Eliza Doolittle Quotes in Pygmalion (1938)

Eliza Doolittle: Walk? Not bloody likely. I'm going in a taxi.

Eliza Doolittle: I washed me face and hands before I come, I did.

Eliza Doolittle: What's to become of me?

Prof. Henry Higgins: Oh, so that's what's worrying you, is it? Ooh, you'll settle down somewhere or other. But I hadn't quite realized... that you were going away.

Eliza Doolittle: There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with.

[repeated line]

Eliza Doolittle: I'm a good girl, I am!

Eliza Doolittle: The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated.

Eliza Doolittle: [singing] Lots of chocolate for me to eat! / Lots of coal makin' lots of heat / Warm face, warm hands, warm feet / Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?

Eliza Doolittle: Come on, Dover! Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' arse!

Eliza Doolittle: I ain't dirty! I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.

Mrs. Higgins: How ever did you learn good manners with my son around?

Eliza Doolittle: It was very difficult. I should never have known how ladies and gentlemen really behaved, if it hadn't been for Colonel Pickering. He always showed what he thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a common flower girl. You see, Mrs. Higgins, apart from the things one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. I shall always be a common flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me like a common flower girl, and always will. But I know that I shall always be a lady to Colonel Pickering, because he always treats me like a lady, and always will.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill: I do hope we won't have any unseasonable cold spells; they bring on so much influenza. And the whole of our family is susceptible to it.

Eliza Doolittle: My aunt died of influenza, or so they said. But it's my belief they done the old woman in.

Mrs. Higgins: Done her in?

Eliza Doolittle: Yes, Lord love you. Why should she die of influenza, when she come through diphtheria right enough the year before? Fairly blue with it she was. They all thought she was dead. But my father, he kept ladling gin down her throat. Then she come to so sudden she bit the bowl right off the spoon.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill: Dear me!

Eliza Doolittle: Now, what call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? And what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me?

[pause]

Eliza Doolittle: Somebody pinched it. And what I say is: them as pinched it, done her in.

Lord Boxington: Done her in? Done her in, did you say?

Lady Boxington: What ever does it mean?

Mrs. Higgins: It's the new slang, meaning someone has killed her.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill: Surely you don't think someone killed her?

Eliza Doolittle: Do I not? Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let alone a hat.

Mrs. Eynsford-Hill: But it can't have been right for your father to be pouring spirits down her throat like that, it could have killed her.

Eliza Doolittle: Not her, gin was mother's milk to her. Besides he poured so much down his own throat, he knew the good of it.

Lord Boxington: Do you mean he drank?

Eliza Doolittle: Drank? My word, something chronic.

[responding to freddy's laughter]

Eliza Doolittle: Here! What are you sniggering at?

Freddy Eynsford-Hill: The new small talk, you do it so awfully well.

Eliza Doolittle: Well, if I was doing it proper, what was you sniggering at? Have I said anything I oughtn't?

Mrs. Higgins: No, my dear.

Eliza Doolittle: Well, that's a mercy, anyhow...

Eliza Doolittle: [singing] I shall not feel alone without you, I can stand on my own without you. So go back in your shell, I can do bloody well without...

Professor Henry Higgins: [singing] By George, I really did it, I did it, I did it! I said I'd make a woman and indeed, I did. I knew that I could do it, I knew it, I knew it! I said I'd make a woman and succeed, I did!

[speaking]

Professor Henry Higgins: Eliza, you're magnificent. Five minutes ago, you were a millstone around my neck, and now you're a tower of strength, a consort battleship. I like you this way.

[pause]

Eliza Doolittle: Goodbye, Professor Higgins. You shall not be seeing me again.

Professor Henry Higgins: You see, the great secret, Eliza, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, or any particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you've ever heard me treat anyone else better.

Eliza Doolittle: I don't care how you treat me. I don't mind your swearing at me. I shouldn't mind a black eye; I've had one before this. But I won't be passed over!

Professor Henry Higgins: Well then, get out of my way, for I won't stop for you. You talk about me as though I were a motor bus.

Eliza Doolittle: So you are a motor bus! All bounce and go, and no consideration for anybody. But I can get along without you. Don't you think I can't!

Professor Henry Higgins: I know you can. I told you you could.

[pause]

Professor Henry Higgins: [quietly] You've never wondered, I suppose, whether... whether I could get along without you.

Eliza Doolittle: Well, you have my voice on your phonograph. When you feel lonesome without me you can turn it on. It has no feelings to hurt.

Professor Henry Higgins: I... I can't turn your soul on.

Eliza Doolittle: Ooh, you are a *devil*. You can twist the heart in a girl the same way some fellows twist her arms to hurt her!

Professor Henry Higgins: By George, she's got it! By George she's got it! Now once again, where does it rain?

Eliza Doolittle: [sings] On the plain, on the plain.

Professor Henry Higgins: And where's that soggy plain?

Eliza Doolittle: [sings] In Spain, in Spain!

Professor Henry Higgins: All right, Eliza, say it again.

Eliza Doolittle: The rine in spine sties minely in the pline.

Professor Henry Higgins: [sighs] The *rain* in *Spain* stays *mainly* in the *plain*.

Eliza Doolittle: Didn't ah sy that?

Professor Henry Higgins: No, Eliza, you didn't "sy" that, you didn't even "say" that. Now every night before you get into bed, where you used to say your prayers, I want you to say "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" fifty times. You'll get much further with the Lord if you learn not to offend His ears.

Eliza Doolittle: I sold flowers; I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me, I'm not fit to sell anything else.

[repeated line]

Eliza Doolittle: I'm a good girl, I am!

Eliza Doolittle: I ain't done nothin' wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. I'm a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him 'cept so far as to buy a flower off me.

Eliza Doolittle: I could have danced all night.

Professor Henry Higgins: May I ask, do you complain of your treatment here?

Eliza Doolittle: No.

Professor Henry Higgins: Has anyone behaved badly? Colonel Pickering, Mrs. Pearce?

Eliza Doolittle: No.

Professor Henry Higgins: You certainly don't pretend that I have treated you badly?

Eliza Doolittle: No.

Eliza Doolittle: *Here* are your slippers! *There*...

[throws a slipper at Higgins]

Eliza Doolittle: And *there*!

[throws the other one]

Eliza Doolittle: *Take* your slippers, and may you NEVER have a day's luck with them!

Eliza Doolittle: There can't be any feeling between the likes of me and the likes of you.

Eliza Doolittle: You oughta be stuffed with nails, you ought!

Professor Henry Higgins: Have some chocolates, Eliza.

Eliza Doolittle: [halting, tempted] 'Ow do I know what might be in 'em? I've 'eard o' girls bein' drugged by the likes o' you.

Professor Henry Higgins: [Takes a chocolate and breaks it in half] Pledge of good faith. I'll take one half...

[puts one half into his mouth and bolts it; then pops the other half into Eliza's mouth]

Professor Henry Higgins: And you take the other. You'll have boxes of them, barrels of them. You'll live on them, eh?

Eliza Doolittle: [Eliza chews hesitatingly] I wouldn't've et it, only I'm too ladylike to take it out o' me mouth.

Professor Henry Higgins: Think of it, Eliza. Think of chocolates. And taxis...! And gold! And diamonds!

Eliza Doolittle: Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo! I don't want no gold and no diamonds! I'm a good girl, I am!

Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Darling!

Eliza Doolittle: Freddy, what ever are you doing here?

Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Nothing. I spend most of my nights here. It's the only place where I'm happy.

[Freddy steps forward]

Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Don't laugh at me, Miss Doolittle.

Eliza Doolittle: Don't you call me 'Miss Doolittle', do ya hear? Eliza's good enough for me.

[Eliza starts to leave, then turns to Freddy, who is eagerly following]

Eliza Doolittle: Oh, Freddy, *you* don't think I'm a heartless guttersnipe, do you?

Freddy Eynsford-Hill: Darling, how could you imagine such a thing? You know how I feel. I've written two and three times a day telling you. Sheets and sheets!

Cockney: We've got a bloomin' heiress in our midst. Will you be needing a butler, Eliza?

Eliza Doolittle: Well you won't do.

Eliza Doolittle: [crying] What's to become of me, what's to become of me?

Professor Henry Higgins: You know Eliza, you might marry. Not all men are confirmed old bachelors like me and the colonel, most are the marrying sort. And you're not bad looking, you might even be what I call *atractive*. But not now. You've been crying at look like the very Devil himself.