Memorable quotes for
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

Maggie Cutler: Sherry, the next time you do NOT want to see anybody, just let me know, and I'll usher them right in.

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Sheridan Whiteside: Banjo, my lad, you're wonderful. I may write a book about you.
Banjo: Don't bother, I can't read!

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Banjo: Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, and still have the feeling that you wanted to stay?

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Beverly Carlton: I have very little time, and so the conversation will be entirely about me and I shall love it.

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Sheridan Whiteside: And now, will you all now leave quietly, or must I ask Miss Cutler to pass among you with a baseball bat?

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Sheridan Whiteside: My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102, and when she had been dead three days, she looked better than you do now.

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Sheridan Whiteside: [opening a box of candy] Ah, pecan butternut fudge!
Nurse Preen: Oh, my, you mustn't eat candy, Mr. Whiteside, it's very bad for you.
Sheridan Whiteside: My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102 and when she'd been dead three days she looked better than you do *now!*

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Nurse Preen: I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside, I am leaving the nursing profession. I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you , Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory. From now on , anything I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure. If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed YOU, Mr. Whiteside, she would have married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross!

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Maggie Cutler: You know, Sheridan, you have one great advantage over everyone else in the world. You've never had to meet Sheridan Whiteside.

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Sheridan Whiteside: Strange? She's right out of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

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Sheridan Whiteside: Go in and read the life of Florence Nightingale and learn how unfitted you are for your chosen profession.

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Sheriden Whiteside: Will you take your clammy hand off my chair? You have the touch of a love-starved cobra.

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Sheridan Whiteside: This ageing debutante, Mr. Jefferson, I retain in my employ only because she is the sole support of her two-headed brother!

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Sheridan Whiteside: I simply will not sit down to dinner with midwestern barbarians, I think too highly of my digestive system.
Maggie Cutler: Harry Clarke is one of your oldest friends.
Sheridan Whiteside: My stomach is an older one.
Maggie Cutler: And Mrs. Stanley is president of the women's club.
Sheridan Whiteside: I wouldn't care if she was the whole cabinet.

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Sheridan Whiteside: Get your fish-hooks off me!

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Sheridan Whiteside: Is there a man in the world who suffers as I do from the gross inadequacies of the human race?

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Sheridan Whiteside: I suppose you've written the great American novel.
Bertram H. 'Bert' Jefferson: No, I've written the great American play.
Sheridan Whiteside: Well I don't want to read it.

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Bertram H. 'Bert' Jefferson: How do you think Ohio women stack up?
Sheriden Whiteside: I've never gone in for stacking women up so I really can't say.

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Banjo: [to Nurse Preen] I can feel the hot blood pounding through your varicose veins.

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Banjo: [lasciviously to Nurse Preen] Come to my room in a half hour and bring some rye bread.

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Nurse Preen: Mr. Whiteside, I can only be in one place at a time.
Sheridan Whiteside: That's very fortunate for this community.

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Sheridan Whiteside: How long can you stay?
Banjo: Just long enough to take a bath.

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Beverly Carlton: How can one man possibly be as clever as I am?

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