- Walter Lockman: And when they bury me, they can put on the gravestone, 'His was a big waste of time.'
- Jerry Kingsley: Listen, sonny boy. Love, no matter how shabby it may seem, is still a beautiful thing. Everything else is nothing.
- Jerry Kingsley: Do you feel better?
- Betty Preisser: Why, Mr. Kingsley, I feel much better.
- Jerry Kingsley: You made a decision. Suddenly there's not such big, black clouds in the sky. There's an old European saying: I'm an old man, and I've had many troubles. And most of them never happened. And you're a young kid and you're very pretty. So, go wash your face, put on some lipstick, call up a friend, drink a beer with him.
- Jerry Kingsley: [Talking to Betty] I can't tell you how often recently I've found myself thinking about dying. "Dying" to you is something that happens to old relatives, but it's a very intimate business to me. I don't expect you to understand this, but in those moments when I'm suddenly impossible to live with, that's probably what's at the bottom of my bad temper.
- Jerry Kingsley: [at 01:48:40] Get away from me.
- Betty Preisser: [01:48:43] I love you, Jerry. I need you. I don't know what to do without you.
- Jerry Kingsley: [at 01:48:45] That's a lousy kind of love.
- Betty Preisser: [at 01:48:47] Well, it's the only kind of love I know. I'd be a good wife to you, Jerry. I promise you that.
- [Thanks to subzin.com for quotes]
- Walter Lockman: Hey Jerry, let me tell ya, did I have a Tootsie last night. Oh, boy!
- Jerry Kingsley: Oh, you and your Tootsies, Walter.
- Jerry Kingsley: It's that time of life. You get to be 50, 55, 60. Its so supposed to be a feminine disposition, but, men suffer from it to, believe me. You know, my partner, Walter Lockman, he's a man 59, gonna be 60. Grandfather, three times. The last couple of years he's become absolutely obsessed with women. It's all he talks about. Comes in the office, the first thing he says, he's got a story about some girl he was out with - always a beautiful girl and it always winds up the girl tells him he's a better lover than all the young men she knows. He sees doctors, pills, everything. If it wasn't so sad it'd be comic.
- Jerry Kingsley: [Lockman walks in] Your wife called. Wanted to know when you were coming back from Chicago. Huh, is that what you told her?
- Walter Lockman: Hey, when are you going out with me? I'll show you a good time. I thought you understood when you were hired, you had to go out with the bosses.
- [squeezes Betty]
- Betty Preisser: Would you cut it out, please. I don't feel very well.
- Walter Lockman: Now that you got your divorce from your husband, how about it?
- [squeezes Betty again]
- Betty Preisser: Please, cut it out.
- Jerry Kingsley: Walter, leave the girls alone!
- Walter Lockman: Oh, what did I do? Huh?
- Betty Preisser: I'm sorry Mr. Lockman.
- Lillian Englander: Pa, how's your sex life?
- Jerry Kingsley: [waves off the question] You're all right.
- Lillian Englander: No. I mean it. You're a vigorous man with normal appetites.
- Jerry Kingsley: You know, you're funny. Its typical of young people to think unhappyess is always a glandular condition. All right, my sex life is not so hot.
- Betty Preisser: I think this should be our last date. We've been out four times now and I've enjoyed myself, I honestly have. But, I just - well, you're a very nice man. Everyone in the office thinks you're wonderful. You know that. I don't think there's a person up there who wouldn't do anything in the world for you. Well, I just feel that the situation's impossible. I mean, you being my boss and everything.
- Betty Preisser: Everybody else that we knew were getting married. So, we got married. I guess we just got tired of necking in the back of the car. We used to eat in restaurants all the time. When we'd come home, we'd watch television. Around 11 o'clock we would both march into the bedroom like it was a gas chamber. I used to wonder if everyone was like this.
- Betty Preisser: I was a wild kid. You know, I used to go out every night and neck in Central Park with any boy who'd ask me. Everyone thought I was gonna turn out to be a real bad type.
- Betty Preisser: If you weren't such a decent man, you'd probably make out a lot better with me. I mean, if you were just on the make, I would probably be saying to myself, "Well, I'm pretty lonely and he's a gentleman." The way I've been feeling lately, who cares anyway.
- Marilyn: I had a long talk with her last night. She's having a big romance with Spencer Tracy. Lots of girls get crushes on older men because they're debonair and they know a couple of head waiters.
- Jerry Kingsley: I can't let you get away from me. My whole life has been a joy since I've known you. A joy to wake up in the morning. A joy to go to work, to have you around me, to look at you, to touch you. And you're an obsession. And that's what love is: obsession.
- Mrs. Mueller: All men I think are bums. Take my husband. He went out to get a pack of cigarettes one day. The next time I heard from him he was in Akron, Ohio, writing me for a divorce.
- Mrs. Mueller: I have scrubbed floors so my two girls could be raised as decent girls. And, once more, I've never interfered with either of them either. In fact, half the time I don't know what they're doing or where they are.
- Jerry Kingsley: That's just about enough of this childishness! I'm not going to treat you like a kid. Now, you start acting like a woman.
- Betty Preisser: Boy, I like having a fuss made over me. And I don't mind saying I'm a little tight too. You know me, one whiff, you got to look for me on the ceiling.
- Marilyn: I don't want my daughters, who are decent girls, to go running around with any old wolf, just because he's got some money. I don't care if you are her boss. She's not working for you anymore anyway, you hear. You lousy old men are all alike! Always hanging around young kids. They ought to put your kind in jail! A bunch of dirty old men! Look, I'm her mother and I want some respect! You hear me?
- Walter Lockman: Why do you suppose I go around with these sluts? Because I'm having a second childhood? You want to know? I'll tell you. Because every once in awhile, for half an hour, I kid myself a woman likes me - even if it is on an expense account.
- Betty Preisser: Don't you tell me how beautiful I am, And don't tell me how much you desire me because I'm sick of being desirable. I'd like to think that I had something more to give a man than this!