Mabel Quotes in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)

Mabel: Now what would a bail of cotton be doing in Harlem?

Blanche: Look at that car! That alone must have cost a fortune.

Mabel: They must be the chauffeur and maid.

Blanche: They don't look like servants to me, Mabel. You don't think the agent sold to niggers do you? I think they must be our new neighbors!

Mabel: I won't let them! I won't let them move into our neighborhood. Your kids will never go to our schools. You'll never join our clubs nor be accepted in any of our homes! Why bother to unpack? Just go back where you belong! You'll never live in that house in peace. I'll burn it down myself before I let you live in this community! Get your black hands off of me!

Mabel: Doctor and Mrs. Kincade, I want to apologize for the way I behaved when you moved into Meadow Park. The reason why I didn't want you to live next door to me is, because, I'm black. I've been passing as white all these years.

Dr. Kincade: Yes, I know. Your doctor told me you were suffering from sickle cell anemia.

Mabel: Can you ever forgive?

Mabel: Get out of my yard you little nigger, you.

Tommie Kincade: Give me my frisbee!

Mabel: Get out! You little pickaninny!

Tommie Kincade: I want my frisbee!

Mabel: Don't you ever come in my yard - you little black bastard!

Mabel: What do you want, Charming?

Prince Charming: Oh, not much. Just a chance at redemption... and a fuzzy navel.

Mabel: This year, I lost my dear husband, Edgar.

Edgar: Stop tellin' everyone I'm dead!

Bo: I guess it's our turn. This is the year I met the MOST gorgeous...

Nookie: No... YOU'RE gorgeous.

Bo: You're gorgeous... -ER.

Tug: Get a cave.

Igor: Oy.

[starts speaking in his language]

Mabel: If only EDGAR was alive.

Edgar: I told you, woman, I'm right here.

Bo: I love you, buttercup.

Mabel: You'll be hung!

The Pirate King: Oh I am, I am, and very well thank you.

Mabel: Death before dishonor! Besides, you ever try running in one of these things? It's a real bitch!

The Pirate King: What's the age of consent around here?

Mabel: Eighteen.

The Pirate King: Good! I'm old enough.

Frederic: Oh I love you. I'll always love you, come what may.

Mabel: "Come what may"? We'll all be murdered in our beds come what may.

Frederic: Well run. For God's sake run!

Mabel: Death before dishonor. Besides, have you tried running in one of these things? It's a real bitch.

Mabel: Frederic, you're not gay, are you?

Frederic: [high voice] No!

[clears throat and in a lower voice]

Frederic: No.

Mabel: The way you and the Pirate King get around in those rather feminine, pleated shirts and all that leather.

Frederic: Mabel!

Mabel: Hey! I'm not prejudiced. I mean, what does this country got a navy for? Screw 'em if they can't take a joke!

Frederic: You're weird.

Mabel: All kidding aside, tell me this. Are you a virgin?

Frederic: I don't know.

Mabel: Near enough.

Mabel: Frederic, these are the 1880s. You can't live your life by the outmoded conventions of a neo-imperialist society. Find your true center!

Frederic: What? You mean Zen piracy?

Mabel: [unlaces her shirt and pulls it down to show her corset] Frederic, have you ever worn a whalebone corset? Well no, we established that, didn't we? It chokes and strangles, Frederic! I won't be choked and strangled by someone else's dumb ideas of custom and duty!

[to stone statue]

Mabel: Would you Harry, would you?

[to Frederic]

Mabel: Never to know the rich and real, wondrous person beating and throbbing inside me. Frederic, can you see me throbbing?

Frederic: I see! I see! I'm throbbing too!

Frederic: [moments after meeting for the first time] Look, I know this is going to sound silly, but I think I love you. I think I might even want to marry you.

Mabel: God, that was a short love scene!

Mabel: The body's an eight, the brain's a ten, so let's go.

Mabel: You poor thing. Pirates! You mean like walking the plank? Buried treasure? Hack, slash, off with his head, and the Jolly Richard, and everything?

Frederic: Roger.

Mabel: Oh, Roger I love it.

Frederic: No, Frederic without a "k."

Mabel: Mabel, also without a "k." God, we have so much in common.

[Mabel comes in and finds Frederic laying in a coffin]

Mabel: Frederic, what are you doing?

Frederic: Oh, hiding.

Mabel: My Frederic, hiding? It cannot be the lion-heart troubles at the coming conflict. My love - a wimp!

Frederic: No, Mabel. A terrible disclosure's just been made.

Mabel: Then zip it up!

Mabel: [song] If you're treadin' water and romance is on the slide/Don't you know you have to swallow somethin' more than water... it's your pride/Ah ha, a-huff and puff/Just to keep love goin'/A-ha, I've had enough/Of pumpin' and a-blowin'

Soundtrack Chorus: [song] Keep pumpin', blowin'/Keep pumpin', blowin'

Major-General: Damn cheek! With women leading our armies we'll never have a good war again.

Mabel: So true! So true.

Sergeant: [with heavy French accent] Name of the fugitive?

Mabel: [struggling to understand] Fyoog tiv?

Sergeant: [frustrated] Fugitive! F - U...

Mabel: Up yours, too, Froggy!... Oh! *Fugitive!* His name's Fredric - without a 'k.' And he's got a horse - I mean a nurse, her name's Ruth and... listen, why don't you just follow me to the castle?

Mabel: [to Pirate King] Is that a dagger in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Frederic: Now, less than a hundred years ago, pirates used to really operate around here... raping and pillaging!

Mabel: God, I'd hate to be pillaged.

Mabel: I'll see you get a thousand lashes!

The Pirate King: Promises, promises.

Mabel: Darling boy, I'll be alone at the shop after six. Do come.

Mabel: His father's rolling in money - he's got to see me through it!

Mabel: Oh Frederic, can you not in the calm excellence of your wisdom reconcile it with your conscience to say something that will ease my father's sorrow?

Frederic: What?

Mabel: Can't you cheer him up?

Major General Stanley: Frederic here! Oh joy oh rapture! Summon your men and effect their capture

Mabel: Frederic save us!

Frederic: Beautiful Mabel, I would if I could but I am not able.

Mabel: Hold, monsters! Ere your pirate caravanserai Proceed, against our will, to wed us all, Just bear in mind that we are Wards in Chancery, And our father is a Major-General!

Mabel: To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty.

Mabel: Lord Goring, I gather you're to be congratulated.

Lord Arthur Goring: Well, there's nothing I like more than to be congratulated, though invariably I find the pleasure immeasurably increased when I know what for.

Mabel: You are very late!

Lord Arthur Goring: Have you missed me?

Mabel: Awfully!

Lord Arthur Goring: Then I am sorry I did not stay away longer. I like being missed.

Mabel: How very selfish of you!

Lord Arthur Goring: I am very selfish.

Mabel: Lord Goring, you are always telling me about your bad qualities.

Lord Arthur Goring: I haven't told you half of them as yet, Miss Mabel.

Mabel: Really? Are the others very bad?

Lord Arthur Goring: Quite dreadful! When I think of them at night, I go to sleep at once.

Lord Caversham: Now, if you don't make her an ideal husband, I'll cut you off with a shilling.

Mabel: An ideal husband? Oh, I don't think I should like that.

Lord Caversham: What do you want him to be then, my dear?

Mabel: I think he can be whatever he chooses.

Lord Caversham: You don't deserve her, sir.

Lord Arthur Goring: My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved... we should have a very bad time of it.

Lord Arthur Goring: I love you... I love you.

Mabel: Is that your reason then?

Lord Arthur Goring: Mmm. Mabel, I said...

Mabel: I know.

Lord Arthur Goring: Well? Couldn't you you love me just a little bit in return?

Mabel: Arthur, you silly! If you knew anything about anything, which you don't, you would know that I absolutely adore you.

Lord Arthur Goring: Really?

Mabel: Mmm.

Lord Arthur Goring: Well, why didn't you say anything before?

Mabel: Because, dear boy, you never would have believed me.

Tommy Trafford: Miss Mabel, I hope you'll be able to make our usual appointment, as I have something very particular I wish to say to you. Good day, ladies.

Mabel: When Tommy wants to be romantic, he talks to one just like a doctor.

Gertrude: Lord Goring, you are talking quite seriously.

Lord Arthur Goring: You must forgive me, Lady Chiltern. It won't occur again.

Gertrude: No, I like you to be serious.

[Enter Mabel]

Mabel: Gertrude, please don't say such a dreadful thing to Lord Goring. Seriousness would be very unbecoming to him. Good morning, Lord Goring. Pray be as trivial as you can.

Lord Arthur Goring: Shouldn't you be in bed, Miss Mabel?

Mabel: Lord Goring!

Lord Arthur Goring: My father always tells me to go to bed, so I don't see why I shouldn't give you the same advice. I always pass on good advice. It is the only sensible thing to do with it.

'Jimmy' Corrigan: Baby, what would you do for five hundred bucks?

Mabel: I'd do my best.

'Jimmy' Corrigan: [Starting to pour her a drink] Say when.

Mabel: [Clueless] Whattya mean?

'Jimmy' Corrigan: Let it go.

Mabel: Louie says you're a prince.

'Jimmy' Corrigan: Are you sure he said "Prince"?

Mabel: Did you look at those school brochures I left on your bed?

Annabel Cotton: No.

Mabel: Beat it, Buttercup.

Mabel: I've got seventeen cents, and the clothes on my back as I stand before you.

Mabel: I'd cry but I haven't got a handkerchief.

[last lines]

Mabel: I... I am... I... Oh, damn it, I forgot my second line!