The Old Maid (1939)

Miriam Hopkins: Delia Lovell

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Quotes 

• Charlotte Lovell : She thinks I can't understand her. She considers me an old maid.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : My dear.

  Charlotte Lovell : A ridiculous, narrow-minded old maid. What else can she ever think of me?

  Delia Lovell Ralston : Poor Charlotte.

  Charlotte Lovell : Oh, but you needn't pity me. Because she's really mine. If she considers me an old maid, it's because I've deliberately made myself one in her eyes. I've done it from the beginning so she wouldn't have the least suspicion. I've practised everything I've ever had to say to her, if it was important, so that I'd sound like an old maid aunt talking. Not her mother.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : Well, after all, darling, there isn't anything important to say to her now. She has every attribute of a modern successful woman - she's healthy, she's young, she's gay, she's attractive...

• Delia Lovell Ralston : You are wicked, Charlotte. You are wicked.

  Charlotte Lovell : No. I'm not wicked. I never could have done to you what you've done to me. You made me an old maid.

• Delia Lovell : You can't go. Like that. Downtown. The station. Clem, he might be intoxicated when you get there. You don't know what he might do!

• Delia Lovell : Don't hold my marriage to Jim against me, either. I'm fond of Jim and it seemed hopeless to wait for Clem. A woman can't wait forever. I wanted children and a home. I couldn't bear to be an old maid!

• Delia Lovell : Something old and something new. Well, my lace is old and everything else is new. But, I've nothing borrowed and I've nothing blue. Oh, Dora, what can we find?

  Dora : Well, I'd feel better in my mind, Miss, if you had.

  Delia Lovell : Then you'll have to lend me something.

  Dora : But what have I got, Miss, that you'd wear? It will have to be something no one will see.

  Delia Lovell : A garter! Lend me a garter!

  Dora : A gar- ?

  Delia Lovell : A garter!

  Dora : Oh, very well, Miss, but please look the other way, then.

  Delia Lovell : [laughs]  Oh, I don't see you, Dora.

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Now, why don't you let me slip down and tell Joe that his little bride will obey? She'll heed the word of her lord, master and save herself for him... and his home and his children?

  Charlotte Lovell : Delia, I'm so tired of this argument. Will it go on and on?

• Charlotte Lovell : I will not give up my own baby.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : What?

  Charlotte Lovell : My own baby.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : Which of them do you call your baby?

  Charlotte Lovell : I call my own baby - my baby.

• Charlotte Lovell : I must tell Joe the truth.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : And lose him?

  Charlotte Lovell : But, Delia, he's human. He loves me.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : A Ralston in love is something more than just human. He'd never forgive you. You know it. If it comes to that, what decent man do we know who would?

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Charlotte, how could you?

  Charlotte Lovell : I loved him. I'm not pretending it wasn't a sin. He was lonely and unhappy before he went away.

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Charlotte isn't entering into this marriage honorably.

  Jim Ralston : Not honorably?

• Joe Ralston : You said when you came in here that Charlotte was not marrying me honorably. What did you mean?

  Delia Lovell Ralston : She can't marry you. She can't marry anyone now.

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Let me look at you. My own daughter. Oh, I can't realize it. My own daughter grown up and married. Oh, it is beautiful but it's awful too.

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Oh, they go out to play and I don't feel a bit like knitting. Why do we grow old?

• Delia Lovell Ralston : If it's not to be Lanning, there'll be others. Good heavens, the girl's not 20 yet. Wait.

  Charlotte Lovell : Wait. Yes. And if she doesn't wait?

  Delia Lovell Ralston : What do you mean?

  Charlotte Lovell : Don't forget, Delia, I know Tina. After all, she's mine. I know her better than anyone else in the world, every thought, every act, every temptation. And Lanning is in her mind. Perhaps, even more...

  Delia Lovell Ralston : You're insinuating that she's...

  Charlotte Lovell : I'm remembering myself.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : Oh, surely, you trust your own child.

  Charlotte Lovell : Granny trusted me.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : She's perfect!

  Charlotte Lovell : Let us say, then, she must pay for my imperfections. All I want is that she shan't pay too heavily.

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Go to your room, Tina.

  Tina : I'll go.

  [to Charlotte] 

  Tina : But, before I go, you've got to know that I'm sick of your spying, and fault-finding and meddling.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : No! No, Tina.

  Tina : You can say what you want to because you understand me and I love you. But she's just a sour old maid who hates me.

  Delia Lovell Ralston : Tina!

  Tina : Because I'm young and attractive and in love, while she's old and hideous and dried up and has never known anything about love!

• Delia Lovell Ralston : Dr. Lanskell? Come here a moment. Do you remember when I stopped Charlotte from marrying Joe? You said at the time it was a sacrilegious thing to lay a hand on another person's destiny.

  Dr. Lanskell : I thought it was a mistake. But one never knows what was a mistake and what was not. We can't turn back the clock and play life over again.