twelve feet high, its a thousand miles high!
- Georges Iscovescu: You needn't be afraid. Its like a classroom, isn't it? The pupils and their teacher, the rules of deportment, schedules, discipline. You are very conscientious, Miss Brown. No infringement of the regulations for you. No abandons. No violent desires. If you found one in your sober little mind, you would tell it to go and stand in the corner, wouldn't you Miss Brown?
- Emmy Brown: I don't know?
- Emmy Brown: When they heard that I had married a foreigner, there was only one person who said anything nasty about you and that was Mrs. Bigelow who runs "Ye Ol' Pilgrim Tea Shopping". She said, "I suppose he's just one of those foreigners coming with empty hands to grab from America everything he can." Mr. McAdams put her in her place. He said, "I suppose your great great grandmother was Pocahontas, Mrs. Bigelow?" Funny?
- Anita Dixon: For years I've loved him, just as you do. Only there's this difference, I'm his sort. I'm dirt; but, so is he. We belong together.
- Georges Iscovescu: Your husband?
- Anita Dixon: No. No, O'Shaughnessy was a jockey from Caliente. Five foot three. Once over the border, I went to a judge. I said, a woman wants a man, not a radiator cap! Divorce granted, fifty dollars.
- American Immigration Official: I see from your questionnaire that you wish to enter the United States permanently.
- Georges Iscovescu: Yes sir.
- American Immigration Official: That will require a quota number. Do you know what a quota is?
- Georges Iscovescu: No.
- American Immigration Official: Every year, the United States permits the entrance of about 150,000 immigrants. That number is proportioned among the various European countries. You were born in Bucharest; so, you come under the Romanian quota.
- Georges Iscovescu: Yes.
- American Immigration Official: The Romanian quota is very small, very crowded.
- Georges Iscovescu: Well, that means I have to wait?
- American Immigration Official: Between five and eight years, Mr. Iscovescu.
- Van Den Luecken: Don't let us be impatient. Let's always remember the words they have on the Statue of Liberty.
- Inspector Hammock: "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!"
- Van Den Luecken: No. You are referring to the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. What I meant, was a simple poem, inscribed on the base of the said statue... "Give my your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Or, is it the shining door, Mr. Inspector?
- Inspector Hammock: I'm afraid you've got me there, Professor.
- Emmy Brown: Who did that? I said, who did that?
- Tony: It was me.
- Emmy Brown: You mean, it was I, Tony.
- Tony: No, it wasn't you Miss Brown, it was me!
- Georges Iscovescu: [Stuck in Mexico awaiting a visa to immigrate to the U.S] There is a fence back there, you Americans make a very definite point of it.
- Georges Iscovescu: What did she say? You just marry an American. Its as easy as that. Five to eight years for idiots, maybe. Get ahold of a wedding ring and you can swing right over the fence. Just get into a good suit of clothes, shave, go on, go ahead, What do they call it? The pursuit of happiness?
- Emmy Brown: No, thank you, I don't smoke. The school board doesn't approve. To tell you the truth, I don't like them much.
- Georges Iscovescu: Just look at me, Miss Brown. Keep looking at me. It's like a sudden breeze in a stifling day.
- Georges Iscovescu: I am in your debt. For there is no way I can pay you for the loveliness of these few minutes. I thank you, Miss Brown.
- [Kisses her hand]
- Emmy Brown: You're the strangest man.
- Emmy Brown: Perhaps, the loneliest man.
- Emmy Brown: Good night.
- Georges Iscovescu: It's better than good! Somehow, these walls will not seem so empty inside. You will be here very close to me. Breathing in the same night.
- Emmy Brown: Yes. Good night.
- Georges Iscovescu: Good night.
- Anita Dixon: Hello, Georges.
- Georges Iscovescu: What are you doing here?
- Anita Dixon: Your door was unlocked. I just dropped in to borrow a cup of sugar.
- Anita Dixon: I walked out on him, Georges. He wanted to buy me a pair of earrings. Suddenly, I couldn't stand his fingers another minute.
- Georges Iscovescu: What do you want?
- Anita Dixon: I've been thinking about you all day. The way you used to hold me away from you when we danced. Those gigolo eyes of yours. You cold, selfish...
- Georges Iscovescu: Oh?
- Anita Dixon: Haven't you ever loved anybody in your life?
- Georges Iscovescu: I want you to go, Anita.
- Anita Dixon: Georges...
- Georges Iscovescu: You're wasting my time.
- Anita Dixon: I'll give you anything. Anything you want.
- Georges Iscovescu: Anything, anything?
- Anita Dixon: Anything.
- Emmy Brown: [Waking in morning] What is it? What are you doing here? You have no right to be here.
- Georges Iscovescu: Of course, I have no right to be here. No right to sit watching your face, longing to write it a poem. No right to listen to disturb your heart. No right to tell you that - I love you very much.
- Emmy Brown: Oh, please don't come near.
- Georges Iscovescu: You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown. Not of a dead man. I am dead, you see. I've asked myself a thousand times why they shouldn't bury me. Why I should go on breathing and talking and walking - when I was dead. Perhaps I know now. Perhaps it was - to see the sunrise once more, to hear enchantment in a woman's voice, to feel her yearnings, the warmth of her lips.
- Georges Iscovescu: You see how wild a dream can be? But, you are wise and sane and cool.
- [Kiss]
- Georges Iscovescu: You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown.
- Anita Dixon: Start with champagne, it will be champagne all the way!
- Georges Iscovescu: [Takes a sip of the champagne] I hope it will be a better vintage.
- Anita Dixon: It will be.
- Anita Dixon: Only the very rich will get a crack at Georges and Anita. We'll be very expensive, I'm afraid.
- Georges Iscovescu: They can deduct us from their income tax.
- Anita Dixon: You make a wonderful deduction.
- Inspector Hammock: You know, its quite a surprise to see you down this side of the fence, Miss O'Shaughnessy. A gal who couldn't wait to hug every stripe and kiss every star. All 48 of them.
- Emmy Brown: It was a perfect madhouse back home! Nobody could believe it. And the questions they asked! How it happened and who you were and what you did? I had to make up a lot of the answers. And you ought to hear how they pronounce our name: Itskybitsky and Itskywhiskey.
- Emmy Brown: Did you ever notice how they talk sometimes? Listen to those windshield wipers. Together. Together. Together. Together. Can you hear it?
- Emmy Brown: I don't worry about you. Only for one thing, Georges.
- Georges Iscovescu: Yes?
- Emmy Brown: You smoke too much.
- Georges Iscovescu: I don't quite know how to say it. That hot July afternoon, it was like kissing fresh snow. I could feel her hand trembling on my shoulder. From the church behind us, came the breathe of innocence.
- Georges Iscovescu: She kept talking about a United States, about Boulder Dam and how her brother went to school with a very famous man by the name of Joe DiMaggio and what the FHA is and what the word swell means. That's exactly what she was: swell.
- Anita Dixon: He married you to pass that date. For the same reason that I married my little American and with the same ring. Just take a look inside at the engraving. "To Toots, For Keeps."
- Anita Dixon: I know what you're thinking, "This woman's a tramp and she's in love with him." Well, I am a tramp! And I am in love with him!
- Anita Dixon: You think you're a teacher. Why, you're a school girl that's learned life out of a book.
- Emmy Brown: Perhaps, when I first met you, I shouldn't have been so vain. I should have looked at your face more closely.
- Anita Dixon: Why are you so quiet? Well, if you hate me so much, why don't you say it! Well, go on, hit me! I'd much rather...
- Georges Iscovescu: Do you believe in premonitions? When a black wave breaks over you and you suddenly know something terrible's going to happen? In my ears was the screeching of brakes, of tires taking a wild curve, before my eyes, with the foot on the gas pedal, pressing it down.
- Georges Iscovescu: Remember? Remember the rain beating on the windshield that night and the wiper going and the word it spoke: together, together, together, together, together. Breathe, darling, we're together, together. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe...