Breakfast at Tiffany's Quotations

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 film based on the novella of the same title.

Directed by Blake Edwards. Written by Truman Capote (novel) and George Axelrod (screenplay).

Audrey Hepburn plays that daring, darling Holly Golightly to a new high in entertainment delight!

Holly Golightly

It should take you exactly four seconds to cross from here to that door. I'll give you two.

But I am mad about Jose. I honestly think I'd give up smoking if he asked me.

You could always tell what kind of a person a man thinks you are by the earrings he gives you. I must say, the mind reels.

Quel rat!

There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion.

But oh golly! Gee damn!

I've got to do something about the way I look. I mean a girl just can't go to Sing Sing with a green face.

We're alike, me and cat. A couple of poor nameless slobs.

I'm the top banana of the shock department!

[to Paul] Ahh... Do I detect a look of disapproval in your eye? Tough beans buddy, 'cause that's the way it's gonna be.

Paul Varjak

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

I don't think I've ever drunk champagne before breakfast before. With breakfast on several occasions, but never before, before.

And I always heard people in New York never get to know their neighbors.

You're a stylish girl, can't we end this stylishly?

Dialogue

Doc: I love you Lula Mae.

Holly: I know you do, and that's just the trouble. It's the mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing. You were always lugging home wild things. Once it was a hawk with a broken wing... and another time it was a full-grown wildcat with a broken leg. Remember?

Doc: Lula Mae there's something...

Holly: You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky.

Paul: They're not the kind of stories you can really tell.

Holly: Too dirty?

Paul: Yeah, I suppose they're dirty, too, but only incidentally. Mainly they're angry, sensitive, intensely felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words - promising. Or so said The Times Book Review, October 1, 1956.

Holly: What do you do, anyway?

Paul: I'm a writer, I guess.

Holly: You guess? Don't you know?

Paul: OK, positive statement. Ringing affirmative. I'm a writer.

Paul: I love you.

Holly: So what.

Paul: So what? So plenty! I love you, you belong to me!

Holly: [tearfully] No. People don't belong to people.

Paul: Of course they do!

Holly: I'll never let ANYBODY put me in a cage.

Paul: I don't want to put you in a cage, I want to love you!

O.J.: Hey, Fred-baby!

Paul: No, no. It's Paul-baby.

Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?

Paul: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?

Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

Paul: Sure.

Holly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

Holly: Thursday! It can't be! It's too gruesome!

Paul: What's so gruesome about Thursday?

Holly: Nothing, except I can never remember when it's coming up.

Holly: Did I tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am?

Paul: Yes.

Holly: I'll tell you one thing, Fred, darling... I'd marry you for your money in a minute. Would you marry me for my money?

Paul: In a minute.

Holly: I guess it's pretty lucky neither of us is rich, huh?

Paul: Yeah.

Holly: He's all right! Aren't you, cat? Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven't got the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's.

Paul: Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry store.

Holly: That's right. I'm just CRAZY about Tiffany's!

Quoternity