Gloria Swanson credited as playing...
Norma Desmond
- Joe Gillis: Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face.
- Norma Desmond: Get out! Or shall I call my servant?
- Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
- Norma Desmond: I *am* big. It's the *pictures* that got small.
- [last lines]
- Norma Desmond: [to newsreel camera] And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after 'Salome' we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
- Joe Gillis: I didn't know you were planning a comeback.
- Norma Desmond: I hate that word. It's a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
- Joe Gillis: I'm not an executive, just a writer.
- Norma Desmond: You are, are you? Writing words, words, more words! Well, you'll make a rope of words and strangle this business! With a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongues!
- Norma Desmond: You heard him. I'm a star.
- Joe Gillis: Norma, you're a woman of 50, now grow up. There's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.
- Norma Desmond: The greatest star of them all.
- Norma Desmond: There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!
- Joe Gillis: Tell her, Max. C'mon, do her that favor. Tell her there isn't going to be any picture. Tell her there are no fan letters other than the ones you write.
- Norma Desmond: It's not true! Max!
- Max Von Mayerling: Madame is the greatest star of them all.
- Norma Desmond: We don't need two cars, we have a car. Not one of those cheap new things made of chromium and spit, an Isotta-Fraschini. Have you ever heard of Isotta-Fraschini? All handmade. Cost me $28,000.
- Norma Desmond: They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!
- Norma Desmond: Don't be silly.
- [hands Joe a present]
- Norma Desmond: Here, I was going to give it to you at midnight.
- Joe Gillis: Norma, I can't take it, you've bought me enough.
- Norma Desmond: Shut up, I'm rich! I'm richer than all this new Hollywood trash! I've got a million dollars.
- Joe Gillis: Keep it.
- Norma Desmond: Own three blocks downtown, I've got oil in Bakersfield, pumping, *pumping*, pumping! What's it for but to buy us anything we want!
- Joe Gillis: Cut out that "us" business!
- Norma Desmond: What's the matter with you?
- Joe Gillis: What right do you have to take me for granted?
- Norma Desmond: What right? Do you want me to tell you?
- Joe Gillis: Has it ever occurred to you that I may have a life of my own? That there may be some girl I'm crazy about?
- Norma Desmond: Who? Some car hop, or dress extra?
- Joe Gillis: What I'm trying to say is that I'm all wrong for you. You want a Valentino, somebody with polo ponies, a big shot!
- Norma Desmond: What you're trying to say is that you don't want me to love you. Say it. Say it!
- [slaps him hard across the face]
- Joe Gillis: You really going to send that script to DeMille?
- Norma Desmond: Yes, I am! This is the day! Here's the chart from my astrologer. She read DeMille's horoscope, she read mine.
- Joe Gillis: Did she read the script?
- Norma Desmond: DeMille is Leo. I'm Scorpio. Mars' been transiting Jupiter for weeks. Today is the day of *greatest* conjunction.
- Joe Gillis: [Norma threatens suicide again] Oh, wake up, Norma, you'd be killing yourself to an empty house. The audience left twenty years ago. Now, face it.
- Norma Desmond: That's a lie! They still want me!
- Norma Desmond: Those idiot producers. Those imbeciles. Haven't they got any eyes? Have they forgotten what a star looks like? I'll show them! I'll be up there again, so help me!
- Norma Desmond: I can't go on with the scene. I'm too happy. Mr. DeMille, do you mind if I say a few words? Thank you. I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio, making a picture again! You don't know how much I've missed all of you.