Night Song (1947)

Ethel Barrymore: Miss Willey

Quotes 

• Miss Willey : My heart's an old wastepaper basket, filled with unpaid bills and paperback novels.

• Miss Willey : My father always said a fishing rod had a hook at one end... and an idiot at the other.

  Chick : That's only when your old man went fishing.

• Miss Willey : [after being served the fresh-caught fish]  I think I'll fix some hamburger.

  Dan : Hamburger?

  Chick : You don't like fish?

  Cathy : She loves fish.

  Miss Willey : Not this particular fish. I can't eat it.

  Chick : Now what the matter with this fish? It's good fish.

  Dan : I caught it.

  Chick : And I cooked it.

  Miss Willey : But I met this fish this afternoon. I saw him swimming. He was alive and happy. I was an accessory before the fact of his death.

  Chick : She's kidding, of course.

  Miss Willey : This morning he had his life before him. Now he's lying on my plate, coated with cracker crumbs. I'm sorry, but I can't eat him.

  Chick : How can you eat that potata? It was torn out of the ground, peeled, and boiled before your very eyes.

  Dan : What about hamburger?

  Chick : Yes, you eat beef, don't you? They slaughter beef.

  Miss Willey : I don't witness the execution. I don't spend the afternoon with a cow.

  Chick : [Chick contemplates the fish on his fork, and hesitates to eat it] 

• Miss Willey : All he ever did was make a million dollars.

  Cathy : There are easier things to do. But, not as hard as what he wanted to do. He wanted to create something. He wanted to write music. You don't create a million dollars. You make it or steal it or earn it or - or trap it. Music, you've got to create. Then you've done something. However good or bad it is, it's yours. It means something and its beautiful.

  Miss Willey : Like a twenty dollar bill never is. Nobody despises money like rich people.

• Miss Willey : There's something obscene about music in the afternoon. People should be selling stocks or bonds or playing golf.

• Chick : So, you're Miss Willey.

  Miss Willey : You sound as if you're looking at the Washington Monument for the first time.

• Dan : I'll fix the drinks, what'll it be?

  Miss Willey : Can we have coffee?

  Dan : If you've got to.

  Cathy : I'd like some coffee too.

  Dan : Okay, I'll fix it.

  Miss Willey : No, I'll do it. No man ever made coffee for me and no man ever will. Where's the kitchen?

• Miss Willey : Describe him.

  Cathy : Well, I think he was tall. He had dark hair. His face was strong and very sad. He had marvelous fingers.

  Miss Willey : What did he think of you?

  Cathy : He was blind.

• Miss Willey : Tonight, I'm going to take a long hot bath and read a detective story. You can't think of what profound pleasure there is in such a prospect.

• Miss Willey : What happened with George?

  Cathy : Oh, he's an absolute 24 carat idiot.

  Miss Willey : About 18 carat, I think.

• Miss Willey : I wouldn't go if I were you. If I were you, you might wind up like me.

• Chick : What do you think of this blind man's bluff?

  Miss Willey : I haven't thought for 20 years.

• Cathy : Aunt Willey, what do you think I ought to do?

  Miss Willey : Just what you want to do.

  Cathy : Wish you wouldn't be so smug and full of worldly wisdom.

  Miss Willey : You're in love. I'm trying to humor you. It's a form of insanity.

• Cathy : [gets up from the piano]  Oh, don't be such a wise old ogre. I just can't make it sound as beautiful as it really is.

  Miss Willey : I'm your Aunt, which is a blood relationship. I also run this house. I don't want to be a nagging old crone. So, tell me and get it over with.

  Cathy : Hold on, darling.

  [goes back to play the piano] 

  Miss Willey : I'm not completely immunized of love's young dream.

• Miss Willey : You can't put salt and pepper in the same shaker.

• Miss Willey : The thing I like about coffee is that it keeps me awake. Nothing more ridiculous than lying unconscious on a bed. Besides, I have insomnia. I like to blame it on the coffee instead of my conscience.

• Cathy : What on earth are you trying to do?

  Miss Willey : Painting. I thought I might have a small whirl at; after all, I'm supposed to be an artist.

  Cathy : What is it supposed to represent?

  Miss Willey : You wouldn't dare say that in front of a Picasso. As a matter of fact, I started to paint Dan sitting at the piano and it turned out to be the piano sitting on Dan. No talent at all. No flair.