Quotes

The Music Man

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Marian Paroo: No, please, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
Harold Hill: Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.
Marian Paroo: Oh, so would I.

[in song]
Marian Paroo: Do you think that I'd allow a common masher - ? Now, really, Mama. I have my standards where men are concerned and I have no intention...
Mrs. Paroo: I know all about your standards and if you don't mind my sayin' so there's not a man alive who could hope to measure up to that blend of Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat, and Noah Webster you've concocted for yourself out of your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness, and your li'berry full of books!

Mayor Shinn: You watch your phraseology!

[in song]
Citizens of River City: So what the heck? You're welcome! Join us at the picnic! You can eat your fill of all the food you bring yourself.

Harold Hill: I always think there's a band, kid.

[On Marion's choosiness when it comes to men]
Mrs. Paroo: It's a well-known principle that if you keep the flint in one drawer and the steel in the other, you'll never strike much of a fire.

Tommy Djilas: Mayor Shinn, Your Honor, your daughter and I have been going steady behind your back.
Mayor Shinn: What?
Tommy Djilas: We'd rather be doing it in front of your back.
Mayor Shinn: Doing what?
Tommy Djilas: Well...
Mayor Shinn: Never mind!

Charlie Cowell: Don't believe I caught your name.
Harold Hill: Don't believe I *dropped* it.

Mrs. Shinn: Now, George!
Mayor Shinn: Not one poop out of you, Madame!
Mrs. Shinn: [turning to Zaneeta] I think he means "peep"!
Mayor Shinn: [looks back] *Yes!*

Marian Paroo: The librarian hasn't felt much like doing research lately, but she did plenty when you first came here.
Harold Hill: What about?
Marian Paroo: Professor Harold Hill. Gary Conservatory of Music, gold medal class of '05. Harold, there wasn't any Gary Conservatory of Music in '05.
Harold Hill: Why, there most certainly w...
Marian Paroo: Because the town wasn't even built until '06. I tore this page out of an Indiana Journal. I was going to use it against you, but now I give to you with all my heart.

Zaneeta: It's indecent to meet boys at the footbridge!
Tommy Djilas: First thing after supper?
Zaneeta: All right! Ye Gods!

[in song]
Mrs. Paroo: When a woman's got a husband, and you've got none, why should she take advice from you? Even if you can quote Balzac and Shakespeare and all them other high-falutin' Greeks.

[in song]
Alma Hix: Oh yes, that woman made brazen overtures, with a gilt-edge guarantee / She had a golden glint in her eye and a silver voice with a counterfeit ring / Just melt her down and you'll reveal / a lump of lead as cold as steel / Here, where a woman's heart should be.

Harold Hill: [Marian and Winthrop are urging the Professor to leave before the crowd arrives] I can't go, Winthrop.
Winthrop Paroo: Why not?
Harold Hill: Well, for the first time in my life, I got my *foot* caught in the door.

Marcellus Washburn: Thar she blows.
Harold Hill: [winces] Well, I'll do it, but I won't like it.
Marcellus Washburn: [amused] No, that's not the librarian. That's Mrs. Shinn, the mayor's wife.

Harold Hill: Mothers of River City, heed that warning before it's too late! Watch for the telltale signs of corruption! The minute your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime-novel hidden in the corncrib? Is he starting to memorize jokes from Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang? Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words like "swell" and "so's your old man"? If so my friends, ya got trouble!

Harold Hill: Ladies and gentlemen, either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community!

Harold Hill: So now I'm back at the old stand.
Marcellus Washburn: Not boys' bands? Well, ain't no call for a boys' band in this town. Anything these Iowa people don't have already, they do without.

[in song]
Harold Hill: I cheer, and I rave, for the virtue I'm too late to save, the sadder but wiser girl for me... I smile, I grin when the gal with a touch of sin walks in / I hope and I pray for Hester to win just one more "A" / The sadder but wiser girl's the girl for me / The sadder but wiser girl for me.

Harold Hill: A man can't turn tail and run just because a little personal risk is involved. What did Shakespeare say? "Cowards die a thousand deaths, the brave man... only 500"?

Salesman on train: How far you going, friend?
Harold Hill: Wherever the people are as green as the money... friend.

Harold Hill: [to Winthrop] Never allow the demands of tomorrow to interfere with the pleasures and excitements of today.

Charlie Cowell: Who do you think you're protectin'? That guy's got a gal in every county in Illinois and that's * 102 * counties. Not countin' the piano teachers like you he cozies up to, just keep your mouths shut! Neither one of you's heard the last o' me, girly-girl!

Marcellus Washburn: Hey, what are you selling now? Last I heard about you, you was in steam automobiles.
Harold Hill: I was.
Marcellus Washburn: Well, what happened?
Harold Hill: Somebody actually invented one.
Marcellus Washburn: No!

Tommy Djilas: Great honk!

Marcellus Washburn: This is where I work.
Harold Hill: You mean you *live* in this town?
Marcellus Washburn: Yeah, I like it, too. I mean it's not Brooklyn, New York. It's not the City of Homes and Churches and...
Harold Hill: [amazed] "Brooklyn"? Marce, this isn't even *Dubuque*!

Train conductor: [Turning to a salesman when he is about to light a cigarette] River City, station stop River City. Just crossed the state line into Iowa. Population of River, twenty-two hundred and twelve. Cigarettes illegal in this state!

Mrs. Shinn: [answering doorbell the Prof Hill rang] Oh, George, it's you.
Mayor Shinn: [to Prof Hill] I never had a son!
Mrs. Shinn: [not seeing Prof Hill] I never said you did.
Mayor Shinn: What would you know?
Mrs. Shinn: Well, I'd certainly know if I gave you a son!
Mayor Shinn: I wasn't talking to you.
Mrs. Shinn: Well who were you talking to?
Mayor Shinn: I was talking to-
[realizes that Prof Hill is no longer there]
Mayor Shinn: Never mind!
[Mayor Shinn storms away]
Mrs. Shinn: Zaneeta, call the doctor for your father.

[In song]
Marian Paroo: There was love all around, but I never heard it singing. No I never heard it at all, Till There Was You.

Harold Hill: Oh this is a refined operation son, and I've got it timed down to the last wave of the brakeman's hand on the last train outta town.

Marian Paroo: Good afternoon, Mrs. Shinn.
Mrs. Shinn: Don't change the subject.
Marian Paroo: Is something the matter?
Mrs. Shinn: The same thing is the matter as is always the matter here. Look. Is this the sort of book you give my daughter to read? This "Ruby-hat of Omar Khay-ay-ay-ay-" I am appalled!
Marian Paroo: I did recommend it. It's beautiful Persian poetry.
Mrs. Shinn: It's dirty Persian poetry. People lying out in the woods, eating sandwiches? Getting drunk with pitfall and with gin? Drinking directly out of jugs with innocent young girls? No daughter of mine will...
Marian Paroo: Mrs. Shinn, the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a classic.
Mrs. Shinn: It's a smutty book. Like most of the others you keep here, I dare say.
Marian Paroo: Honestly, Mrs. Shinn. Wouldn't you rather have your daughter read a classic than Elinor Glyn?
Mrs. Shinn: What Elinor Glyn reads is her mother's problem. Just you keep your dirty books away from my daughter.

Constable Locke: That was pretty good, Professor, but you made a couple of mistakes.
Harold Hill: Oh?
Constable Locke: Yeah, the billiard hall and that pool table belong to Mayor Shinn.
Harold Hill: Oh.
[looks thoughtful]
Harold Hill: What was my other mistake?
Constable Locke: That Zaneeta, she's the mayor's oldest girl.

Marian Paroo: I've never met a man who sells anvils before.
Charlie Cowell: Takes a real salesman, I can tell you that. Anvils have a limited appeal, you know.

[repeated line]
Zaneeta: Ye, Gods!

Mrs. Shinn: [leading the other 'hens' in song] Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more...

Zaneeta: Papa, please. It's Capulets like you make blood in the marketplace. Ye gods.
Mayor Shinn: You watch your phraseology, young woman.

Mayor Shinn: It's as clear as a buttonhook in the well water!

Mayor Shinn: [referring to Harold Hill] He's slipperier'n a *Mississippi... sturgeon*!

Mrs. Paroo: Library open later than usual tonight, dear?
Marian Paroo: It always is, Mama.

Harold Hill: Ah, yes, my dear Mrs. Paroo. You must realize that only one out of every 78 adults has a ganglion that reaches the ligature clear down to the apex. This automatically turns your entire face into an amazing embouchure.
Mrs. Paroo: Well, I never had a sick day in my life, Doctor.

Harold Hill: All of the really great cornet players were Irish - O'Clark, O'Mendez, O'Klein.
Mrs. Paroo: But professor, we are Irish.
Harold Hill: No? No, really? Well that chinches it. Sign here, madam. Your boy was born to play the cornet... That'll be $7 earnest money.

Charlie Cowell: [to Marian] Not on your tintype, girlie girl.

[in song]
Harold Hill: Seventy-six trombones led the big parade / with a hundred and ten cornets close at hand / They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos / the cream of every famous band!