Muriel Blandings Quotes in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me...

Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie?

Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white.

Mr. PeDelford: Check.

Jim Blandings: What's with this kissing all of a sudden? I don't like it. Every time he goes out of this house, he shakes my hand and kisses you.

Muriel Blandings: Would you prefer it the other way around?

Muriel Blandings: I refuse to endanger the lives of my children in a house with less than four bathrooms.

Jim Blandings: For thirteen hundred dollars they can live in a house with three bathrooms and rough it.

Jim Blandings: That's fine. For the rest of my life, I'll have to get up at 5 in the morning to catch the 6:15 train to get to my office at 8. It doesn't even open until 9, and I never get there until 10!

Muriel Blandings: Well, maybe if you start earlier, you can leave the office earlier.

Jim Blandings: To get home earlier, to get to bed earlier, to get up earlier, I suppose.

Bill Cole: Maybe you can get the railroad to push the train up to 4:15. Then you won't have to go to bed at all.

Betsy Blandings: Ms. Stellwagon has assigned each of us to take a classified ad and write a human-interest theme about it. I found one typical of the disintegration of our present society.

Jim Blandings: I wasn't aware of the fact that our society *was* disintegrating.

Betsy Blandings: I wouldn't expect you to be, Father. Ms. Stellwagon says that middle class people like us are all too prone to overlook...

Jim Blandings: Muriel, I know this is asking a lot, but just one morning I would like to sit down and have breakfast without social significance.

Muriel Blandings: Jim, you really must take more interest in your children's education.

Joan Blandings: Can't squeeze blood from a turnip.

Muriel Blandings: Darling, I'm going out to the place this afternoon. Bill's driving me up to see about the landscaping.

Jim Blandings: That'll be nice... What do you mean Bill's driving you?

Muriel Blandings: Why do you always say 'what do you mean' when you know perfectly well what I mean and you mean?

Jim Blandings: I mean the moment I turn my back, Bill Cole's driving you someplace or something.

Muriel Blandings: He's only being helpful.

Jim Blandings: I thought he was a lawyer. Why isn't he out suing somebody?

Muriel Blandings: Mr. Zucca explained he has to use dynamite to blast to get rid of the rock.

Mr. Zucca: That's no rock. That's a ledge.

Bill Cole: What Mr. Blandings means is, what precisely is a ledge?

Mr. Zucca: A ledge is like a big stone. Only it's bigger.

Jim Blandings: Like a boulder!

Mr. Zucca: No, like a ledge.

Jim Blandings: [reading eviction notice] Hmm! Well, we'll just see about that!

Muriel Blandings: What is it? What's the matter, Jim?

Jim Blandings: Mr. William Cole, please. Hello, Bill. They can't get away with this! I know my rights as a citizen. Why, this notice from the owner of this building. He wants our apartment. He's ordering us to move in thirty days. Well, that's ridiculous! How can I move into a house that isn't even finished? There are no windows, no plaster, no paint. Now you listen to me: I have no intention of moving in thirty days. This is not legal! I'm going to fight this thing and I don't care if it takes every penny I've got! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah!

Muriel Blandings: Well?

Jim Blandings: We're moving in thirty days.

Bill Cole: [narrating] So came thirty days, and they moved. That is, we moved.

Muriel Blandings: Why don't you use an electric razor?

Jim Blandings: Can't get used to them.

Muriel Blandings: Silly. Bill Cole's been using one for years.

Jim Blandings: He hasn't got my beard.

Muriel Blandings: Bill's beard is just as coarse and tough...

Jim Blandings: I am not interested in discussing the grain and texture of Bill Cole's hair follicles before I've had my breakfast.

Muriel Blandings: You remember Bunny Funkhouser, dear, that clever young interior decorator that we met at the Collins' cocktail party.

Jim Blandings: You mean that young man with the open-toed sandals? What about him?

Muriel Blandings: Well, you know how long we've said we've got to do something about fixing up this apartment. Well, a couple of weeks ago, he called, and I asked him to come over, and he had some simply wonderful ideas, and I didn't want to bother you with sketches and estimates until I knew whether we could afford it. So I sent them over to Bill.

Jim Blandings: How much?

Muriel Blandings: What's the point in asking how much until you know what you're going to get?

Jim Blandings: I've seen Bunny Funkhouser. I *know* what I'm going to get.

Muriel Blandings: The house and the lilac bush at the corner are just the same age, Bill. If a lilac bush can live and be so old, so can a house. It just needs someone to love it, that's all.

Bill Cole: It's a good thing there are two of you. One to love it and one to hold it up.

Muriel Blandings: Look, here's how he sees our living room. Isn't it charming?

Jim Blandings: What's that? A shoe-shine stand?

Muriel Blandings: It's a cobbler's bench, dear. The room's Colonial. Breakfront. Hooked rug. Student's lamp. Pie Cooler. And over here is a Martha Washington desk.

Jim Blandings: And where do I keep my powdered wig?

Muriel Blandings: Jim, I wish you wouldn't discuss money in front of the children.

Jim Blandings: Why not? They spend enough of it.

Muriel Blandings: This is our home. Betsy was practically born in this apartment.

Jim Blandings: That does not make it a national shrine.

Joan Blandings: Miss Stellwagon says the problems of the parents should be the problems of the children.

Muriel Blandings: Well, you keep that in mind dear. It'll help prepare you for motherhood.

Jim Blandings: Why did you marry me?

Muriel Blandings: I'm beginning to wonder. Maye it was those big wow eyes of yours, or that ridiculous hole in your chin. Maybe I knew you were going to bring me to this $38,000 icebox with a dried up trout stream and no windows. Maybe I happened to fall in love with you, but for goodness sake, don't ask me why.

Muriel Blandings: Maybe you ought to go down and lock the doors.

Jim Blandings: What for? The windows are all open anyway.