- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: That's the trouble with you, Oscar. With both of us. We're not people, we're lithographs. We don't know anything about love unless it's written and rehearsed. We're only real in between curtains.
- Oscar Jaffe: I'm offering you a last chance to become immortal.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Then I've decided to stay mortal with responsible management.
- Oscar McGonigle: Who told her that her phone was tapped?
- Oscar Jaffe: [seeing Oliver Webb trying to sneak away] Stay where you are, Judas Iscariot!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: All those opera tenors, acrobats, that Italian bicycle rider I told you about... they're all lies. The only man in my life was that cavalier in there. Oscar Jaffe.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Is Oscar Jaffe on this train? You'd better tell me.
- Owen O'Malley: Right in there. The Little Corporal is returning from another Moscow, his head bloodied but still unbowed.
- George Smith: Lying to me! Every minute with every breath, lying to me!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Yes. I tried to save you pain! I lied, yes, only to save you!
- Oscar Jaffe: That' s from Sappho.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Get out!
- Oscar Jaffe: Those movies you were in! It's sacrilege throwing you away on things like that. When I left that movie house, I felt some magnificent ruby had been thrown into a platter of lard.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: What is it this time - the big drama about Hairpin Annie, the pride of the gashouse?
- Mathew J. Clark: I've often thought I might like to devote myself to the theater. Would you think there might be a place for me?
- Oliver Webb: Oh yes, yes. Probably fill a long-felt want.
- Oscar Jaffe: You squalling litle amateur. On your feet! Get up! Take that hump out of your back. You're not demonstrating underwear anymore!
- Owen O'Malley: Oh, Max, which one of these foul guinea hens is named Lily Garland?
- Oliver Webb: Not so loud, Owen. We're discussing something.
- Owen O'Malley: Hey, listen, you foul Corsican, these are orders from on high. I just encountered Mr. Jaffe in the lobby, all of a twitter.
- Oliver Webb: Oh, is he here?
- Owen O'Malley: Yes he's here and he wants the pulsing life story of this Lily Garland wench trumpeted through the press by tomorrow morning. Where is the little baggage?
- Owen O'Malley: Say, Sadie, get me a bottle of gin. I've only got an hour to live.
- Sadie, Lily's maid: Oh, I wish that were true.
- Oscar Jaffe: Did you hear that? She's left me.
- Oliver Webb: Say the word, O.J., and I'll kill myself.
- Oscar Jaffe: You amoeba.
- Max Jacobs: It's the truth, whether you know it or not.
- Oscar Jaffe: Owen, take this creature who came to me as an office boy as Max Mendlebaum and who is now Max Jacobs for some mysterious reason and throw him into the street.
- Oliver Webb: "Joan of Arc." There was absolutely no excuse for that show. I told him so!
- Owen O'Malley: He's going to end up in the breadline unless he finds out that these jittery horse operas with a lot of people staggering around in foul iron suits ain't entertainment.
- Oliver Webb: I don't know whether you realize it or not, Owen, but I've always had a terrific influence with her.
- Owen O'Malley: Me too. Once I actually compelled her to admit it looked like rain.
- Oscar Jaffe: Now, before we begin I want you all to remember one thing. No matter what I may say... no matter what I may do on this stage during our work... I love you all.
- Oscar Jaffe: There's a message I want to go with those gardenias: "To my little madonna of the snows... " No, wait a minute. We won't use that this time.
- Oliver Webb: What we need is a play, something she can read and see herself walking up and down the stage in.
- George Smith: And you wanted my respect!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Who cares about your respect? I'm too big to be respected. The men I've known have understood that.
- George Smith: Men you've known? Jaffe, you mean.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Yes, Jaffe. He'll tell you what I am: A first-class passenger entitled to privileges.
- George Smith: Oh, an artist!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: You're darned tooting I am!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Oscar, you're complete. The most horrible excuse for a human being that ever walked on two legs.
- Oscar Jaffe: Lily, you're crying.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Sure, I turn on a faucet. It's that sort of scene.
- Oscar Jaffe: When I love a woman, I'm an Oriental. It never goes. It never dies.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Phooey.
- Oscar Jaffe: Love blinded me. That was the trouble between us as producer and artist.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: So that's what it was, was it? How about your name in electric lights bigger than everybody's, and your delusion that you were a Shakespeare and a Napoleon and a Grand Lama of Tibet all rolled into one?
- Oscar Jaffe: I want to send another
- [telegram]
- Oscar Jaffe: . To John Ringling. "I'm in the market for 25 camels, several elephants, and an ibis... Give me the rock-bottom price."
- Owen O'Malley: What are you talking about? That's not a contract - it's a coronation. Barrels of rubies, enormous carpets for your pretty feet, pearl and onyx bathrubs, slews of myrmidons at your beck and call... Come on, sign it now while the sap is flowing.
- Oscar Jaffe: It's typical of my career that in the great crises of life, I should stand flanked by two incompetent alcoholics.
- Oscar Jaffe: When I love a woman, I'm an Oriental. It never goes! It never dies!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Phooey!
- Mathew J. Clark: He had a gun! I shot him in self-defense!
- Oscar Jaffe: Owen, I was aiming at myself. He grabbed the gun away from me and shot me. That's the final irony... Killed by a lunatic.
- Oscar Jaffe: Owen, something tells me you're not educated enough for this sort of thing. I'll have to hire some professor.
- Owen O'Malley: Save your dough, sire. I yield the lamp of learning to no one.
- Oliver Webb: O.J., suppose - just hypothetically, of course - that you, Mr. Bromo, could get together again with Miss Seltzer.
- Oscar Jaffe: What do you know about talent? What do you know about the theatre? What do you know about genius? What do you know about anything, you... bookkeeper!
- Oscar Jaffe: I'm offering you your last chance to become immortal.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Thanks, I've decided to stay mortal - with a responsible management!
- Oscar Jaffe: Who?
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: Max Jacobs!
- Oscar Jaffe: I can't believe it.
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: No? Read the papers tomorrow, then. Why do you think I left Hollywood?
- Oscar Jaffe: Max Jacobs! He's a thief! Illiterate! He can hardly write his own name!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: He writes it on checks, all right - great BIG checks, too!
- Lily Garland, aka Mildred Plotka: You go back and tell that fake Svengali I wouldn't wipe my feet on him if he were starving, and I hope he is.
- Oscar Jaffe: What did she say? Tell me everything!
- Owen O'Malley: You know her. She screamed like a fishwife.
- Oscar Jaffe: That' s a good sign! She blew up, eh? That shows the battery isn't dead.
- Oscar Jaffe: I wouldn't take that woman back if she and I were the last people in the world, and the future of the human race depended on it.
- Oscar Jaffe: From the grave of someone you loved yesterday. How's that?
- Owen O'Malley: A little on the sad side, isn't it?
- Oscar Jaffe: It's perfect. I wish I could get playwrights to write like that.