- Jane Dana: Well, we live only once.
- Richard Calvert: [laughs] Yeah, stingy, isn't it? We should have at least two. Our own and a good one.
- Hector Titus: Don't you care about me?
- Cora Foster: Let's take that up later, Hector... or let's not.
- Jane Dana: [Tasting her soup at the dinner table] Oh, it's hot!
- Sylvia Dana: [to Nancy, who's blowing on her soup] One does not blow on one's soup.
- Nancy Dana: Oh, doesn't one?
- Oliver Dana: Well, there are several schools of thought in the art of soup cooling. There are the blowers, the fanners, the diluters with ice water, and the wait-til-it-coolers. Now I belong to the old school -- the toughies. We take our soup straight and if it burns us, we just laugh it off, see?
- Jane Dana: I can see my tombstone: Here lies Jane Dana. Scientist and spinster. She died at the age of 82. A nice girl.
- Cora Foster: Hector Titus, what ails you?
- Hector Titus: Don't you know?
- Cora Foster: No.
- Hector Titus: Listen.
- [Blows his postman's whistle three times]
- Hector Titus: For Uncle Sam, I toot twice. But three times means I love you.
- Jane Dana: I'm afraid I'm not very sophisticated.
- Oliver Dana: Sophisticated? Heh, now you are being young. Real sophistication, dear, is just another name for good taste. Sophistication isn't doing, it's knowing.
- Nancy Dana: Hector, I found out what men really are. Apes. All of them. Apes. After today, I will look upon all men with impunity.
- Oliver Dana: First I'd look up impunity in the dictionary.
- Jane Dana: [Crying on her dad's shoulder] Oh, dad, I did something so stupid. So cheap. I threw myself at him and he didn't even kiss me. He didn't even try.
- Oliver Dana: [Smiling with relief] Why, the bounder!
- Jane Dana: [as she makes notes while feeding rabbits] No, it'll be a long time before I know anything, except maybe the habits of rabbits.
- Oliver Dana: [Talking to himself as he writes at his desk] This is the thesis of my exegesis. Thesis of my exegesis? Exegesis... treatise. This is the thesis of my treatise.
- Nancy Dana: [When the phone rings] May I be excused? I think it's for me. I'm anticipitating
- [sic]
- Nancy Dana: a call.
- Jane Dana: Nancy, anticipating.
- Nancy Dana: Thank you, Jane.
- Oliver Dana: Anything wrong?
- Jane Dana: Well, why, Dad? You notice a change in me?
- Oliver Dana: Oh, no sudden change. Of course, since the day when I used to walk the floor with you, you have grown up a little.
- Cora Foster: Listen, little big mouth. Lightning doesn't always strike in the same place, but your father isn't lightning.
- Nancy Dana: That was a very coarse remark.
- Sylvia Dana: Father, you really should do something about that child.
- Oliver Dana: What, lock her up? We tried that with you. By the way, whatever became of that butcher boy with adenoids?
- Cora Foster: Oh, he's still got 'em.
- Nancy Dana: [to Sylvia] One does not read one's book when one's at the dinner table.
- Sylvia Dana: Father, speak to Nancy.
- Oliver Dana: Hello, Nancy.
- Oliver Dana: Well, I wouldn't say that your homecoming went unnoticed. And you must be prepared to have a few eyebrows raised at you. But what's a little gossip when those who count know the truth.