George M. Cohan Quotes in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

George M. Cohan: My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you.

[George M. Cohan comes into apartment and smells something cooking]

George M. Cohan: Mmmmm... ham or bacon?

Mary: Bacon.

George M. Cohan: Good. Ham makes me self-conscious.

George M. Cohan: It seems it always happens. Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we're a push-over all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn't long before we're looking up, mighty anxiously, to be sure the flag's still waving over us.

George M. Cohan: Thanks, Sam. It'll be great as long as those critics don't start to eat off my leg.

Sam Harris: Oh, don't worry about the critics! You got a smash hit! It's in the air, kid! It's in the air! You can't stop anything that's in the air!

[a group of soldiers in marching off to fight in World War II, singing Cohan's World War I song, "Over There"]

Sergeant on parade: What's the matter, old timer? Don't you remember this song?

George M. Cohan: Seems to me I do.

Sergeant on parade: Well, I don't hear anything.

[Cohan starts singing along, with tears coming into his eyes]

Mary: George, I didn't know you could yodel.

George M. Cohan: Learned it on the farm. Nothing but pig callin' with frost on it.

Mary: [George has been wearing a wig to look like an old man]

[Mary screams]

George M. Cohan: [He throws the wig on the floor and stomps on it] Got it!

George M. Cohan: Being versatile, I played my mother's father.