- Judy Garland: They hound people in this world. Anybody who's different. They can't stand it. Well, to hell with them.
- Louis B. Mayer: Your name is Frances Gumm. You're a fat-ankled, snag-toothed rube from Grand Rapids. Your father was a faggot, and your mother only cares about what I think of you. Now do you remember who you are, Judy?
- Judy Garland: [Drunk and dealing with a heckler] How am I supposed to do this up here with you harassing me like that down there? Why don't you come up here and you do the show? And I'll take the chair and do the fatuous back talk, you goddamn fucking baboon!
- Judy Garland: Two years ago. Tried to kill myself.
- Dr. Hargreaves: That won't have helped your voice.
- [first lines]
- Louis B. Mayer: What do you see beyond this wall? Picture it. You've got an imagination; go ahead. What I see is a small town in the Midwest. A handful of churches, somewhere for the farmers to get drunk together. Maybe a salon for their wives to do their hair on the holidays. I visit these places. These are the people who send us our profits. Who send us your wages. I make movies, Judy, but it's your job to give those people dreams. The economy is in the gutter, and they pay for you. And I'll tell you something else: In every one of those towns, believe me, there's a girl who's prettier than you. Maybe their nose is a little thinner at the bridge; they have better teeth than you; or they're taller, or slimmer. Only you have something none of those pretty girls can ever have. You know what that is?
- Young Judy: No, sir.
- Louis B. Mayer: You have that voice. It will maybe take you to Oz. Some place none of those pretty girls can ever go.
- Judy Garland: Do you... do you want to, ehm, get some dinner? I mean, if you're not doing anything?
- Stan: ...You mean with us?
- Judy Garland: Oh, I don't want to impose.
- Mickey Deans: Sweetheart, I already said I love you nine times today.
- Judy Garland: Well maybe I need ten or twelve, once an hour, like a cuckoo clock. Cuckoo! I love you!
- Rosalyn Wilder: Listen, it's fine, it's fine, we'll just have Lonnie Donegan perform.
- Judy Garland: Over my dead body!
- Rosalyn Wilder: If you don't want to do it...
- Judy Garland: It's my show! It's my name up there! No! Lonnie Donegan is a peach of a man. But he can go fuck himself if he thinks he's having my billing!
- Mickey Deans: [meeting at a party] You have to have ambitions, right?
- Judy Garland: Well, I used to have them. I found they gave me the most terrible headache.
- Mickey Deans: Have you ever had a crumpet? It's like a pancake that's had the living shit kicked out of it.