The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

Charles Coburn: John P. Merrick

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Quotes 

• Merrick : I have a seventh sense.

  Elizabeth : You mean a sixth sense.

  Merrick : I mean a seventh sense. I have a sixth and seventh sense.

• Merrick : I don't remember when I've ever disliked anyone as heartily as I do him. And I've disliked quite a few people in my time, to their misfortune.

• Mary Jones : Just forget all about it.

  Merrick : I'm an elephant, Miss Jones, a veritable elephant. I never forget a good deed done me or an *ill* one. I consider myself a kind of divine justice. Other people in this world have to forget things. I do not.

  Mary Jones : Now, don't talk like your out of your mind and don't be blasphemous about 'divine justice'.

• Merrick : You bubble-witted idiot!

• Mary Jones : Don't you feel badly. He'll get his just desserts one of these days.

  Merrick : I'd like to be as certain of the hereafter, Miss Jones.

• Merrick : If I'm not sick by tonight, or tomorrow at the latest, my fancy Doctor Schindler from Vienna, will wish he was back in Vienna.

• Mary Jones : I can't understand how you've never eaten in an automat before.

  Merrick : I never thought of it. I could sue them, getting my finger caught like that.

  Mary Jones : Well, I don't know. I've been eating there for years. I never heard of anybody getting their fingers caught before. Say, tell me the truth, was the manager right, did you try to get that blueberry pie without putting in a nickel?

  Merrick : You too. I tell you I *did* put in a nickel. But, I went to get coffee and somebody must have sneaked the pie out.

• Joe O'Brien : Now, here's a bottle of wine that's really a bottle of wine! This was made by our iceman's grandfather. Same as he used to do in the old country.

  [pouring wine into paper cups] 

  Joe O'Brien : He puts the grapes in the bathtub and he jumps on 'em. I saw him do it.

  [drinks] 

  Joe O'Brien : Ah, real jumped on grapes, huh?

  Merrick : Why didn't he take his socks off?

• Merrick : I've got a very weak stomach.

  Elizabeth : You put your stomach in my hands.

• Merrick : Now, look around us. There's a couple over there. They think they were made for each other. He's biting her ear. Now, she's biting his ear. Very touching.

  Mary Jones : I think so.

  Merrick : They've found each other, haven't they? Out of this whole wide world, these two were lucky enough to come together. But, don't you think, if she hadn't met him, there wouldn't be somebody else biting her ear now? And don't you think he would be at some other girl's ear - probably 10 feee away?

  Mary Jones : Maybe. But that doesn't prove anything.

• Merrick : Hey, you little gutter-snipe! Why don't you look where you're going?

• Mary Jones : I don't say Joe's the greatest thing that ever lived. I probably wouldn't love him if he was. I'd just want to look at him. But, you see, I'm not the greatest girl in the world either. Two people look at each other and they see something way deep inside, that nobody else can. And that's it. I wouldn't be surprised if the greatest love affair in the world was between a Chinaman wearing a pigtail and a girl whose missing two front teeth. If you could measure it. If they feel it, they feel it.

  Merrick : Do you?

  Mary Jones : Not the way you see in the movies or hear in those songs, you know, about the touch of your hand, you set me on fire. I guess I'm not the combustible type.

• Merrick : Elizabeth, I wonder if you'd care - for the real me?

  Elizabeth : I think I know the real you.

  Merrick : I may not be exactly as I appear on the surface.

  Elizabeth : But, no one's really perfect. I'm not.

• Merrick : Is this the way you discharge your responsibility? Can't you understand that dealing people the way you do is the reason for this civil war around here? I've worked with these people. They have rights!

• Merrick : How many bathhouses are there around here?

  Attendant at Third Bath House : A couple a hundred.

  Merrick : A couple a hundred?