- Fred Mertz: What do you mean, you want forty dollars for a lamp?
- Ethel Mertz: Just what I said. We don't have a decent lamp to read by.
- Fred Mertz: Listen, Ethel, if you want to read, you can read by firelight. If it was good enough for Abraham Lincoln, it's good enough for you.
- Ethel Mertz: Oh, don't drag in your boyhood pals, Fred.