Sunset Blvd. (1950)

William Holden: Joe Gillis

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Quotes 

• Joe Gillis : Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before? I know your face.

  Norma Desmond : Get out! Or shall I call my servant?

  Joe Gillis : You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

  Norma Desmond : I *am* big. It's the *pictures* that got small.

• Betty Schaefer : Don't you sometimes hate yourself?

  Joe Gillis : Constantly.

• Joe Gillis : Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Well, this is where you came in, back at that pool again, the one I always wanted. It's dawn now and they must have photographed me a thousand times. Then they got a couple of pruning hooks from the garden and fished me out... ever so gently. Funny, how gentle people get with you once you're dead.

• Joe Gillis : I didn't know you were planning a comeback.

  Norma Desmond : I hate that word. It's a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.

• Betty Schaefer : Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Gillis, but I just didn't think it was any good. I found it flat and trite.

  Joe Gillis : Exactly what kind of material do you recommend? James Joyce? Dostoyevsky?

  Betty Schaefer : I just think that pictures should say a little something.

  Joe Gillis : Oh, one of the message kids. Just a story won't do. You'd have turned down Gone With the Wind.

  Sheldrake : No, that was me. I said, "Who wants to see a Civil War picture?"

• Betty Schaefer : Oh, the old familiar story. You help a timid little soul cross a crowded street, she turns out to be a multimillionaire and leaves you all her money.

  Joe Gillis : That's the trouble with you readers. You know all the plots.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.

• Joe Gillis : I'm not an executive, just a writer.

  Norma Desmond : You are, are you? Writing words, words, more words! Well, you'll make a rope of words and strangle this business! With a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongues!

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : So they were turning after all, those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.

• Betty Schaefer : Perhaps the reason I hated "Bases Loaded" is that I knew your name. I'd always heard you had some talent.

  Joe Gillis : That was last year. This year I'm trying to earn a living.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : You don't yell at a sleepwalker - he may fall and break his neck. That's it: she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.

• Norma Desmond : You heard him. I'm a star.

  Joe Gillis : Norma, you're a woman of 50, now grow up. There's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.

  Norma Desmond : The greatest star of them all.

• Max Von Mayerling : There were three young directors who showed promise in those days: D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and Max Von Mayerling.

  Joe Gillis : And she's turned you into a servant.

  Max Von Mayerling : It was I who asked to come back, as humiliating as it may seem. I could have continued my career; only I found everything unendurable after she'd left me. You see, I was her first husband.

• Betty Schaefer : I've been hoping to run into you.

  Joe Gillis : What for? To recover that knife you stuck in my back?

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis - out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.

• Joe Gillis : Tell her, Max. C'mon, do her that favor. Tell her there isn't going to be any picture. Tell her there are no fan letters other than the ones you write.

  Norma Desmond : It's not true! Max!

  Max Von Mayerling : Madame is the greatest star of them all.

• Betty Schaefer : Where have you been keeping yourself? I've got the most wonderful news for you.

  Joe Gillis : I haven't been keeping myself at all, lately.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : [Joe is reading Norma's script]  Sometimes it's interesting to see just how bad - bad writing can be. This promised to go the limit.

• Joe Gillis : You really going to send that script to DeMille?

  Norma Desmond : Yes, I am! This is the day! Here's the chart from my astrologer. She read DeMille's horoscope, she read mine.

  Joe Gillis : Did she read the script?

  Norma Desmond : DeMille is Leo. I'm Scorpio. Mars' been transiting Jupiter for weeks. Today is the day of *greatest* conjunction.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Then I talked to a couple of Yes men at Metro. To me, they said No.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : The plain fact was she was afraid of that world outside. Afraid it would remind her that time had passed.

• Joe Gillis : [Norma threatens suicide again]  Oh, wake up, Norma, you'd be killing yourself to an empty house. The audience left twenty years ago. Now, face it.

  Norma Desmond : That's a lie! They still want me!

• Norma Desmond : Don't be silly.

  [hands Joe a present] 

  Norma Desmond : Here, I was going to give it to you at midnight.

  Joe Gillis : Norma, I can't take it, you've bought me enough.

  Norma Desmond : Shut up, I'm rich! I'm richer than all this new Hollywood trash! I've got a million dollars.

  Joe Gillis : Keep it.

  Norma Desmond : Own three blocks downtown, I've got oil in Bakersfield, pumping, *pumping*, pumping! What's it for but to buy us anything we want!

  Joe Gillis : Cut out that "us" business!

  Norma Desmond : What's the matter with you?

  Joe Gillis : What right do you have to take me for granted?

  Norma Desmond : What right? Do you want me to tell you?

  Joe Gillis : Has it ever occurred to you that I may have a life of my own? That there may be some girl I'm crazy about?

  Norma Desmond : Who? Some car hop, or dress extra?

  Joe Gillis : What I'm trying to say is that I'm all wrong for you. You want a Valentino, somebody with polo ponies, a big shot!

  Norma Desmond : What you're trying to say is that you don't want me to love you. Say it. Say it!

  [slaps him hard across the face] 

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : You don't yell at a sleepwalker. He may fall and break his neck.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Come think of it, the whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis... out of beat with the rest of the world... crumbling apart in slow motion. There was a tennis court... or rather the ghost of a tennis court... with faded markings and a sagging net... And of course she had a pool. Who didn't then? Mabel Norman and John Gilbert must have swum in it ten thousand midnights ago... It was empty now. Or was it?

  [cut to close-up of rats] 

• [first lines] 

  Joe Gillis : Yes, this is Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, California. It's about 5 o'clock in the morning. That's the homicide squad, complete with detectives and newspaper men.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : [who has just has a visit from two men trying to repossess his car]  I was way ahead of the finance company. I knew they'd be becoming around and I wasn't taking any chances. So I kept it across the street in a parking lot behind Rudy's shoeshine parlour. Rudy never asked any questions about your finances... he'd just look at your heels and know the score.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : It was all very queer. But, queerer things were yet to come.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : I felt caught like the cigarette in that contraption on her finger.

• Betty Schaefer : I think you should throw out all that psychological mess - exploring the killer's sick mind.

  Joe Gillis : Psychopaths sell like hotcakes!

• Joe Gillis : May I say that you smell really special?

  Betty Schaefer : It must be my new shampoo.

  Joe Gillis : That's no shampoo. It's more like freshly-laundered linen handkerchiefs, like a brand new automobile. How old are you anyway?

  Betty Schaefer : Twenty-two.

  Joe Gillis : Smart girl. Nothing like being twenty-two.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : How could she breathe in that house full of Norma Desmonds? Around every corner, Norma Desmonds... more Norma Desmonds... and still more Norma Desmonds.

• Joe Gillis : Now back to the typewriters by way of Washington Square.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in "Great Expectations". That Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world, because she'd been given the go-by.

• Norma Desmond : Young man, tell me something; how long is a movie script these days? I mean how many pages?

  Joe Gillis : Depends on what it is: a Donald Duck or a Joan of Arc.

• Joe Gillis : [Critiquing a movie script]  What it needs is - eh - maybe a little more dialogue.

  Norma Desmond : What for? I can say anything I want with my eyes.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : I just had to get out of there. I had to be with people my own age. I had to hear somebody laugh again. I thought of Artie Green. There was bound to be a New Year's shindig going on in his apartment down in Los Palmas. Writers without a job. Composers without a publisher. Actresses so young they still believe the guys in the casting office. A bunch of kids who didn't give a hoot.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : By this time, the whole joint was jumping. Cops. Reporters. Neighbors. Passers-by. As much hoop dee doo as we get in Los Angeles when they open a supermarket.

• Artie Green : Well, whaddaya know? Joe Gillis!

  Joe Gillis : Hi ya, Artie.

  Artie Green : Where you been keeping that gorgeous face of yours?

  Joe Gillis : In a deep freeze.

  Artie Green : I almost reported you to the Bureau of Missing Persons.

  [to the New Year's Eve crowd] 

  Artie Green : Fans, you all know Joe Gillis: the well-known screenwriter, uranium smuggler and Black Dahlia Suspect!

• Max Von Mayerling : You see those offices up there? That was Madame's dressing room, the whole row.

  Joe Gillis : Didn't leave much for Wallace Reid.

  Max Von Mayerling : Oh, he had a big bungalow on wheels.

• Norma Desmond : You're a writer, you said.

  Joe Gillis : Why?

  Norma Desmond : Are you or aren't you?

  Joe Gillis : That's what it says on my guild card.

  Norma Desmond : And you have written pictures, haven't you?

  Joe Gillis : I sure have. Want a list of my credits?

  Norma Desmond : I want to ask you something. Come in here.

  Joe Gillis : Last one I wrote was about Okies in the Dust Bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : I had landed myself in the driveway of some big mansion that looked run down and deserted.

• Joe Gillis : Next time I'll bring my autograph album along. Or, maybe a hunk of cement and ask for your footprint.

• Joe Gillis : She's quite a character, that Norma Desmond.

  Max Von Mayerling : She was the greatest of them all! You wouldn't know, you're too young. In one week she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hair dresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a Maharaja who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later he strangled himself with it.

  Joe Gillis : Well, I sure turned into an interesting driveway.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : [Referring to Max]  I pegged him as slightly cuckoo, too. A stroke maybe.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : She'd take me for rides in the hills above Sunset. The whole thing was upholstered in leopard skin and had one of those car phones - all gold plated.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : The last week in December, the rains came. A great big package of rain. Oversized. Like everything else in California.

• Betty Schaefer : Are you hungry?

  Joe Gillis : Hungry? After 12 years in a Burmese jungle, I'm starving, Lady Agatha, starving for a white shoulder.

  Betty Schaefer : Philip you're mad.

  Joe Gillis : Thirsting for the coolness of your lips.

• Sheldrake : Of course, we're always looking for a Betty Hutton. Do you see it as a Betty Hutton?

  Joe Gillis : Frankly, no.

  Sheldrake : No, wait a minute. If we made it a girls softball team. Put in a few numbers. Might make a cute musical: "It Happened in the Bullpen - A Story of a Woman".

• Joe Gillis : Norma, I haven't done anything.

  Norma Desmond : Of course, you haven't. I wouldn't let you.

• Joe Gillis : [on the phone]  Better yet, why don't you come out and see for yourself. The address is 10086 Sunset Boulevard.

• Joe Gillis : [Betty is softly crying, facing away from Joe]  Stop crying, will you? You're getting married. That's what you wanted.

  Betty Schaefer : I don't want it now.

  Joe Gillis : Why not? Don't you love Artie?

  Betty Schaefer : Of course I love him. I always will. I... I'm not in love with him anymore, that's all.

  Joe Gillis : What happened?

  Betty Schaefer : [She turns and meets his eyes]  You did.

  [They kiss] 

• Betty Schaefer : Now, get your things together and let's get out of here.

  Joe Gillis : All my things? All my 18 suits, all my custom-made shoes, and the six dozen shirts, and the cuff links and the platinum key chains and the cigarette cases?

  Betty Schaefer : Come on, Joe.

  Joe Gillis : Come on where? Back to a one-room apartment I can't pay for? Back to a story that may sell and very possibly will not?

  Betty Schaefer : If you love me, Joe.

  Joe Gillis : Look, sweetie, be practical. I've got a good deal here. A long-term contract with no options. I like it that way. Maybe it's not very admirable.

  [She looks away from Joe and softly begins to cry] 

  Joe Gillis : Well, you and Artie can be admirable.

  Betty Schaefer : [He reaches to lift her chin, but she turns the other way]  I can't look at you anymore, Joe.

  Joe Gillis : How about looking for the exit?

  [He gently takes her arm and walks her towards the door] 

  Joe Gillis : This way, Betty.

• Norma Desmond : [Norma is trying to stop Joe from leaving]  And you know I'm not afraid to die.

  Joe Gillis : That's between you and yourself.

  Norma Desmond : You think I made that up about the gun, don't you? All right.

  [She leaves the room and returns showing Joe a gun] 

  Norma Desmond : See? You didn't believe me. Now I suppose you think I don't have the courage.

  Joe Gillis : Oh, sure, if it would make a good scene.

• Joe Gillis : Thanks for letting me wear the handsome wardrobe, and thanks for the use of all the trinkets. The rest of the jewelry's in the top drawer.

  Norma Desmond : [desperate]  It's yours, Joe. I gave it to you.

  Joe Gillis : And I'd take it in a second, only it's a little too dressy for sitting behind a copy desk in Dayton, Ohio.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : There it was again - that room of hers, all satin and ruffles, and that bed like a gilded rowboat. The perfect setting for a silent movie queen. Poor devil, still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : After that, I drove down to headquarters. That's the way a lot of us think about Schwab's Drug Store. KInd of a combination office, coffee clutch, and waiting room. Waiting. Waiting for the gravy train.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Finally, I located that agent of mine - the big faker. Was he out digging up a job for poor Joe Gillis? Huh. He was hard at work at Bell-Air making with the golf sticks.

• Joe Gillis : What do you think I've been doing? I need 300 dollars!

  Morino : Sweetheart, maybe what you need is another agent.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : As I drove back towards town, I took inventory of my prospects. They now added up to exactly zero. Apparently, I just didn't have what it takes. And the time had come to wrap up the whole Hollywood deal and go home.

• Norma Desmond : It's the story of Salome. I think I'll have DeMille direct it.

  Joe Gillis : DeMille?

  Norma Desmond : We made a lot of pictures together.

  Joe Gillis : And you'll play Salome?

  Norma Desmond : Who else?

• Norma Desmond : Salome... what a woman. What a part! The princess in love with a holy man. She dances the dance of the seven veils. He rejects her. So, she lands his head on a golden tray - kissing his cold, dead lips.

  Joe Gillis : They'll love it in Pamona.

  Norma Desmond : They'll love it every place!

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : I felt kind of pleased with the way I'd handled the situation. I dropped the hook and she snapped at it.

• Norma Desmond : Cut away from me?

  Joe Gillis : Well, honestly, its a little too much of you. They don't want you in every scene.

  Norma Desmond : They don't? Then why do they still write me fan letters every day? Why do they beg me for my photographs? Why? Because they want to see me! Me! Norma Desmond!

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : She'd sit very close to me and she'd smell of tuberoses - which is not my favorite perfume. Not by a long shot. Sometimes as we'd watch, she'd clutch my arm or my hand, forgetting she was my employer. Just becoming a fan. Excited about that actress up there on the screen. I guess I don't have to tell you who the star was. They were always her pictures. That's all she wanted to see.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : The others around the table would be actor friends. Dim figures you may still remember from the silent days. I used to think of them as your wax works.

• Joe Gillis : [Wearing his new tuxedo]  You know, to me, getting dressed up was always just putting on my dark blue suit.

  Norma Desmond : I don't like the studs they sent. I want you to have a pearl - a big luscious pearl.

  Joe Gillis : Well, I'm not going to wear earrings. I can tell you that.

• Betty Schaefer : I'll get us a refill of this horrible liquid.

  Joe Gillis : You'll be waiting for me?

  Betty Schaefer : With a wildly beating heart!

  Joe Gillis : Life can be beautiful.

• Joe Gillis : [Pitching a movie script]  They're pretty hot about it over at Twentieth. Except, I think Zanuck's all wet. Can you see Ty Power as a shortstop? You got the best man for it right here in this lot - Alan Ladd. It'd be a good change a pace for Ladd.

• Joe Gillis : [Pitching a movie script]  And there's a great little part for Bill Demarest. One of the trainers. Old time player who got beaned. Goes out of his head sometimes.

• Sheldrake : That'll be all Miss Kramer... Schaefer.

  Betty Schaefer : Goodbye, Mr. Gillis.

  Joe Gillis : Next time I'll write you "The Naked and the Dead".

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Incredible as it may seem, there'd been some more of those urgent calls from Paramount. So, she put on about a half a pound of makeup, fixed it up with a veil, and set forth to DeMille in person.

• Joe Gillis : Just so you don't think I'm a complete swine, if there's anything in 'Dark Windows' you can use - take it, it's all yours.

  Betty Schaefer : Well, for heavens sake. Come on in, have a chair.

  Joe Gillis : I mean it. Its no good to me anyway. Help yourself.

  Betty Schaefer : Now, why should you do that?

  Joe Gillis : If you get a hundred thousand for it, you buy me a box of chocolate creams. If you get an Oscar, I get the left foot.

• Betty Schaefer : I got a telegram from Artie.

  Joe Gillis : From Artie? What's wrong?

  Betty Schaefer : He wants me to come out to Arizona. He says it only costs two dollars to get married there. It would kinda save us a honeymoon.

• Joe Gillis : A very simple setup. An older woman who's well-to-do. A younger man who's not doing too well.

• Joe Gillis : What kind of a silly thing was that to do?

  Norma Desmond : [despairing]  To fall in love with you, that was the idiotic thing.

  Joe Gillis : Sure would have made attractive headlines: "Great Star Kills Herself For Unknown Writer".

  Norma Desmond : Great stars have great pride. Go away. Go to that girl of yours.

  Joe Gillis : Look, I was making that up. Because i thought the whole thing was a mistake. I didn't want to hurt you. You've been good to me. You're the only person in this stinking town that has been good to me.

  Norma Desmond : [inconsolable]  Why don't you just say thank you and go? Go! Go!

  Joe Gillis : Not until you promise to act like a sensible human being.

  Norma Desmond : [weeping]  I'll do it again! I'll do it again! I'll do it again.

  Joe Gillis : [as band starts playing Auld Lang Syne]  Happy New Year, Norma.

  Norma Desmond : Happy New Year, darling.

• Norma Desmond : You must forgive me for calling you so late, but I really feel it's my duty. It's about Mr. Gillis. You do know Mr. Gillis? Exactly how much do you know about him? Do you know where he lives? Do you know how he lives? Do you know what he lives on?

  Betty Schaefer : Who are you? What do you want? What business is it of yours anyway?

  Norma Desmond : Miss Schaefer, I'm trying to do you a favor. I'm trying to spare you a great deal of misery. Of course you may be too young to even suspect there are men of his sort. I don't know what he's told you, but he does not live with relatives. Nor with friends in the usual sense of the word. Well, ask him. Ask him again.

  Joe Gillis : [grabbing the phone from Norma]  That's right, Betty. Ask me again. This is Joe.

  Betty Schaefer : Joe, where are you? What is this all about?

  Joe Gillis : Well, better yet, why don't you come out and see for yourself? The address is 10086 Sunset Boulevard.

• Joe Gillis : [spotting Max in the shadows]  What is it, Max? Wanna wash the car? Or you're doing a little spying in your off-hours?

  Max Von Mayerling : You must be very careful as you cross the patio. Madame may be watching.

  Joe Gillis : How about going up the kitchen stairs and undressing in the dark? Will that do it?

  Max Von Mayerling : I'm not inquiring where Mr. Gillis goes every night.

  Joe Gillis : Why don't you? I'm writing a script, and I'm going to finish it. No matter what.

  Max Von Mayerling : It's just that I'm greatly worried about Madame.

  Joe Gillis : Sure you are. And we're not helping her any. Feeding her lies and more lies. Getting herself ready for a picture. What happens when she finds out?

  Max Von Mayerling : She never will. That is my job, and it has been for a long time. You must understand: I discovered her when she was 16. I made her a star and I cannot let her be destroyed.

• Norma Desmond : You went out last night, didn't you, Joe?

  Joe Gillis : Why do you say that?

  Norma Desmond : I just happen to know it. I had a nightmare! I screamed for you but you weren't here! Where were you?

  Joe Gillis : I went for a walk.

  Norma Desmond : No you didn't. You took the car.

  Joe Gillis : Alright. I drove to the beach. Norma, you don't want me to feel that I'm locked up in this house!

  Norma Desmond : Of course not, Joe, it's... it's just that I don't want to be left alone! Not while I'm under this terrible strain! My nerves are being torn to shreds! All I ask is for you to be a little patient and little kind.

  Joe Gillis : Norma, I haven't done anything.

  Norma Desmond : [possessively grabbing a lock of his hair]  Of course you haven't, I wouldn't let you. Good night, darling.

  Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Yes, I was playing hooky every evening. It made me think when I was 12 and used to sneak out on the folks to see a gangster picture. This time it wasn't to see a picture, it was to try and write one.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : She sat coiled up like a watch spring, her cigarette planted in a curious holder. I could sense her eyes on me from behind those dark glasses, defying me not to like what I read, or maybe begging me in her own proud way to like it. It meant so much to her. It sure was a cozy setup: that bundle of raw nerves, Max, and a dead monkey upstairs. And the wind wheezing through that organ once in a while.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : [observing from an upstairs window]  There was something else going on below: the last rites for that hairy old chimp, performed with the utmost seriousness, as if she were laying to rest an only child. Was her life really as empty as that? It was all very queer, but queerer things were yet to come.

• Joe Gillis : Ever been in one of these old Hollywood palazzos? That's from when they were making $18 thousand a week and no taxes. Careful of these tiles, they're slippery. Valentino used to dance here.

  Betty Schaefer : This is where you live?

  Joe Gillis : You bet.

  Betty Schaefer : Whose house is it?

  Joe Gillis : Hers.

  Betty Schaefer : Whose?

  Joe Gillis : [with a sweeping gesture of his arm]  Just look around, there's a lot of her spread about. If you don't remember the face, you must have heard the name: Norma Desmond.

  Betty Schaefer : That was Norma Desmond on the phone?

  Joe Gillis : Would you like something to drink? There's always champagne on ice. And plenty of caviar.

• Betty Schaefer : Why did she call me?

  Joe Gillis : Jealous. Did you ever see so much junk? She had the ceiling brought from Portugal.

  Joe Gillis : [scrolling up the wall painting]  And look at this: her own movie theatre!

  Betty Schaefer : I didn't come here to see a house. What about Norma Desmond?

  Joe Gillis : That's what I'm trying to tell you. This is an enormous place: 8 master bedrooms, a sunken tub in every bathroom, there's a bowling alley in the cellar. It's lonely here, so she got herself a companion. Very simple setup. Older woman who's well-to-do, a younger man who's not doing too well. Can you figure it out yourself?

  Betty Schaefer : No.

  Joe Gillis : Alright, I'll give you a few more clues...

  Betty Schaefer : No! I haven't heard any of this! I never got those telephone calls and I've never been in this house! Now get your things together and let's get out of here.

• Norma Desmond : Just a minute, you. You're a writer, you said?

  Joe Gillis : Why?

  Norma Desmond : Are you or aren't you?

  Joe Gillis : That's what it says on my guild card.

  Norma Desmond : And you have written pictures, haven't you?

  Joe Gillis : Sure have. Want a list of my credits?

  Norma Desmond : I want to ask you something. Come in here.

  Joe Gillis : Last one I wrote was about Okies in the Dust Bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen the whole thing played on a torpedo boat.

• Norma Desmond : The wind gets in that blasted pipe organ. I ought to have it taken out.

  Joe Gillis : Or teach it a better tune.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : It was at her New Year's party that I found out how she felt about me. Maybe I'd have been an idiot not to sense that it was coming. That sad, embarrassing revelation.

• Joe Gillis : [as the strains of Auld Lang Syne waft up from the living room]  Happy New Year, Norma.

  Norma Desmond : [drawing him close]  Happy New Year, darling.

• Joe Gillis (as narrator) : [after Norma tosses Joe her screenplay] 

  Joe Gillis (as narrator) : Well, I had no pressing engagement, except with those boys from the finance office. And she'd mentioned something to drink. Why not? Sometimes it's interesting to see how just bad bad writing can be. This promised to go the limit. I wondered what a handwriting expert would make of that childish scrawl of hers?