Nick: Open your gift. Olive: You open it, can't you see I'm dressing? Nick: Here. Olive: What is it? Nick: Pearls. What the hell do you think they are? Olive: Pearls are white. Nick: These are black pearls. Olive: Oh, don't give me that. I never hear...
Cheech: She can't act. Are you listening to me? She makes stuff not work - stuff she ain't even in - it comes out all twisted!
Olive: Ain't you the big mouth since you hit your number.
Sheldon Flender: Let's say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare's plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do?
[Helen is late for rehearsal] Helen Sinclair: Please forgive me. My pedicurist had a stroke. She fell forward onto the orange stick and plunged it into my toe. It required bandaging.
Venus: Do you want the blue stuff or the green? Olive: The imported, dummy. Venus: Oh, you mean from the *clean* bathtub.
David Shayne: Your taste is exquisite. Helen Sinclair: [correcting] My taste is superb. My eyes are exquisite.
David Shayne: Suddenly I'm taking suggestions from some strong-arm man with an IQ of minus 50.
Helen Sinclair: Oh, Julian. Julian Marx. I do plays put on by Balasco, or Sam Harris, not some Yiddish pant salesman turned producer. My ex-husband used to say, "If you're gonna go down, go down with the best of them." Sid Loomis: Which ex-husband? H...
[Helen complains about her role] Helen Sinclair: She's dowdy. Sid, the ingenue has all the hot lines. Even the female psychiatrist is a better role. Sid Loomis: But the role of Sylvia Poston is the lead. Helen Sinclair: "Sylvia Poston." Even the *nam...
Cheech: [at the end, dying] No. Don't speak.
Cheech: Sylvia Pincus. Big fat Jewish broad, had a little tiny husband. She chopped him up with an ax and mailed his pieces all over the country. I don't know what she was tryin' to prove.
Eden Brent: [on David's new script changes] Congratulations. It finally has balls.
David Shayne: You're gonna write it? Cheech: What am I? A fuckin' idiot? They taught me how to read and write in school before I burned it down. David Shayne: You burned down your school? Cheech: Yeah, it was Lincoln's birthday. There was nobody ther...
David Shayne: You thought my first draft was c-cerebral and tepid? Helen Sinclair: Only the plot and the dialogue. But this... David Shayne: Was-was-was there nothing in the original draft that you feel was worth saving? Helen Sinclair: The stage dir...
David Shayne: I studied playrighting with every teacher, I read every book... Cheech: Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.
Lord Chafee: My tongue is hanging out to present it on the London stage. David Shayne: London. Lord Chafee: Look at his face, Helen. You're going to be the toast of Broadway. Why not the West End, hmm?
Sid Loomis: It's a little idea she's wanted to do for years. She plays Jesus' mother. Partygoer: Oh. Sid Loomis: It's a whole Oedipal thing - he loves her, wants to do in the father. Well, you can see the complications. Of course, we're talking to Ir...
