- Aunt Ellen: Well, if you three insist on holding a wake around here, you'd better get a corpse and do it right.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: We will start with the verbs, Mademoiselle. I will pronounce them in French and you will translate. Je vous aime.
- Betsy Patterson: I, eh, I love you.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Very good. Vous m'aimes.
- Betsy Patterson: You, eh, You love me.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Quite correct. Nous nous aimons.
- Betsy Patterson: We, eh, we love each other.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: That's perfect.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: When a calvary officer tells you a woman looks like a horse, he knows what he's talking about.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: What would you do if you were Queen?
- Betsy Patterson: And, eh, you were King?
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Yes.
- Betsy Patterson: I'd abdicate.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Remind me to have you beheaded.
- Pippin: Miss Betsy, I sure glad I belong to you.
- Betsy Patterson: You don't belong to me. The only person in the world you belong to is your Mamie.
- Pippin: Please, Miss Betsy! Can I belong to you, too?
- Betsy Patterson: All right. As long as your good.
- Pippin: Then I's always gonna be good.
- Betsy Patterson: Do you suppose that you could be quite impersonal - if I let you continue as my tutor?
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: mademoiselle, I shall be like ice.
- Betsy Patterson: Very well, like ice - and I shan't tolerate a thaw.
- Betsy Patterson: I believe I admire Napoleon more than any man in the world today.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Well, that's another thing you and Napoleon have in common.
- Aunt Ellen: Betsy's been seeing too much of this young nobody.
- Charles Patterson: Oh, poppycock. He's doing her a lot of good, whetting her thirst for knowledge.
- Aunt Ellen: But did you ever wonder about what?
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: [kisses Betsy, she pushes back] It's your own fault for being so adorable.
- Betsy Patterson: If I were a man, I'd thrash you.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: If you were a man, it wouldn't have happened.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Just picture sitting down to one banquet after another. I get indigestion thinking about it.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Any man should should be willing to lay down at least one stomach for his country.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: May I suggest that you send someone else's stomach.
- Betsy Patterson: Miss Patterson is still most annoyed. But, Betsy would like to have you stay.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Honest?
- Betsy Patterson: Honest. And, I'm sorry.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Sorry for what?
- Betsy Patterson: Sorry that you're - that you're so very annoying.
- Betsy Patterson: I'm not coaxing you.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Oh, Betsy. Betsy, you don't understand.
- Betsy Patterson: I understand! I've been cheap enough to beg you - and I'm sorry for that. It would have been much more courteous if you'd slapped my face!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: I've always said that there are three prerequisites to keeping a wife and winning a war: money, money, and money.
- Betsy Patterson: Miss him? I hope I never lay eyes on him again!
- Aunt Ellen: Darling, don't.
- Betsy Patterson: He's an impudent upstart!
- Aunt Ellen: Why, Betsy, dear.
- Betsy Patterson: A conceited nincompoop!
- Aunt Ellen: Don't get so excited.
- Betsy Patterson: And, not only that, he's a - he's a - well he - he's the sweetest person in - in the whole wide world.
- Aunt Ellen: You love him, don't you.
- Betsy Patterson: You don't think I could hate him this way if I didn't, do you?
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: [singing] Two lonely hearts divided, But, someday, those hearts shall beat as one, Two lonely hearts that need one another, As flowers need a sun, Two hearts that long for romance each night, Can't stay apart too long Two lonely hearts divided, Are singing love's own sweet song...
- Aunt Ellen: Betsy what's the matter?
- Betsy Patterson: Well, I'm quite well.
- Aunt Ellen: But, not happy. Ever since we returned to Baltimore you've been wretched.
- Betsy Patterson: Perhaps I miss Washington.
- Aunt Ellen: Be grateful for memories. Believe an old spinster.
- Betsy Patterson: But, I'm not old, Aunt Ellen. I'm young. I don't want memories. I want - life!
- Betsy Patterson: You've taught me something I never want to forget.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: What's that?
- Betsy Patterson: That it takes two people to moon shined up and the stars polished and the wind in tune and the world waltzing. It's too big an undertaking for me alone. They get - dull and flat and limpy.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: I'm not asking you. I'm begging. Begging. Understand?
- Betsy Patterson: You, the great Napoleon, begging me?
- Napoleon Bonaparte: What is a patriot?
- Betsy Patterson: First, a dreamer, an unselfish dreamer. Then, an idealist. A man of action. Well, a man to be admired.
- Captain Jerome Bonaparte: Oh, darling, would you mind not being a little fool. Whether I splash around in my brother's Navy or teach you to parse verbs you can't remember, has nothing to do with the fact that I love you.
- John: You can't go on living in the past.
- Betsy Patterson: We had so little in the past. Everything was in the future.
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