The Quotebook
On marriage.
Five marriages, and a late-life honesty about all of them.
Grant married five times and reflected on it without much self-flattery, particularly in the last decade of his life.
The lines.
30 quotationsVerified
“Women are not the sensitive sex. That’s one of the grand delusions of literature. Men are the true romanticists.”
Cary Grant as Philip Adams · 1958 · film · Indiscreet (1958)
Philip Adams lectures Anna Kalman on love.
Spoken as Philip Adams in Indiscreet (1958).
Verified
“I’ll beg, I’ll borrow, I’ll — please, Judge, I’ll sell anything I’ve got until I get going again. And she’ll never go hungry, she’ll never be without clothes, not so long as I’ve got two good hands, so help me!”
Cary Grant as Roger Adams · 1941 · film · Penny Serenade (1941)
Roger Adams pleads with a judge not to take his adopted daughter. The scene brought Grant his first Academy Award nomination.
Spoken as Roger Adams in Penny Serenade (1941).
Verified
“You mean nothing must interfere with your work? Our marriage must entail no domestic entanglements of any kind.”
Cary Grant as David Huxley · 1938 · film · Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Huxley recites his fiancée's terms for their marriage.
Spoken as David Huxley in Bringing Up Baby (1938).
Verified
“This is a very strange love affair.”
Cary Grant as T. R. Devlin · 1946 · film · Notorious (1946)
Devlin, coldly, on what is happening between him and Alicia Huberman.
Spoken as T. R. Devlin in Notorious (1946).
Verified
“I suppose the fact is I love feeling free inside even better than I love you, Julia.”
Verified
“I can hardly wait for you to grow up.”
Cary Grant as Nickie Ferrante · 1957 · film · An Affair to Remember (1957)
Ferrante teases Terry McKay aboard ship.
Spoken as Nickie Ferrante in An Affair to Remember (1957).
Disputed
“I made a lot of mistakes out of loneliness. Consequently, I know a great deal about it.”
Verified
“Don’t go to extremes. Don’t hate too much and don’t love too much. Try to live somewhere in the middle... It is peaceful in the middle. You won’t be hurt in the middle.”
Verified
“There must be something between us, even if it’s only an ocean.”
Cary Grant as Nickie Ferrante · 1957 · film · An Affair to Remember (1957)
Ferrante on the distance he is trying to keep.
Spoken as Nickie Ferrante in An Affair to Remember (1957).
Verified
“I learned that you appreciate work most while you’re at leisure, and leisure while you’re at work. It’s like being married or single. You can’t be both at the same time.”
Verified
“When I’m married I want to be single, and when I’m single I want to be married.”
Verified
“Well, well. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who said yes when she meant yes.”
Cary Grant as Johnnie Aysgarth · 1941 · film · Suspicion (1941)
Johnnie Aysgarth, charming, early in the courtship — before the audience learns to distrust him.
Spoken as Johnnie Aysgarth in Suspicion (1941).
Verified
“I did quit once for 18 months. I can’t say I was bored, never have been. But I just wasn’t as interested in life. During my retirement I had the time to indulge in some long, long thoughts about myself, my work, my marriages. Did I find any answers? I don’t know.”
Cary Grant · 1961 · essay · Films and Filming
On an earlier withdrawal from filmmaking.
'What it Means to be a Star,' Films and Filming, July 1961.
Verified
“I really don’t like to speak about myself... and neither do I want to bother with the many ridiculous rumors that have been told by columnists, placing me into close relations, even matrimony, with the world’s most beautiful women.”
Attributed
“Every one of my wives left me. I don’t know why, maybe they got bored, tired of me. I don’t know. Maybe I was making the mistake of thinking that each of my wives was my mother, that there would never be a replacement once she left.”
Attributed
“I’m not at all proud of my marriage record, but I have wanted a family for years, and I finally have it.”
Verified
“There’s been a lamp burning in the window for ya, honey.”
Cary Grant as Walter Burns · 1940 · film · His Girl Friday (1940)
Burns tries sentiment, having failed with everything else.
Spoken as Walter Burns in His Girl Friday (1940).
Verified
“Be whatever you like, you’re my Tracy.”
Cary Grant as C. K. Dexter Haven · 1940 · film · The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Dexter Haven accepts Tracy Lord as she is, which is the point of the picture.
Spoken as C. K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story (1940).
Verified
“You’ve got an old-fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever, ’til death do us part.’ Why, divorce doesn’t mean anything nowadays, Hildy, just a few words mumbled over you by a judge.”
Cary Grant as Walter Burns · 1940 · film · His Girl Friday (1940)
Walter Burns argues his ex-wife out of remarrying.
Spoken as Walter Burns in His Girl Friday (1940).
Verified
“I’m going out to get some popcorn and pink lemonade. I’ve just seen a three-ring circus.”
Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner · 1937 · film · The Awful Truth (1937)
Warriner's exit line after an evening with his wife's new suitor and his mother.
Spoken as Jerry Warriner in The Awful Truth (1937).
Verified
“I wish Lucy would go out and get some fun for herself now and again. It would do her good. That’s the trouble with most marriages today. People are always imagining things. The road to Reno is paved with suspicions.”
Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner · 1937 · film · The Awful Truth (1937)
Warriner's philosophy of marriage, delivered while he schemes to undo his own divorce.
Spoken as Jerry Warriner in The Awful Truth (1937).
Attributed
“Divorce is a game played by lawyers.”
Attributed
“The most difficult thing in the world is to relate to a woman as an equal, and it took me a very long time.”
Verified
“Haven’t you ever met a man that could make you happy?”
Captain Cummings · 1933 · film · She Done Him Wrong (1933)
Cummings questions Lady Lou during one of their flirtatious exchanges at her saloon.
Screen dialogue, spoken by Captain Cummings in She Done Him Wrong (1933).
Verified
“How in the world did Eve ever get Adam when she had no other woman to help her with the subtle little touches?”
Dr. Madison Brown · 1948 · film · Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)
The paediatrician Madison Brown muses on courtship, unaware that he is the target of Anabel's marriage scheme.
Screen dialogue, spoken by Dr. Madison Brown in Every Girl Should Be Married (1948).
Verified
“I haven’t the remotest notion. She calls me up every now and then and we talk. I call her my telephone dream girl. It’s practically weird.”
Alec Walker · 1939 · film · In Name Only (1939)
Alec Walker jokes about a mysterious caller early in the melodrama of his unhappy marriage.
Screen dialogue, spoken by Alec Walker in In Name Only (1939).
Verified
“My wife objects to drinking. Then she shouldn’t drink. She doesn’t. What’s her objection?”
Verified
“That film coincided with the birth of my daughter, and I wanted to stay as close to her as possible.”
Cary Grant · 1981 · press · The Washington Post
Explaining that his retirement in 1966 coincided with Jennifer's birth.
Gary Arnold, "The Kennedy Center Honors", The Washington Post, 6 December 1981, on why Walk, Don't Run became his last film.
Verified
“That’s the only way to love a person, otherwise it isn’t worth all the trouble.”
Commander Andy Crewson · 1957 · film · Kiss Them for Me (1957)
The Navy flier Andy Crewson declares himself to Gwinneth Livingston during his wartime leave in San Francisco.
Screen dialogue, spoken by Commander Andy Crewson in Kiss Them for Me (1957).
Verified
“Well, we’ll try three or four — and if that doesn’t work out, we’ll breed poodles.”
Philip Shayne · 1962 · film · That Touch of Mink (1962)
Philip jokes about children when Cathy worries aloud about her fitness to be a mother.
Screen dialogue, spoken by Philip Shayne in That Touch of Mink (1962).