Rear Window Quotes

Lt. Doyle : Lars Thorwald... is no more a murderer than I am.
Jeff : [ stunned ] You mean that you can explain everything strange that has been going on over there, and is still going on?
Lt. Doyle : No, and neither can you. That's a secret private world your looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private they couldn't possibly explain in public.
Lisa : Like killing their wives?
Lt. Doyle : Get that idea out of your head. It will only lead you in the wrong direction.

Movie: Rear Window
Stella : Every man's ready to get married when the right girl comes along.

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Stella : I can hear you now: "Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You're too good for me."

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Lt. Doyle : You didn't see the killing or the body. How do you know there was a murder?
Jeff : Because everything this fellow's done has been suspicious: trips at night in the rain, knifes, saws, trunks with rope, and now this wife that isn't there anymore.
Lt. Doyle : I admit it does have a mysterious sound. But it could be any number of things for the wife disappearing. Murder is the least part.
Jeff : Now, Doyle, don't tell me that he's just an unemployed magician amusing the neighborhood with his sleight of hand. Don't tell me that.

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[ first lines ]
Voice on radio : Men, are you over 40? When you wake up in the morning, do you feel tired and rundown? Do you have that listless feeling... [ the camera pans around the courtyard; cut to later in the day ]
Jeff : [ answering phone ] Jefferies.
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : Congratulations, Jeff!
Jeff : For what?
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : For getting rid of that cast!
Jeff : Who said I was getting rid of it?
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : This is Wednesday; seven weeks from the day you broke your leg. Yes or no?
Jeff : Gunnison, how did you ever get to be such a big editor with such a small memory?
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : By thrift, industry, and hard work... and, uh, catching the publisher with his secretary. Did I get the wrong day?
Jeff : No... no, wrong week. *Next* Wednesday I emerge from this plaster cocoon.

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Jeff : I get myself half killed for you and you reward me by stealing my assignments.
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : I didn't ask you to stand in the middle of that automobile racetrack.
Jeff : You asked for a, something dramatically different. You got it.
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : So did you.

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L.B. Jefferies' Editor : It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome and bitter old man.
Jeff : Yeah, can't you just see me, rushing home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal and the nagging wife...
L.B. Jefferies' Editor : Jeff, wives don't nag anymore. They discuss.
Jeff : Oh, is that so, is that so? Well, maybe in the high-rent district they discuss. In my neighborhood they still nag.

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Stella : The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the workhouse.
Jeff : Oh, hello, Stella.
Stella : And they got no windows in the workhouse.

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Stella : You heard of that market crash in '29? I predicted that.
Jeff : Oh, just how did you do that, Stella?
Stella : Oh, simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said. Nerves, I said. And I asked myself, "What's General Motors got to be nervous about?" Overproduction, I says; collapse. When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go.

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Jeff : She's too perfect, she's too talented, she's too beautiful, she's too sophisticated, she's too everything but what I want.
Stella : Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?

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Stella : When I married Miles, we were both a couple of maladjusted misfits. We are still maladjusted misfits, and we have loved every minute of it.

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Jeff : Would you fix me a sandwich, please?
Stella : Yes, I will. And I'll spread a little common sense on the bread.

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[ describing a dress ]
Lisa : A steal at $1,100.
Jeff : Eleven hundred? They ought to list that dress on the stock exchange.

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Jeff : She's like a queen bee with her pick of the drones.
Lisa : I'd say she's doing a woman's hardest job: juggling wolves.

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Jeff : She sure is the "eat, drink and be merry" girl.
Stella : Yeah, she'll wind up fat, alcoholic and miserable.

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Stella : Maybe one day she'll find her happiness.
Jeff : Yeah, some man'll lose his.

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Jeff : I just can't figure it. He went out several times last night in the rain carrying his sample case.
Stella : Well, he's a salesman, isn't he?
Jeff : Well, what would he be selling at three o'clock in the morning?
Stella : Flashlights. Luminous dials for watches. House numbers that light up.

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Stella : He's gonna run out on her, the coward.
Jeff : Sometimes it's worse to stay than it is to run.

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Lt. Doyle : Jeff, you've got a lot to learn about homicide. Why, morons have committed murders so shrewdly that it's taken a hundred trained police minds to catch them.

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Jeff : Are you interested in solving this case or in making me look foolish?
Lt. Doyle : Well, if possible, both.
Jeff : Well then, do a good job of it. Go over there and search Thorwald's apartment. The whole place must be knee-deep in evidence.
Lt. Doyle : I can't do that.
Jeff : No, I mean not right now. Just wait for a while until he goes out later for drink or a paper or something. What he doesn't know woun't hurt him.
Lt. Doyle : I can't do that even if he isn't there.
Jeff : Why not? Does he have a curtesy card from the local police department?
Lt. Doyle : Now don't get me angry. This is America. Not even a detective can just walk into an apartment and search it. Why personaly, if I was caught in there, they'd have my badge within 10 minutes.
Jeff : Then make sure you don't get caught, that's all. If you find something, you have a murder. They'd probaly not care very much about a few broken house rules. If you don't find anything, the fellow's clear.

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Jeff : What do you need as evidence? Bloody footprints leading up to his door?
Lt. Doyle : One thing I don't need is heckling. You called me and asked for help. Now you're behaving like a taxpayer.
Jeff : You know by tomorrow morning, there may not be any evidence left in that apartment, you know that?
Lt. Doyle : A detective's worst nightmare.

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Lisa : Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that?
Jeff : He gets it from the landlady once a month.

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Lt. Doyle : What do you say we all sit down and have a nice friendly drink too, hmm? Forget all about this. We can tell lies about the good old days during the war.
Lisa : So that's it? You're through with the case?
Lt. Doyle : There is no case to be solved. There never was.

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Lt. Doyle : Oh, Jeff, if you need any more help, consult the yellow pages in your telephone directory.
Lisa : Oh, I love funny exit lines.

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Lisa : Why would Thorwald want to kill a little dog? Because it knew too much?

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Stella : [ to Lisa ] You haven't spent much time around cemeteries, have you?

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Lisa : Well, if there's one thing I know, it's how to wear the proper clothes.

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[ last lines ]
Newlywed woman : ...but if you'd told me you quit your job, we wouldn't have gotten married.
Newlywed man : Oh, honey, come on.

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Detective : [ referring to what was buried in Thorwald's flower bed ] It's over in his apartment. In a hat box. Wanna look?
Stella : Oh, no thanks - I don't want any part of her.

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Jeff : [ shivering as cold alcohol is poured on his back before a rubdown ] Say, don't you ever heat that stuff up?
Stella : Aw, it gives your system something to fight against.

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