Memorable quotes for
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) More at IMDbPro »

Mavis Pruitt: I'm going to tell you something, Mrs. Flood. Every time a door is slammed in a marriage... every time a woman turns her face away because she's tired or unwilling... there's someone waiting. Someone like me.
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Executive: We sell new machinery. What do you know about drilling equipment for oil fields?
Rubin Flood: Not a thing.
Executive: Then why should we hire you?
Rubin Flood: You chew tobacco, mister?
Executive: I beg your pardon!
Rubin Flood: You talk crops and weather? You know who's had a baby lately? You know who goes to church and who don't? Who likes corn liquor and who likes store liquor? Who's a Republican, who's a Democrat?
Executive: Our methods are a little more modern than that.
Rubin Flood: Well, I'm telling you that the people out here are farmers, no matter how much oil they got in their land. You want to come out of this territory with a profit? You'd be better off taking that diamond stickpin out of your tie and putting a straw hat on the back of your head and a chaw in your cheek! You're gonna have to hunker down and talk business with a man who's cleaning out his pigsty. That's where a lot of sales are made... and it can't be done in a New York suit!
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Ed Peabody: It's a new world, and we don't belong in it.
Rubin Flood: Any world I'm in, I belong in!
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[Setting out to find a new job.]
Rubin Flood: Well, I sold everything else in my time. I guess I can sell myself.
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Rubin Flood: Oh, you always got a excuse. But the plain fact is, a lot of time goes by without our making love. Cora, this is a marriage!
Cora Flood: There are other things in marriage.
Rubin Flood: Yeah, but the part I'm talking about is natural! It's normal and it's necessary! God planned it that way, and ain't nobody come up with anything better since Adam and Eve!
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Rubin Flood: [To Lottie after he overhears her prejudice comments towards Catholics] Hogwash! Malarky! Horse manure! Woman you oughta get yourself a broom and ride over the housetops! You oughta buy yourself a sheet and poke two holes in it and go around setting fires! Or better still, get yourself a big piece of tape and put it over your mouth because you're too ignorant to live! Lottie sometimes I'm ashamed to be related to you even by marriage!
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Rubin Flood: Reenie, you're at the beginning of things. These feelings are new to you. You want to get off on the right foot. I'm not talking about the physical side of things, I know you'll always be decent in the way you act. But a man wants to be met by a generous heart in a woman. A open heart. Honey, never be ashamed to say what you feel, and if you come to love a man, let him know it. Let him know all about it.
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