- Gen. Biddle: Uh, your name, sergeant?
- Mary McKinley: John Lawrence.
- Gen. Biddle: Serial number?
- John Lawrence: 3-9-...
- Mary McKinley: [Jumps in] 3-9-1-5-0-7-8-2.
- Mary McKinley: I like generals.
- Gen. Biddle: Thank you.
- Mary McKinley: Next to sergeants.
- Gen. Biddle: I wish I was a sergeant.
- Mary McKinley: Why, general!
- Mary McKinley: Your darling? I, I couldn't marry anyone so noble and patriotic. I, I'd be too impressed.
- Mary McKinley: Darling, you don't have to tell me anything you did overseas - I mean, with girls.
- John Lawrence: All right, dear.
- Mary McKinley: All right, what?
- John Lawrence: All right, I won't tell you.
- Mary McKinley: Your duty? Who do you think you are, Nathan Hale?
- John Lawrence: Well, I have to live with myself.
- Mary McKinley: Well, live with yourself. You're not gonna live with me.
- Mary McKinley: [With her head on John's chest] Four years is a long time. You were lonely. You didn't have anybody to talk to.
- John Lawrence: I wasn't lonely. There were four million fellas with me.
- Mary McKinley: Dr. Zueger said the reason we're supposed to be reserved is to show you the difference between us and the foreign girls who throw themselves at you.
- John Lawrence: Dr. Zueger is a German spy.
- Sen. James McKinley: This is a fine way to release a man from the Army. Eisenhower will have to do some explaining about this.
- Mary McKinley: How did John sound to you on the telephone?
- Fred Taylor: What do you mean?
- Mary McKinley: Well, I thought his voice was deeper than when he left.
- Fred Taylor: Oh, well, that could be. He was a sergeant.
- Mary McKinley: Are you happy now?
- John Lawrence: I don't know. What're you gonna ask me?
- Mary McKinley: What would you like to do, especially?
- John Lawrence: [They're hugging on the sofa] We're on the right track.
- Phyllis McKinley: Why, James, you haven't danced with me since the night Coolidge was inaugurated.
- Sen. James McKinley: Did we dance that night?
- Fred Taylor: That's right, your father's a congressman, isn't he?
- Mary McKinley: He's a senator.
- Fred Taylor: Well, that's uh, uh, yeah, well I know the difference - we had it in school.
- Mary McKinley: The Germans are back to their wives and sweethearts. The Italians are back. The Japanese are back. The only woman in whole world who's being kept apart from the man she loves is... is me.
- Oscar Dugan: What's he gonna do if he wants to eat snails?
- Mary McKinley: Eat 'em.
- Oscar Dugan: You know how absence makes the heart grow.
- Mary McKinley: Not always. Four years apart is an awful long time for people in love.
- Sen. James McKinley: [Mixing a Bromo-Seltzer] I don't know why I drink this stuff anyway. It doesn't do anything for my headache except give me a stomach ache, which makes me forget my headache.
- Sen. James McKinley: Now, look here, general, I don't want anything done that smacks of favoritism.
- Gen. Biddle: Why, senator, I wouldn't show this any more favoritism than I would expect you to show me.
- Gen. Biddle: [On the telephone with the War Office] Col. McGaw, I'm calling you from Sen. McKinley's apartment - Senator McKinley. It seems the senator's prospective son-in-law has just returned from overseas - eligible for discharge, in fact, on terminal leave. Yet he has just been ordered to duty for another 60 days. Now, I don't want any special consideration given him because of the senator - you understand that? However, it is quite probable that a mistake has been made and he is no longer on that roster. Now, I want you to check that roster very carefully.
- Mary McKinley: I carried you 200 yards.
- Gen. Biddle: It wasn't 200 - it was nearer 75
- Mary McKinley: It was at least 200.
- Gen. Biddle: And carrying me behind the lines was a nice way to get out of the shooting - don't forget that.
- Mary McKinley: Oh, that's a fine thing to say, John.
- Gen. Biddle: You saved my life. Now you've ruined it. We're even.
- Mary McKinley: Don't say that, John.
- Mary McKinley: Remember everything we went through together? When you were wounded, I carried you in my arms like a baby. One of us was crying, and it wasn't you.
- Gen. Biddle: You should have let me stay there.
- Phyllis McKinley: If you'll excuse me, I'll just run along.
- Sen. James McKinley: Oh, sit still. You married off three daughters - what's this?
- [Mary crying]
- Phyllis McKinley: It's hard to say. These things get pretty complicated.
- Gen. Biddle: I don't owe you a thing, not a thing.
- Mary McKinley: I'm naming my baby after you - gonna call him John Harold Taylor.
- Gen. Biddle: He hasn't got a chance.
- Fred Taylor: Oh, darling, this is just a lover's quarrel.
- Lt. Victor O'Leary: I wasn't aware there was a quarrel.
- Fred Taylor: Oh, don't be irritating, Mary. When a woman locks herself up in the bedroom, that's considered a quarrel.
- Lt. Victor O'Leary: I didn't know there were established rules.
- Fred Taylor: Well, there are.
- Fred Taylor: Why, general, what happened to you? Have you had an accident?
- Phyllis McKinley: [Has a taped lens on his glasses and a crushed hat] I was attacked by a drunken usher in the men's room of the Strand Theater.
- Fred Taylor: No?
- Phyllis McKinley: He broke my glasses, and look at this hat.
- Fred Taylor: But, why? Why did he do it?
- Phyllis McKinley: I don't know why. He asked me whether I'd ever been to West Point. I said that I had, and he seemed pleasant enough. I thought he was going to ask me about the football team. That's what they usually ask. And then he jumped on me.