- Milt Manville: Look, El, now I've never told you this before; but I couldn't start school until I was 8 years old because I didn't have a pair of shoes to wear. Now, lucky for me, the kid downstairs got hit by an ice-cream truck and I got his shoes. But even then they were too tight for my feet. I couldn't walk. I was put into a special class for disabled children.
- Harry Berlin: Do you think that was bad? Whenever it snowed, my grandparents locked me out of the house. Skinny kid with a torn jacket, a paper bag for a hat, knocking and yelling, "Let me in, please let me in..."
- Milt Manville: Paradise! What did they used to feed you for breakfast?
- Harry Berlin: Glass, filled with two thirds water and one third milk.
- Milt Manville: Coffee grounds. That's what I got.
- Harry Berlin: With sugar.
- Milt Manville: Not on your life. I ate it straight, like oatmeal.
- Harry Berlin: Your old man ever beat you?
- Milt Manville: He did.
- Harry Berlin: With what?
- Milt Manville: A strap.
- Harry Berlin: [pointing to himself] A chain.
- Ellen Manville: [she chuckles] You were both lucky and you didn't know it.
- Harry Berlin: Lucky? Did anybody ever call you a "bastard"?
- Ellen Manville: A relative or a stranger?
- Harry Berlin: Relative.
- Milt Manville: I never even had a birthday party.
- Harry Berlin: I never even knew when my birthday was till I got a notice from my Draft Board.
- Milt Manville: What kind of presents did they used to give you for Christmas?
- Ellen Manville: [she scoffs] Presents?
- Harry Berlin: When I was 5 years old my grandparents bought a dozen donuts every Christmas till I was 17. I got a donut.
- Ellen Manville: I've always been lonely, Harry. You see, on the one had I possess a cold, calculating mind, sharp as a razor, incisive, penetrating, and men are afraid of that. It's a threat to their feelings of masculine superiority; my power of analysis, my photographic memory. They resent all that.
- Harry Berlin: Yeah. Well some men are like that.
- Ellen Manville: Ask me a question, Harry.
- Harry Berlin: Eh?
- Ellen Manville: Ask me a question.
- Harry Berlin: Um, how many states did Al Smith win in the election in 1928?
- Ellen Manville: In 1928, the presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith won eight states: Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
- Harry Berlin: You're right. I resent that.
- Ellen Manville: You see!