Limelight Quotes

Terry: If all else fails, there's always that little home in the country.

Calvero: This is my home, here.

Terry: I thought you hated the theater.

Calvero: I do. I also hate the sight of blood, but it's in my veins.

Terry: I'm sorry.

Calvero: You should be. A young girl like you wanting to throw your life away. Heh! When you are my age you want to hang onto it.

Terry: Worms can't smile!

Calvero: Oh, how would you know, have you ever appealed to their sense of humour?

Terry: Of course not.

Calvero: Well then!

Calvero: I believe I'm dying, doctor. Maybe, I don't know. I've died so many times.

Dr. Blake - Calvero's Doctor: Are you in pain?

Calvero: No more.

[last lines]

Calvero: Where is she? I want to see her dance.

Postant: Bring the - bring the coach into the wings.

Dr. Blake - Calvero's Doctor: I must see about that ambulance.

Calvero: How do I look?

Terry: [can see he was drinking] Funny.

Calvero: I know what you're thinking, my health and all that. But there's a creamy white light going on and off inside.

Terry: Is it really worth it?

Calvero: Not that I care for success, but I don't want another failure.

[as Terry dances, Calvero prays behind the stage]

Calvero: Whoever you are, whatever it is, just keep her going. That's all. Keep her...

[sees someone staring at him]

Calvero: I've lost a button.

Mrs. Alsop: She's not going back to her old room!

Calvero: Well then, she'll just have to stay where she is.

Mrs. Alsop: What? And scandalize my whole household?

Calvero: What's the difference? We could be man and wife for all anyone knows.

Mrs. Alsop: Oh, could you? Well, you'd better not be. You'd better get rid of her and quick too. Man and wife! You watch out for that hussy. She's no good.

Calvero: We'll have to get you well! It isn't the ideal spot for convalescing, but you're welcome to it. That is, if you can put up with being Mrs. Calvero. Of course, in name only!

Terry: Won't it inconvenience you?

Calvero: Not at all! I've had five wives already, one more or less makes no difference to me. Moreover, I've arrived at the age where a platonic friendship can be sustained on the highest moral plane.

Terry: What is there to fight for?

Calvero: Ah, you see, you admit it. What is there to fight for? Everything! Life itself, isn't that enough? To be lived, suffered, enjoyed! What is there to fight for? Life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish. Huh, what is there to fight for? Besides, you - you have your art, your dancing!

Terry: I can't dance without legs!

Calvero: I know a man without arms who can play a scherzo on a violin and does it all with his toes. The trouble is you won't fight! You've given in, continually dwelling on sickness and death. But - there's something just as inevitable as death, and that's life. Life, life, life! Think of the power that's in the universe, moving the earth, growing the trees. That's the same power within you if you only have courage and the will to use it!

Calvero: The same Terry.

Terry: Am I?

Calvero: A little more grown-up, that's all.

Terry: I don't want to grow up.

Calvero: None of us do.

Terry: Calvero, come back. You've got to come back.

Calvero: I can't. I must go forward. That's progress.

Bodalink: Believe it or not, she's going to marry him.

Postant: That old reprobate? Bless my soul. There's hope for me yet.

Terry: Why didn't you let me die?

Calvero: Are you in pain? That's all that matters. The rest is fantasy. Billions of years it's taken to evolve human consciousness and you want to wipe it out. Wipe out the miracle of all existence. More important than anything in the whole universe! What can the stars do? Nothing! But sit on their axis! And the sun, shooting flames 280,000 miles high. So what? Wasting all its natural resources. Can the sun think? Is it conscious? No, but you are!

[notices Terry has fallen asleep]

Calvero: Pardon me, my mistake.

Mrs. Alsop: [sees Terry asleep on Calvero's bed] So this is how she spends her evenings. You take your hands off me! What's that woman doing in your room?

Calvero: Just the opposite of what *you* think.

Calvero: You have a leaking gas pipe.

Mrs. Alsop: I have a *what*?

Calvero: I mean, that room has a leaking gas pipe.

Calvero: Now let me see, your mother was a dressmaker and your father a Lord?

Terry: The fourth son of a Lord. That's quite different.

Calvero: How is it that he married your mother?

Terry: She was one of the family housemaids.

Calvero: Sounds like a novelette!

Calvero: [dream sequence, performing on stage] I don't know you? Who are you? Who are your people? Are you in the social register?

Terry: My name happens to be Smith.

Calvero: Never heard of them.

Terry: That shows you're asinine.

Calvero: I should have worn my overcoat.

Terry: [Calvero sneezes as part of his act on stage] Gezundheit!

Calvero: It certainly does.

Terry: I beg your pardon?

Calvero: The dress. It goes on tight.

Calvero: At this stage of the game life gets to be a habit.

Terry: A hopeless one.

Calvero: Then live without hope. Live for the moment. There are still - there are still - there are still wonderful moments.

Terry: What a sad business, being funny.

Calvero: Very sad if they won't laugh. But it's a thrill when they do. To look out there and see them all laughing, to hear that roar go up, waves of laughter coming at you.

Calvero: I want to forget the public.

Terry: Never. You love them too much.

Calvero: I'm not so sure. Maybe I love them, but I don't admire them.

Terry: I think you do.

Calvero: As individuals, yes. There's greatness in everyone. But as a crowd, they're like a monster without a head that never knows which way it's going to turn. It can be prodded in any direction.

Calvero: What did you do?

Terry: I just ran and wept. Ran and wept.

Calvero: Then what happened?

Terry: I tried to forget.

Terry: I'd despise myself if I thought that.

Calvero: That's the trouble, you do. That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.

Mrs. Alsop: Just the man I want to see.

Calvero: How thrilling!

Calvero: Sybil, you really want to hurt me, don't you? You little minx.

Mrs. Alsop: Behave yourself!

Calvero: We're just having a little beer, Bach and Beethoven, as it were.

Terry: Isn't it rather late for music?

Calvero: Not if we play a nocturne.

[to the band]

Calvero: Proceed with the butchery, only make it soft, sentimental, largo.

Neville: I finally have the chance to talk to you and I have nothing to say.

Terry: What is more eloquent than silence?

Terry: I'm scared. Pray for me.

Calvero: God helps those who help themselves.

Terry: You've joined the army?

Neville: On the contrary, the army joined me. I was drafted.

Terry: Oh, that's awful.

Neville: I agree. It's carrying the war too far.

Terry: Something's gone. Gone forever.

Calvero: Nothing's gone, it only changes.

Calvero's Partner: If anybody else says it's like old times, I'll jump out the window. First, the doorman. Then, the call boy. Now, the stage manager.

Postant: [knocks at the door, walks in] It's me, Postant. Well, it's like old times seeing you here again, putting on your war paint.

Postant: Yes, like old times. In those days you were drunk, instead of sober.

Calvero: I'm supposed to be funnier when I'm drunk.

Postant: Maybe, but, you were killing yourself.

Calvero: You know what they say, anything for a laugh.

Calvero: How's the house?

Postant: Packed to the rafters. Every face card in Europe's out there. Kings, Queens, Jacks.

Terry: Are you all right?

Calvero: Of course. I'm an old weed. The more I'm cut down, the more I spring up again.