- Francie Nolan: Out the window, our tree they killed it!
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Well, would you like at that now.
- Francie Nolan: They didn't have any right to kill it did they papa!
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Now wait a minute. They didn't kill it. Why they couldn't kill that tree.
- Francie Nolan: Promise?
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Why sure baby. Don't tell me that tree is gonna lay down and die that easily. Look at that tree. See where it's coming from. Right up outta that cement! Didn't nobody plant it. Didn't ask the cement to grow. It just couldn't help growing so much it just pushed that old cement out of the way. Now when you bust it with something like that, can't anybody help it, like... like that little ole bird up there. He didn't ask anybody could he sing and he certainly didn't take any lessons. He's so full of singing it just has to bust out someplace. Why they could cut that ole tree right down to the ground and a root would push up someplace else in the cement.
- [last lines]
- Francie Nolan: Neeley ...
- Neeley Nolan: Uh-huh?
- Francie Nolan: Am I good-looking?
- Neeley Nolan: Aw, what's eatin' ya?
- Francie Nolan: No, honest, Neeley, I wanna know.
- Neeley Nolan: [after considering her for a few moments] You'll pass.
- Francie Nolan: You're sweet, Neeley.
- Neeley Nolan: Aw, cut the mush.
- Katie Nolan: Flossie Gaddis died last night.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: The poor baby. It was nice that her Mama got her all them pretty dresses.
- Katie Nolan: Only now the poor thing will have to lie in Potter's Field!
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: But at least she had the dresses!
- Francie Nolan: [Johnny has promised to get Francie enrolled in the school she admires.] Bend down Papa.
- [He does.]
- Francie Nolan: My cup runneth over.
- Francie Nolan: Mama says not to be too late, Papa.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Look, God invented time and when He invents something, there's always plenty of it.
- Grandma Rommely: This reading will not stop! I say this thing. To this new land, your grandfather and I came very long ago now because we heard that here is something very good. Hard we worked, very hard, but we could not find this thing. For a long time, I do not understand, and then I know. When I am old, I know. In that old country, a child can rise no higher than his father's state. But here, in this place, each one is free to go as far as he's good to make of himself. This way, the child can be better than the parent and this is the true way things grow better. And this has to do something with the learning, which is here *free* to all people. I, who am old, miss this thing. My children miss this thing. But my children's children shall not miss it. This reading will not stop.
- Francie Nolan: He can't be dead. He can't. They don't understand. Maybe you could let me have a baby someday. It could be a boy so it could be just like him... and it'd have to be me. Nobody else loved him like I do. Maybe you could do that for me. And if you could - he wouldn't even die.
- [first title card]
- Title card: For childhood, Saturday - free from school - is the most changeless of institutions - whether it is in city or village, or main street, or in those vital, teeming streets which were the Brooklyn of a few decades ago.
- Neeley Nolan: I bet she has a fight with Aunt Sissy tonight.
- Francie Nolan: It's got something to do with men like Aunt Sissy too much.
- Neeley Nolan: Well, Papa says we ought to make everybody like us.
- Francie Nolan: I guess maybe ladies shouldn't.
- Francie Nolan: Mama! Mama, they're cutting the tree!
- Katie Nolan: Oh, that's too bad. It was kind of pretty there with birds sitting in it sometimes.
- Francie Nolan: Papa loved that tree.
- Katie Nolan: Ah, quit moonin' over it. It got in the way of the washing. A tree ain't gonna put no pennies in the bank.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Why ain't you layin' out my clothes?
- Francie Nolan: Oh, Papa, you always make fun. You know you haven't any more clothes.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Haven't any more clothes, huh? What's this?
- Francie Nolan: A tie.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: And this?
- Francie Nolan: A dickey.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: And this?
- Francie Nolan: An Apron.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Well them's clothes, ain't they?
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: You know something, a day like this is just like somebody gave you a present. Everything just right.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Anybody seen Johnny Nolan's wife?
- Katie Nolan: Johnny, you all right?
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: And why not? Ain't I married to the most beautiful lady in all Williamsburg, Brooklyn?
- Katie Nolan: Well, you're shoutin' it so loud they'll hear you over to Manhattan.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Don't you get fresh with me tonight, Mrs. Nolan.
- Aunt Sissy: Go on downstairs for a while, kids. Your mama's got a spanking up her sleeve and she ain't gonna feel right until somebody gets it. Might as well get it over with.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Well, will you look at our beautiful princess tonight in a brand-new gown.
- Girl on Staircase: It's made out of silk.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Silk? Don't you tell me that. This dress is made out of flower petals and birds' wings and a little old piece of cloud. Anybody can tell that.
- Aunt Sissy: He sure took a shine to you, Katie.
- Katie Nolan: Go on. Who'd look at me?
- Aunt Sissy: He would!
- Katie Nolan: Funny. Sometimes you kinda forget you are a woman.
- Francie Nolan: [to a policeman] We only borrowed them for just a minute. Honest!
- Aunt Sissy: That's right. There wasn't nobody usin' 'em. And a little fun and frolic on a Saturday never hurt nobody. Bet you know all about that, don't ya?
- Sheila's Mother: If you think you're gonna get out of it making eyes at the law, I don't know what the world's coming to!
- Katie Nolan: I guess you won't get home until the sun comes up.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: The later, the better. The more tips, the more fine silk stockings for my wife's pretty legs.
- Katie Nolan: [sarcastically] Silk stockings is just what I need!
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Look, prima donna. After all, you know, this ain't exactly according to the rules.
- Francie Nolan: You mean it's wrong?
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: No, sir. Not by a jugful it ain't wrong.
- Francie Nolan: This says he's a hero. He saved some people in a fire.
- Aunt Sissy: Does it say where?
- Francie Nolan: The 9th Precinct, Manhattan.
- Aunt Sissy: Manhattan, huh? Couldn't make the grade in Brooklyn, I guess.
- Francie Nolan: "Beshrew the witch! With venomous..."
- Neeley Nolan: That ain't even English!
- Francie Nolan: It is, too! Shakespeare wrote the best English of anybody!
- Neeley Nolan: All right, then you tell me what it means, you're so smart.
- Francie Nolan: I didn't say I know what it means. I said I liked it.
- Miss McDonough: Our everyday lives are real and true, aren't they? But all the stories in the world, all the music came out of someone's imagination. So, if we tell the truth and write the lies, then they aren't lies anymore. They become stories.
- Mr. Barker: Now there's one party, not far from here, I wouldn't like to say who, that didn't get no receipts this week. And naming no names, I will say that it's a family that the angel of death has marked on his invitation list. Heaven forbid.
- Katie Nolan: My mind's made up, so don't try to change it with any of that soft talk of yours.
- Aunt Sissy: Why, I won't, Katie, not if you mean it. But let's keep on talking about you. Soft's one thing, but hard's another.
- Katie Nolan: All right, it ain't nice to be hard. But my kids is gonna be somebody if I gotta turn into granite rock to make 'em!
- Aunt Sissy: I'm sure glad you come along, handsome. You look like you could whip a bunch of women into line.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: Pop, why don't the Katzenjammer Kids talk plain English?
- Neeley Nolan: Supposed to make it funny, I guess.
- Johnny Nolan aka The Brooklyn Thrush: [singing] Maxwellton braes are bonnie, Where early fa's the dew, And 'twas there, That Annie Laurie, Gave me her promise true, Which ne'er forgot will be, And for, Bonnie Annie Laurie, I would lay, Me doon, And dee.
- Miss McDonough: Don't you think it would be still better if you'd write about the things you really know about and then add to them with your imagination? Even stories shouldn't be just, well, pipe dreams. Pipe-dreamers can be very lovable people but they don't help anybody, not even themselves. Now, think about it a little.
- Francie Nolan: Papa, the people in the hall when we brought up the tree, the look on their faces, all friendly and nice. Why can't people be like that all the time, not just on Christmas?