- Adam Calhorn Shaw: You earned $300,000? Now, let's start from the beginning, just what did you do to earn all this money?
- Johnny Nyle: I sing in television, radio, records, night clubs.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: You get all that money singing?
- Johnny Nyle: I guess you wouldn't call it singing. I'm a - a crooner.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: There ought to be a law against that.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: What's the phone number?
- Johnny Nyle: Oh, they don't believe in telephones.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Telephones are not a matter of faith!
- Grandma Salome Mulvain: Oh, you poor man. You've been hit by the tail of a comet. But it's not too late! Just let me have those glasses.
- Photographer: Please smile for the next one, Mr. Shaw.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I was smiling.
- Photographer: Okay, but make it a big one for the next one. Show your teeth.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I'm not selling toothpaste, I'm running for Congress.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: This is a matter of principle with me. There is no fiduciary feeling in trade anymore. No tradition, no standards. We've become a nation of fools, faddists, and fakes.
- Mr. Tremaine: Well, it sounds very snappy, but what makes you think the public will understand it? You take my advice, Adam, practice smiling.
- Mr. Tremaine: What's the matter with you, don't you want to get elected?
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I most certainly do, Mr. Tremaine.My family has had a long and distinguished record in public life. My grandfather was governor of Massachusetts, Father was a senator. But they did not get there by back-slapping and kissing babies.
- Mr. Tremaine: And they had an advantage that you don't have, they didn't look as young as you do.
- The Sisters: Athena: Now if I may just have some watermelon rinds, wax paper, and fish heads, I'll get to work.
- Beth Hallson: Wouldn't you prefer a cocktail?
- The Sisters: Athena: This is Grandpa's sassafras cure he got from an old Indian. There's never been a Ute with arthritis.
- The Sisters: Athena: Oh my, I'm sorry, but we can't ever mulch together.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Well, if we can't, we can't.
- The Sisters: Athena: Oh, this is an interesting house. It's a decayed kind of architecture and thoroughly impractical. If you'll just tear out that whole side and put in a window, you'll bring the outside in.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: When I had this house built I told the architect to keep the outside out.
- The Sisters: Athena: I have six sisters and you'll like them all, but - it's Minerva, all right.
- Johnny Nyle: Are they anything like you?
- The Sisters: Athena: Oh, I'm the Ugly Ducking.
- Johnny Nyle: That's good enough for me. When do I meet your sister?
- The Sisters: Athena: [singing] Life is fun if you vocalize, Full of sun if you vocalize, Re Do Ti Do, It's my credo...
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: You speak Japanese?
- The Sisters: Athena: I can say, "I love you, let us be friends." I can say it in fifty-four different languages, and I'm working on African dialects.
- Beth Hallson: I'm sure that's going to come in very handy.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Well, according to Grandpa, we should learn to like everybody in the world.
- The Sisters: Athena: I'm so happy to have met you. You have such a lovely figure.
- Beth Hallson: Why, thank you.
- The Sisters: Athena: But you really shouldn't wear a girdle.
- Beth Hallson: It's not a girdle, it's a foundation garment.
- The Sisters: Athena: Your spine doesn't know the difference, it's all pinched in. Sooner or later you're going to have trouble with a loose disk.
- Beth Hallson: You seem to have trouble with a loose tongue.
- The Sisters: Athena: Oh, I am sorry. I always say things I think and I shouldn't. Forgive me?
- Beth Hallson: I may say I will, but I won't.
- The Sisters: Minerva: You ought to be ashamed of yourself selling beer. Grandpa says drinking alcohol is like swallowing a dead toad.
- Johnny Nyle: I guess between a guy like that and a guy like me, anybody'd rather have a guy like that.
- The Sisters: Minerva: Well, muscles aren't everything, sometimes it's personality, and the way a fella smiles.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Now, look here Beth, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you're dead wrong. And she just came here...
- Beth Hallson: If you say "mulch" again, I'll scream. I come here at eight o'clock in the morning and find you having breakfast with a very attractive young lady. And all I want to know is, how long has this "mulching" been going on?
- Johnny Nyle: [singing] Imagine you're a flower, a full blown flower, Imagine I'm a rather fresh bee, If I came along at just the right minute, You'd be sweet to me, As sweet as honey to me.
- The Sisters: Minerva: Honey?
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Say, that's fine. The minute you walked in here I liked the look of your sartorius muscle, boy. It's a man's pinnings that count, boy.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: We believe in the direct approach. Maybe that's why so people think we're nutty as fruit cakes. What's your opinion?
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Frankly, Mr. Mulvain, I'm on the side of the majority.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Good for you! No mealy mouth hypocrisy, you speak the truth.
- The Sisters: Minerva: How do you like our dance?
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Quite nice.
- The Sisters: Minerva: Not too fussy?
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I know very little about it. But, I do know that if you don't put on more clothes, you'll either get pneumonia or get arrested or both.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Don't worry, I'll - I'll settle this matter once and for all.
- Beth Hallson: When you're decisive, Adam, you're very attractive.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I have made other plans.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Plan 'til you're blue in the face, the stars say different, boy.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: And stop calling me "boy"! I'm a full grown, mature man.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Well now, that's open to discussion.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Let's have a rollickin' song, Honey. Something with a lot of zoom, zoom, zoom in it. I don't sing very well, but I great on the zoom, zoom, zoom.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I can hardly wait.
- The Sisters: Athena, The Sisters: Minerva, The Sisters: Niobe, The Sisters: Aphrodite, The Sisters: Calliope, The Sisters: Medea, The Sisters: Ceres, Johnny Nyle: [singing] Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Ah-ah-ah-ah
- The Sisters: Athena: Life is fun if you harmonize
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain, The Sisters: Athena, The Sisters: Minerva, The Sisters: Niobe, The Sisters: Aphrodite, The Sisters: Calliope, The Sisters: Medea, The Sisters: Ceres, Johnny Nyle: Full of sun if you harmonize, Re Do Ti Do, It's my credo...
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Look out, boy, your face is getting flushed. That comes from eating too much meat. If people would only eat sensible foods like nuts and berries, they'd behave more like plants and flowers than like animals.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: I admit that people behave like animals, but I doubt that it's a matter of diet. The plain truth is people *are* animals!
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Watch out, boy. You're gonna explode like a firecracker.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: If Mr. Shaw wants to commit suicide, that's his business. Only I prefer you don't do it in my house.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: When I was twenty, they told me I was gonna die. But Grandma wouldn't hear of that. Oh, no, not Grandma. So, we went off to a cabin and we took off our clothes and we sat in the sun.
- Grandpa Ulysses Mulvain: Now look here, boy, I'm gonna have to ask you to sit down. You're making me nervous. I haven't been nervous for 58 years and I don't like it.
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Athena, people don't fall in love because of the stars.
- The Sisters: Athena: Then why do they fall in love?
- Adam Calhorn Shaw: Mutual interests, long acquaintances. Well, it just happens.
- The Sisters: Athena: Then it might be the stars, mighten it?
- The Sisters: Athena: Tell Grandpa to give you a steam bath. And stop thinking, it always upsets you.
- The Sisters: Athena: We live very differently from other people. We live for happiness, beauty and decency.
- Mr. Griswalde: If you get mixed up with the wrong sort of people, it's bad for the firm.
- Mr. Tremaine: It could keep you out of Congress. You've got to be as clean as a hound's tooth!
- Mr. Grenville: How many girls were here?
- Roy: Seven.
- Mr. Tremaine: Sounds like he's running a harem.
- Mr. Grenville: Or worse.
- Mr. Griswalde: Well, now, it may be perfectly innocent. Adam may be just sponsoring a girls' basketball team.
- Mr. Grenville: There are only five on a basketball team.
- Mr. Tremaine: And Roy said seven.
- Mr. Grenville: Well, substitutes maybe.
- Mr. Grenville: Roast beef never hurt anyone. Try a piece, it's nice and rare.
- The Sisters: Athena: That's not rare, it's wounded.
- Mr. Tremaine: Stop playing the fool, Adam. There's a congressional campaign ahead of you. There's no two ways about it, you've got to get rid of Athena, she's off the beam. And so is her family.
- Mr. Grenville: Her grandmother was here. She had me doing tulip exercises.
- Grandma Salome Mulvain: Leo's are always puffing and blowing, but underneath they're as gentle as wooly lambs. Besides, the male is usually attractive and distinguished.
- The Sisters: Athena: [singing] I'm always on the ball and full of pep!
- The Sisters: Minerva, The Sisters: Niobe, The Sisters: Aphrodite, The Sisters: Calliope, The Sisters: Medea, The Sisters: Ceres: How's your heart?
- The Sisters: Athena: It must be ticking, 'Cause I feel alive and kicking...
- The Sisters: Minerva: Oh, well, I want to Johnny. More than anything. But, the stars say...
- Johnny Nyle: The stars say we'll have trouble. I'd rather have trouble with you than without you.
- The Sisters: Minerva: You can't change the stars, Johnny.
- Johnny Nyle: [singing] Soon we'll kiss and stars will fade in the mist for me, They'll only exist for me, If they shine in your eyes, When two hearts are entwined, Venus waltzes with Mars. Hand in hand, we will find, Love can change the stars.
- Johnny Nyle: [singing] Where in the world would you hear, Mandolins playing while glasses are clinking, Gaily, daily...