Cate Blanchett: Katharine Hepburn

The Aviator

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn: Men can't be friends with women Howard. They must posses them or leave them be. It's a primitive urge from caveman days. It's all in Darwin. Hunt the flesh. Kill the flesh. Eat the flesh. That's the, ah, male sex all over.

Howard Hughes: [doesn't hear what Kate says] Excuse me?
Katharine Hepburn: Well, if you're deaf, you must own up to it. Get a hearing aid, or see my father. He's an urologist, but it's all tied up inside the body, don't you find?
Howard Hughes: Mmm.
Katharine Hepburn: Me, I keep healthy. I take seven showers a day to keep clean, also because I'm so vulgarly referred to as "outdoors-y." Well, I'm not "outdoors-y," I'm athletic. I sweat! There it is, now we both know the sordid truth: I sweat, and you're deaf. Aren't we a fine pair of misfits?

Katharine Hepburn: I've been famous - for better or worse - for a long time now... I wonder if you know what that really means.
Howard Hughes: I got my fair share of press on Hell's Angels. I'm used to it.
Katharine Hepburn: Are you?
Katharine Hepburn: Howard, we're not like everyone else. Too many acute angles. Too many eccentricities. We have to be very careful not to let people in or they'll make us into freaks.
Howard Hughes: Kate, they can't get in here. We're safe.
Katharine Hepburn: Oh? Oh, they can always get in. When my brother killed himself there were photographers at the funeral. There's no decency to it.

Howard Hughes: Actresses are cheap in this town, darlin'. And I got a lot of money.
Katharine Hepburn: Please, Howard, this is beneath you.
Howard Hughes: No no. This is exactly me. You come over here out of the blue and tell me you're leaving me for someone else and you have the nerve to expect graciousness?
Katharine Hepburn: I expected a little maturity, I expect you to face this situation like an adul...
Howard Hughes: DON'T TALK DOWN TO ME! Don't you EVER talk down to me! You are a movie star, nothing more!

Katharine Hepburn: What's that on the steering wheel?
Howard Hughes: Cellophane. If you had any idea of the crap that people carry around on their hands.
Katharine Hepburn: What kind of crap?
Howard Hughes: You don't wanna know.

Katharine Hepburn: [flying Howard's plane] Howard, there's a rather alarming mountain heading our way.

Spencer Tracy: Trouble with Mr. Hughes?
Katharine Hepburn: There's too much "Howard Hughes" in Howard Hughes. That's the trouble.

Katharine Hepburn: I've got a better idea, take me flying! Or better yet, I'll take you flying!
Howard Hughes: Do your worst, Miss Hepburn.

[Howard takes Kate to the Cocoanut Grove]
Katharine Hepburn: Your kind of a joint, is it? Wouldn't have thought.
Howard Hughes: Yeah, well, they're open late. I go to a hot dog stand on La Cienega, too; they're open 'til around 4.
Katharine Hepburn: Are they? How marvelous!

Katharine Hepburn: Can't you just eat ice cream out of a bowl, like everyone else?

Katharine Hepburn: [Hepburn has abandoned Hughes to work the room] I'm an idiot, a complete idiot, and I'm sorry.
Howard Hughes: Forget it.
Katharine Hepburn: No, no, I'm a vain, preening ass without a single redeeming feature.
Howard Hughes: Well that's not true, you have very good teeth.

Katharine Hepburn: Are you making a Western, Howard?
Howard Hughes: Yeah. Making a Western. I'm gonna call it "The Outlaw".
Johnny Meyer: Yeah. And you know what it's about? S-E-X. It's all about S-E-X.
Howard Hughes: It's a Western. A Western.
Errol Flynn: You can't have fornication in a Western. It isn't done.
Johnny Meyer: It's not real sex, skinny, it's movie sex! What "Scarface" did for the gangster picture, "The Outlaw" will do for the Western. Put the sex and guts and blood up there on the screen.

Katharine Hepburn: Saw your Scarface picture. Violent.
Howard Hughes: Realistic.
Katharine Hepburn: Movies are movies, Howard. Not life. Now, the stage. The stage is real flesh and blood. Human beings right out there in front of you, buster! Can't look away. Can't munch popcorn. That would be - rude.