Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Harry Hayden: Doc Bissell

Quotes 

• Judge Dennis : [notices that Woodrow is in civilian clothes]  Where are the medals?

  Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith : Oh, oh, the medals. Well, I just wore those to get off the train. I suppose I shouldn't have.

  Doc Bissell : What do you mean you shouldn't have? If all good men wore medals it wouldn't be so hard to tell the good from the bad.

• Town Councilman : Let's get down to business. The trouble with our party is everybody talks too long all the time.

  Doc Bissell : That's the trouble with all parties.

• [Woodrow - in his scheme - has just announced that the Marines have called him back] 

  Judge Dennis : Why don't they leave you here where we need you?

  Libby : That's right.

  Doc Bissell : That's one of the weaknesses of the military viewpoint: doesn't always recognize the importance of civilians in wartime.

• Judge Dennis : [the crowd has re-gathered at the train station to see Woodrwow]  Naturally the nomination went back to Doc Bissell. But he got up and said...

  Mr. Schultz : "Ladies and gents..."

  Doc Bissell : Don't mis-quote me.

  Judge Dennis : What?

  Doc Bissell : I said, "ladies and gentlemen."

  Committee Chairman : Of course you did.

  Doc Bissell : I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, in all the years that I have been unsuccessfully mixed into politics, this is the first and only time that I have ever seen a candidate for office - given an opportunity to prove publicly, permanently and beyond peradventure of doubt that he was honest, courageous and veracious..."

  Judge Dennis : That means truthful. He likes those big words.

  Doc Bissell : I said, further, "that if to act out a little lie to save one's mother humiliation was a fault - in other words, if tenderness toward and consideration of one's mother was a fault - it was a fault any man might be proud of."

• Doc Bissell : [explaining to Woodrow that the town still wants him to run for mayor]  Politics is a very peculiar thing, Woodrow. If they want you, they want you. They don't need reasons anymore... they find their own reasons. It's just like when a girl wants a man.

  Libby : That's right. You don't need reasons. Although they're probably there.