Quotes
Horace: Advice is cheap, Ms. Molloy. It's the things that come gift wrapped that count!
Share thisHorace: It takes a woman all powdered and pink to joyously clean out the drain in the sink!
Share thisDolly Levi: Here, let me cut your wings!
Horace: I don't want my wings cut!
Dolly Levi: No man does, Horace, no man does.
Share thisDolly Levi: Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow.
Share thisBarnaby Tucker: Holy cabooses!
Share thisCornelius Hackl: We're gonna close the store.
Barnaby Tucker: Close the store?
Cornelius Hackl: We have to, 'cause some rotten cans of chicken mash are going to explode.
Barnaby Tucker: Holy cabooses, how do you know?
Cornelius Hackl: Because I'm gonna light some candles under them.
Share thisDolly Levi: [singing] It takes a woman to quietly plan to take him and change him to her kind of man and to gently lead him where fortune can find him and not let him know that the power behind him was that dainty woman, that fragile woman, that sweetheart, that mistress, that wife.
Share thisJoe, Vandergelder's barber: You'll have to sit still, Mr Vandergelder. If I cut your throat it'll be practically unintentional.
Share thisHorace: I'm going to march in the 14th street parade with the only kind of people I can trust: 700 men.
Share thisHorace: Eighty percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in danger of contamination.
Share thisDolly Levi: And on those cold winter nights, Horace, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It's a little lumpy, but it rings!
Share thisDolly Levi: Hello! Hello there, how are you? Oh Hello!
Horace: You know too many people.
Dolly Levi: Total strangers!
Horace: Then why do you greet them?
Dolly Levi: It makes me feel good to have so many friends.
Horace: Oh, say hello for me too then.
Dolly Levi: I already did.
Share thisDolly Levi: As my late husband, Ephraim Levi, used to say, 'If you have to live from hand-to-mouth, you'd better be ambidextrous.'
Share thisAmbrose Kemper: This doesn't concern her!
Dolly Levi: Mr. Kemper, everything concerns Dolly Levi!
Share thisHorace: You are a seven-foot-tall nincompoop!
Ambrose Kemper: That's an insult!
Horace: All the facts about you are insults!
Share thisSullivan, ticket seller: Where to, Dolly?
Dolly Levi: Yonkers, New York, to handle a highly personal matter for Mr. Horace Vandergelder, the well-known, unmarried, half-a-millionaire.
Sullivan, ticket seller: Gonna marry him yourself, Dolly?
Dolly Levi: Why, Mr. Sullivan, what ever put such a preposterous idea into my head... er, your head!
Share thisIrene Molloy: Do get done with that, Minnie. The men are eyeing us for the wrong reasons.
Minnie Fay: A banana a day keeps the doctor away.
Irene Molloy: You mean an apple a day.
Minnie Fay: Who ever heard of a doctor slipping on an apple peel?
Share thisRudolph Reisenweber: No expression. Let the food smile.
Share thisIrene Molloy: Minnie, I don't mind that you never finish your lunch, but I do mind that you never finish your sentences.
Share thisDolly Levi: Goodness, the whole room is crawling with men. Irene, my dear, congratulations.
Share thisIrene Molloy: What's this? A return from Miss Mortimer again?
Minnie Fay: Same old story, cherries and feathers, cherries and feathers. To catch a beau I suppose.
Irene Molloy: If you ask me, she'd do better with a heavy veil.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: I've lost everything: my job, my future, everything people *think* is important, but I don't care - because even if I have to dig ditches for the rest of my life, I shall be a ditch-digger who once had a wonderful day.
Share thisGussie Granger: [dressed as Ernestina Simple] What do you mean, oysters aren't *in season*? Anyone can have oysters *in season*, I want them out of season!
Horace: They don't have any Miss Simple.
Gussie Granger: Then tell them to go out and dig for some!
Share thisDolly Levi: Mr. Kemper, do you mind if we go inside? I'm feeling an updraft in my underpants!
Share thisErmengarde Vandergelder: But if I can't marry Ambrose, I know I'll die!
Horace: Of what?
Ermengarde Vandergelder: A broken heart.
Horace: Never heard of it.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: Cornelius Hackl here.
Barnaby Tucker: Barnaby Tucker here.
Irene Molloy: Irene Malloy here.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: [infatuated with Irene] Well, you see, we're two ladies about town and we're looking for a had to Malloy and...
Barnaby Tucker: We're hats, you see, and we're looking for a lady to Malloy with for the af...
Cornelius Hackl: [signals Barnaby to be quiet] We want a hat!
Share thisHorace: Mrs. Malloy, I shan't bother you again. And I hope vice versa.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: Look, I'm dancing!
[carelessly backs into a chair and falls]
Cornelius Hackl: Uh, I was.
Share thisHorace: Dolly Levi, you are a damned exasperating woman.
Dolly Levi: Why Horace Vandergelder. That is the nicest thing you have ever said to me. Ha ha.
Share this[upon seeing where they are going to eat]
Irene Molloy: How beautiful!
Minnie Fay: How elegant!
Barnaby Tucker: [uneasily] How much?
Share thisAmbrose Kemper: If you're going to spend the whole evening acting like a scared rabbit, maybe I'd better order some lettuce.
Share thisFritz, German waiter: And what would you like, sir.
Cornelius Hackl: Six months off for good behavior.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: I've never touched a woman before.
Irene Molloy: You still haven't. That's my corset.
Share thisHorace: Corneilius Hackl! What are you doing in New York?
Cornelius Hackl: Oh, I'm just delivering some oats.
Horace: Delivering some oats? With my former intended? You're discharged!
Cornelius Hackl: You can't fire me. I quit!
Irene Molloy: So do I!
Horace: Barnaby Tucker, you're discharged.
Barnaby Tucker: You can't fire me. I quit!
Minnie Fay: So do I!
Share thisCornelius Hackl: Smile Barnaby.
Barnaby Tucker: [forcing a smile] I'm smiling.
Cornelius Hackl: Look rich, gay, and charming.
Barnaby Tucker: [a small beat] I'm looking gay and charming.
Share thisHorace: Any man who goes to a big city deserves what happens to him.
Share thisCornelius Hackl: Barnaby, you don't know anything about women.
Barnaby Tucker: Only that we can't afford them.
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