Quotes

Dialogue

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening around 8:30? He'll be in then. Walter: Who? Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him, weren't you? Walter: Yes, I was. But I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean. Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour. Walter: How fast was I going, officer? Phyllis: I'd say around ninety. Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket. Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time. Walter: Suppose it doesn't take. Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles. Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder. Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder. Walter: That tears it. 8:30 tomorrow evening, then. Phyllis: That's what I suggested. Walter: You'll be here too? Phyllis: I guess so. I usually am. Walter: Same chair, same perfume, same anklet? Phyllis: I wonder if I know what you mean. Walter:

Dialogue

Keyes: I'm the guy that has to sit here up to my neck in phony claims so they won't throw more money out the window than they take in at the door. Walter: Okay, turn the record over and let's hear the other side. Keyes: Well, I get darn sick of tryin' to pick up after a gang of fast-talking salesmen dumb enough to sell life insurance to a guy who sleeps in the same bed with four rattlesnakes. Walter, I've had twenty-six years of this and let me tell ya, I - Walter: And you loved every minute of it, Keyes. You love it, only you worry about it too darn much, you and your little man. You're so darn conscientious you're driving yourself crazy. You wouldn't even say today's Tuesday unless you looked at the calendar. Then, you'd check to see if it was this year's or last year's calendar. Then you'd find out who'd printed the calendar and find out if their calendar checked with the World Almanac's Calendar. Keyes: Now that's enough out of you, Walter. Now get outta here before I throw my desk

Dialogue

Walter: Look, baby. You can't get away with it. You want to knock him off, don't ya? Phyllis: That's a horrible thing to say. Walter: Whaddya think I was anyway? A guy that walks into a good-looking dame's front parlor and says, 'Good afternoon. I sell accident insurance on husbands. Have you got one that's been around too long? One you'd like to turn into a little hard cash? Just give me a smile and I'll help you collect?' Huh! Boy, what a dope you must think I am! Phyllis: I think you're rotten. Walter: I think you're swell. So long as I'm not your husband. Phyllis: Get out of here. Walter: You bet I'll get out of here, baby. I'll get out of here but quick.

Dialogue

Walter: And now you hate him. Phyllis: Yes, Walter. He's so mean to me. Every time I buy a dress or a pair of shoes, he yells his head off. He never lets me go anywhere. He keeps me shut up. He's always been mean to me. Even his life insurance all goes to that daughter of his. That Lola. Walter: Nothing for you at all, huh? Phyllis: No, and nothing is just what I'm worth to him. Walter: So you lie awake in the dark and listen to him snore and get ideas. Phyllis: Walter, I don't want to kill him. I never did. Not even when he gets drunk and slaps my face. Walter: Only sometimes you wish he was dead. Phyllis: Perhaps I do. Walter: And you wish it was an accident and you had that policy for $50,000 dollars. Is that it? Phyllis: Perhaps that too.

Dialogue

Phyllis: I hate him. I loathe going back to him. You believe me, don't you, Walter? Walter: Sure I believe you. [They kiss] Phyllis: I can't stand it anymore. What if they did hang me? Walter: They're not going to hang you, baby. Phyllis: It's better than going on this way. Walter: They're not gonna hang you because you're gonna do it and I'm gonna help you. Phyllis: Do you know what you're saying? Walter: Sure I know what I'm saying. We're gonna do it and we're gonna do it right. And I'm the guy that knows how. There's not going to be any slip up. Nothing sloppy, nothing weak, it's gotta be perfect. [They kiss each other and then he leads her toward the door] Call me tomorrow. But not from your house. From a booth. And watch your step every single minute. This has gotta be perfect, do ya understand? Straight down the line. Phyllis: Straight down the line.

Dialogue

Phyllis: What do we do now, Walter? Walter: Nothing. We just wait. Phyllis: Wait for what? Walter: Until he can take the train. I told you, it's gotta be the train. Phyllis: But we can't wait. I can't go on like this. Walter: Look, we're not gonna grab a hammer and do it quick just to get it over with. Phyllis: There are other ways. Walter: We're not gonna do it other ways. Phyllis: But we can't leave it like this. What do you suppose would happen if he found out about the accident policy? Walter: Plenty, but not as bad as sitting in that death house. Phyllis: Don't ever talk like that. Walter: Don't let's start losing our heads, that's all. Phyllis: It's not our heads. It's our nerve we're losing. Walter: We're gonna do it right. That's all I said. Phyllis: It's the waiting that's getting me. Walter: It's getting me just as bad, baby. We've got to wait. Phyllis: Maybe we have, Walter, only it's so tough without you. It's like a wall between us. Walter: I better go, baby. I'm thinkin'

Dialogue

Keyes: How would you like a fifty dollar cut in salary? Walter: How would I -- Do I laugh now, or wait until it gets funny? Keyes: I'm serious, Walter. I've been talking to Norton. There's too much stuff piling up on my desk. Too much pressure on my nerves. I spend half the night walking up and down in my bed. I've got to have an assistant. I thought that you... Walter: Me? Why pick on me? Keyes: Because I've got a crazy idea you might be good at the job. Walter: That's crazy all right. I'm a salesman. Keyes: Yeah. A peddler, a glad-hander, a back-slapper. You're too good to be a salesman. Walter: Nobody's too good to be a salesman. Keyes: Phooey. All you guys do is ring doorbells and dish out a smooth line of monkey talk. What's bothering you is that fifty buck cut, isn't it? Walter: That'd bother anybody. Keyes: Look, Walter. The job I'm talking about takes brains and integrity. It takes more guts than there is in fifty salesman. It's the hottest job in the business. Walter: It's sti

Dialogue

Keyes: You know, you, uh, oughta take a look at the statistics on suicide some time. You might learn a little something about the insurance business. Norton: Mister Keyes, I was raised in the insurance business. Keyes: Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Why they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by types of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth; suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from steamboats. But, Mr. Norton, of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap from the rear end of a moving train. And you know how fast that train was going at the p

Dialogue

Walter: Afraid, baby? Phyllis: Yes, I'm afraid. But not of Keyes. I'm afraid of us. We're not the same anymore. We did it so we could be together but instead of that, it's pulling us apart, isn't it, Walter? Walter: What are you talking about? Phyllis: And you don't really care whether we see each other or not. Walter: [kissing her] Shut up, baby.

Dialogue

Phyllis: [about Lola] She's putting on an act for you, crying all over your shoulder, that lying... Walter: Keep her out of this. All I'm telling you is, we're not going to sue. Phyllis: Because you don't want the money any more even if you could have it, because she's made you feel like a heel all of a sudden? Walter: It isn't the money any more. It's our necks. We're pulling out. Do you understand? Phyllis: Because of what Keyes can do? You're not fooling me, Walter. It's because of Lola. What you did to her father. You're afraid she might find out someday and you can't take it, can you? Walter: I said, 'Leave her out of this.' Phyllis: It's me I'm talking about. I don't want to be left out of it. Walter: Stop saying that. It's just that it hasn't worked out as we wanted. We can't go through with it, that's all. Phyllis: We have gone through with it, Walter. The tough part is all behind us. We just have to hold on now and not go soft inside. Stick close together the way we started ou

Dialogue

Walter: Sometimes people are where they can't talk. Under six feet of dirt maybe. And if it was you, they'd charge that up to Zachetti too, wouldn't they? Sure they would. And that's just what's gonna happen, baby. Cause he's coming here tonight in about 15 minutes - with the cops right behind him. It's all taken care of. Phyllis: That would make everything lovely for you, wouldn't it? Walter: Right. And it's got to be done before that suit of yours comes to trial and Lola gets a chance to sound off. Before they trip you up in the stand and you start to go under and drag me down with ya. Phyllis: Maybe I had Zachetti here so they won't get a chance to trip me up so we can get the money and be together. Walter: That's cute. Say it again. Phyllis: He came here first, asked where Lola was. I made him come back. I was working on him. He's a crazy sort of guy. Quick-tempered. I kept hammering into him that she was with another man so he'd go into one of his jealous rages and then I'd tell h

Dialogue

Walter: [after Phyllis shoots a gun at him, missing him] You can do better than that, can't you, baby? You'd better try it again. Maybe if I came a little closer? How's this? Think you can do it now? [She lowers her gun, trembling. He takes the gun] Why didn't you shoot again, baby? Don't tell me it's because you've been in love with me all this time. Phyllis: [crying] No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That's all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot. I never thought that could happen to me. Walter: Sorry, baby, I'm not buying. Phyllis: I'm not asking you to buy. Just hold me close. [she hugs him, but then draws back when she feels the gun against her] Walter: Good-bye baby. [He shoots her]

Dialogue

Walter: Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya. Keyes: Closer than that, Walter. Walter: I love you, too.