Quotes "By" Ernst Lubitsch
Quotes "About" Ernst Lubitsch
Memorable Quotes from Lubitsch Films
Ninotchka (1939)
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): We don't have men like you in my country.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Thank you.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): That is why I believe in the future of my country.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): It's midnight. Look at the clock, one hand has met the other hand, they kiss. Isn't that wonderful?
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): I'm so happy, I'm so happy! Nobody can be so happy without being punished.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): Must you flirt?
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): Suppress it.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): A radio's a little box that you buy on the installment plan, and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): It must be the most marvelous supper. We may not eat it, but it must be marvelous.
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): Do you remember the man who walked into the Bank of Constantinople, and walked out with the Bank of Constantinople?
Mariette Colet (Kay Francis): You see, François, marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together. But with you, François, I think it would be a mistake.
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): I came here to rob you, but unfortunately I fell in love with you.
Lily Vautier (Miriam Hopkins): I want you as a crook. I love you as a crook. I worship you as a crook. Steal, swindle, rob! Oh, but don't become one of those useless, good-for-nothing gigolos!
Gaston Monescu: I love you. I loved you the minute I saw you. I'm mad about you, my little shoplifter... . my sweet little pickpocket... . my darling.
Gaston Monescu: Madame Colet, if I were your father, which fortunately I am not, and you made any attempt to handle your own business affairs, I would give you a good spanking - in a business way, of course.
Mariette Colet: What would you do if you were my secretary?
Gaston Monescu: The same thing.
Mariette Colet: You're hired.
Gaston Monescu: I came here to rob you, but unfortunately I fell in love with you.
The Major: I like to take my fun and leave it.
François Filiba: You know, if I like a man I remember him... and if I don't like him I never forget him.
The Major: See here, my good man. You've been saying good-bye for the last half hour and staying on. I wish you'd say "How do you do" and go.
To Be Or Not To Be (1942)
Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman): Oh, yes, I saw him in "Hamlet" in London. What he did to Shakespeare we are doing to Poland.
Greenberg (Felix Bressart): Mr. Rawitch, what you are I wouldn't eat.
Rawitch (Lionel Atwill): How dare you call me a ham?
Maria Tura (Carole Lombard): It's becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. If I tell a joke, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother.
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): I'm satisfied to be the father.
Anna (Maude Eburne): What a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife.
Professor Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges): Shall we drink to a blitzkrieg?
Maria Tura (Carole Lombard): I prefer a slow encirclement.
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): If I shouldn't come back, I forgive you for what happened between you and Sobinski. But if I come back, it's a different matter!
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): You can’t have your cake and shoot it too!
Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman): They named a brandy after Napoleon, they made a herring out of Bismarck, and the Fuhrer is going to end up as a piece of cheese!
Design for Living (1933)
Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton): Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): Boys, it's the only thing we can do. Let's forget sex.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman.
Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton): Do you love me?
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): Oh, Max, people should not ask that question on their wedding night. It's either too late or too early.
Tom Chambers (Fredric March): It's amazing how a few insults can bring people together in three hours.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): It was certainly good to hear all the names you called me. I haven't heard them since I left father and mother.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): You see, George, you're sort of like a ragged straw hat with a very soft lining. A little bit out of shape, very dashing to look at, and very comfortable to wear. And you, Tom, piquant, perched over one eye, and has to be watched on windy days. And both so becoming.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): I'm sick of being a trademark married to a slogan.
The Merry Widow (1934)
Count Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): Are you pretty? Or beautiful?
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): Gorgeous!
Ambassador Popoff (Edward Everett Horton): Have you ever had diplomatic relations with a woman?
King Achmet (George Barbier): So they're blaming me, huh?
Valet (Donald Meek): For everything. They're even telling jokes about your majesty.
King Achmet (George Barbier): Are they funny?
Valet (Donald Meek): No.
King Achmet (George Barbier): That's bad.
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): There's a limit to every widow.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): You're the freshest Fifi I've ever met.
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): But a nice Fifi.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): How nice?
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): Not too nice.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): Your right eye says yes, and your left eye says no. Fifi, you're cockeyed!
Ambassador Pofoff (Edward Everett Horton): Adamovich.
Adamovich (Lucien Prival): Yes, your excellency?
Popoff (Edward Everett Horton): Go to my bedroom. In the cabinet, behind his majesty's picture, is a little brown bottle of poison... Throw it away. It's a protective measure.
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
His Excellency (The Devil): Sometimes it looks as if the whole world is coming to Hell.
Henry Van Cleve: And it's a father's function to save his son from the mistakes he made.
Peggy Nash: And now you're a kind of a, mm... retired Casanova. You know it's always the same with men when they retire, some grow flowers and, uh... some grow a tummy.
Bertha Van Cleve: And when I find a girl for you, she'll be Miss Right. And you know where we'll find her? In the home of Mr. & Mrs. Right.
Henry Van Cleve: [voiceover] Here was a girl lying to her mother. Naturally that girl interested me at once.
Martha: If you don't change your attitude, I shall have to complain to your employer.
Henry Van Cleve: I'm not employed here. I'm not a book salesman. I took one look at you and followed you into the store. If you'd walked into a restaurant, I would have become a waiter. If you'd walked into a burning building, I would have become a fireman. If you'd walked into an elevator, I would have stopped it between two floors and we'd have spent the rest of our lives there. Please forgive me but you can't walk out of my life like that.
Henry Van Cleve: As a man grows older, his medicine cabinet grows bigger.
Albert Van Cleve: Marriage isn't a series of thrills. Marriage is a peaceful, well-balanced adjustment of two right-thinking people.
Martha: I'm afraid that's only too true.
Cluny Brown (1946)
Adam Belinski: In Hyde Park, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say nuts to the squirrels?
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: Why do people go to cocktail parties?
Andrew Carmel: Because people give cocktail parties.
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: Why do people give them?
John Frewen: Because people go to them.
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: It's a vicious circle... like perpetual motion.
- At least twice a day the most dignified human being is ridiculous.
- I let the audience use their imaginations. Can I help it if they misconstrue my suggestions?
- There is Paramount Paris and Metro Paris, and of course the real Paris. Paramount's is the most Parisian of all.
- I don't believe in reproducing a play on the screen exactly as it was done on the stage. Anyone can make a carbon copy. Carbons are always dull.
- I think I am possessed only of a fascination for the work I have chosen to do . . . I am so engrossed by the production of a film that I literally think of nothing else. I have no hobby, no outside interests and want none.
- I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand.
- I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.
- In Hollywood we acquire the finest novels in order to smell the leather bindings.
- Nobody should try to play comedy unless they have a circus going on inside.
- There are a thousand ways to point a camera, but really only one.
Quotes "About" Ernst Lubitsch
- None of us thought we were making anything but entertainment for the moment. Only Ernst Lubitsch knew we were making art. (John Ford)
- A man of pure cinema. (Alfred Hitchcock)
- I worshipped him. I admired his work enormously. He went head and shoulders beyond everyone in the field of sophisticated high comedy. (Joseph Mankiewicz)
- In that Golden Age of Hollywood that everybody's always talking about there were only two directors whose names meant anything to the public and critics: Cecil B. DeMille and Ernst Lubitsch. (Claudette Colbert)
- Lubitsch was a prince. (Francois Truffaut)
- Lubitsch was cerebrally way beyond the ordinary director. (J.J. Cohn)
- I loved Lubitsch, mainly for his tremendous desire to make something funny with class . . . It was strange -- he really should have been a Frenchman. (Edgar G. Ulmer)
- He was the only great director out there. Ninotchka was the only time I had a great director in Hollywood. (Greta Garbo)
- Lubitsch was a giant . . . his talent and originality were stupefying. (Orson Welles)
- He could do more to show the grace and humor of sex in a nonlustful way than any other director I've ever heard of. (Charles Chaplin)
- Lubitsch had the greatest sense of humor of any individual I've ever met. The actors all loved him. He had a very . . . human quality about him. He was the type of man that became your friend after you met him once. A great man. (Joseph M. Newman)
- He was an imaginative, perceptive, mischievous and an altogether brilliant director. (Melvyn Douglas)
- Everything in a Lubitsch film counts: every gesture, every word, every design choice for every set, every angle, every second. He was absolutely remarkable. And like many of the directors that came out of the silent era, he understood form so perfectly. (Martin Scorsese)
- Lubitsch towered above anybody, creatively, that I met in Hollywood . . he was the greatest craftsman who ever lived . . . in the sense of knowing the most brilliant and original way to use the medium. (Samson Raphaelson)
- His life was an uninterrupted ribbon of film. (Unnamed Friend)
- Ernst Lubitsch was the complete architect of motion pictures. His stamp was on every frame of film -- from conception to delivery. For high style, romantic comedies and spicy musicals he set a standard that has not been equaled. The Lubitsch 'touch' was unique. (Frank Capra)
- Ernst Lubitsch was truly the auteur of his films. He created a style of sophisticated comedy peculiarly his own, as well as a new style of musical, both unknown before his time. His films bore the recognizable and indelible stamp of the gay, clever, witty, mischevious master, whose delightful personality matched his work. I am proud to have known his as a friend and teacher. Lubitsch's films were truly Lubitsch's, possessive credit intended. (William Wyler)
- His films were loaded with a kind of wit which was specifically the essence of the intellectual Berlin in those days. This man was so strong that when he was asked by Hollywood to work there, he not only didn't lose his Berlin style but he converted the Hollywood industry to his own way of expression. (Jean Renoir)
- Ernst Lubitsch was a pixie. There were three or four master directors in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, men for whom the biggest stars in the world tripped over each other in their anxiety to be invited to work, Ernst Lubitsch was the master's master. (David Niven)
Memorable Quotes from Lubitsch Films
Ninotchka (1939)
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): We don't have men like you in my country.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Thank you.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): That is why I believe in the future of my country.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): It's midnight. Look at the clock, one hand has met the other hand, they kiss. Isn't that wonderful?
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): I'm so happy, I'm so happy! Nobody can be so happy without being punished.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): Must you flirt?
Leon (Melvin Douglas): Well, I don't have to, but I find it natural.
Ninotchka (Greta Garbo): Suppress it.
Leon (Melvin Douglas): A radio's a little box that you buy on the installment plan, and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): It must be the most marvelous supper. We may not eat it, but it must be marvelous.
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): Do you remember the man who walked into the Bank of Constantinople, and walked out with the Bank of Constantinople?
Mariette Colet (Kay Francis): You see, François, marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together. But with you, François, I think it would be a mistake.
The Baron/Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall): I came here to rob you, but unfortunately I fell in love with you.
Lily Vautier (Miriam Hopkins): I want you as a crook. I love you as a crook. I worship you as a crook. Steal, swindle, rob! Oh, but don't become one of those useless, good-for-nothing gigolos!
Gaston Monescu: I love you. I loved you the minute I saw you. I'm mad about you, my little shoplifter... . my sweet little pickpocket... . my darling.
Gaston Monescu: Madame Colet, if I were your father, which fortunately I am not, and you made any attempt to handle your own business affairs, I would give you a good spanking - in a business way, of course.
Mariette Colet: What would you do if you were my secretary?
Gaston Monescu: The same thing.
Mariette Colet: You're hired.
Gaston Monescu: I came here to rob you, but unfortunately I fell in love with you.
The Major: I like to take my fun and leave it.
François Filiba: You know, if I like a man I remember him... and if I don't like him I never forget him.
The Major: See here, my good man. You've been saying good-bye for the last half hour and staying on. I wish you'd say "How do you do" and go.
To Be Or Not To Be (1942)
Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman): Oh, yes, I saw him in "Hamlet" in London. What he did to Shakespeare we are doing to Poland.
Greenberg (Felix Bressart): Mr. Rawitch, what you are I wouldn't eat.
Rawitch (Lionel Atwill): How dare you call me a ham?
Maria Tura (Carole Lombard): It's becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. If I tell a joke, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother.
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): I'm satisfied to be the father.
Anna (Maude Eburne): What a husband doesn't know won't hurt his wife.
Professor Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges): Shall we drink to a blitzkrieg?
Maria Tura (Carole Lombard): I prefer a slow encirclement.
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): If I shouldn't come back, I forgive you for what happened between you and Sobinski. But if I come back, it's a different matter!
Josef Tura (Jack Benny): You can’t have your cake and shoot it too!
Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman): They named a brandy after Napoleon, they made a herring out of Bismarck, and the Fuhrer is going to end up as a piece of cheese!
Design for Living (1933)
Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton): Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): Boys, it's the only thing we can do. Let's forget sex.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman.
Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton): Do you love me?
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): Oh, Max, people should not ask that question on their wedding night. It's either too late or too early.
Tom Chambers (Fredric March): It's amazing how a few insults can bring people together in three hours.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): It was certainly good to hear all the names you called me. I haven't heard them since I left father and mother.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): You see, George, you're sort of like a ragged straw hat with a very soft lining. A little bit out of shape, very dashing to look at, and very comfortable to wear. And you, Tom, piquant, perched over one eye, and has to be watched on windy days. And both so becoming.
Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins): I'm sick of being a trademark married to a slogan.
The Merry Widow (1934)
Count Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): Are you pretty? Or beautiful?
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): Gorgeous!
Ambassador Popoff (Edward Everett Horton): Have you ever had diplomatic relations with a woman?
King Achmet (George Barbier): So they're blaming me, huh?
Valet (Donald Meek): For everything. They're even telling jokes about your majesty.
King Achmet (George Barbier): Are they funny?
Valet (Donald Meek): No.
King Achmet (George Barbier): That's bad.
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): There's a limit to every widow.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): You're the freshest Fifi I've ever met.
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): But a nice Fifi.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): How nice?
Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald): Not too nice.
Captain Danilo (Maurice Chevalier): Your right eye says yes, and your left eye says no. Fifi, you're cockeyed!
Ambassador Pofoff (Edward Everett Horton): Adamovich.
Adamovich (Lucien Prival): Yes, your excellency?
Popoff (Edward Everett Horton): Go to my bedroom. In the cabinet, behind his majesty's picture, is a little brown bottle of poison... Throw it away. It's a protective measure.
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
His Excellency (The Devil): Sometimes it looks as if the whole world is coming to Hell.
Henry Van Cleve: And it's a father's function to save his son from the mistakes he made.
Peggy Nash: And now you're a kind of a, mm... retired Casanova. You know it's always the same with men when they retire, some grow flowers and, uh... some grow a tummy.
Bertha Van Cleve: And when I find a girl for you, she'll be Miss Right. And you know where we'll find her? In the home of Mr. & Mrs. Right.
Henry Van Cleve: [voiceover] Here was a girl lying to her mother. Naturally that girl interested me at once.
Martha: If you don't change your attitude, I shall have to complain to your employer.
Henry Van Cleve: I'm not employed here. I'm not a book salesman. I took one look at you and followed you into the store. If you'd walked into a restaurant, I would have become a waiter. If you'd walked into a burning building, I would have become a fireman. If you'd walked into an elevator, I would have stopped it between two floors and we'd have spent the rest of our lives there. Please forgive me but you can't walk out of my life like that.
Henry Van Cleve: As a man grows older, his medicine cabinet grows bigger.
Albert Van Cleve: Marriage isn't a series of thrills. Marriage is a peaceful, well-balanced adjustment of two right-thinking people.
Martha: I'm afraid that's only too true.
Cluny Brown (1946)
Adam Belinski: In Hyde Park, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say nuts to the squirrels?
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: Why do people go to cocktail parties?
Andrew Carmel: Because people give cocktail parties.
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: Why do people give them?
John Frewen: Because people go to them.
Elizabeth 'Betty' Cream: It's a vicious circle... like perpetual motion.
