Some Came Running (1958)

Martha Hyer: Gwen French

Photos 

Quotes 

• Gwen French : Seriously, your first novel was more or less autobiographical, wasn't it?

  Dave Hirsh : I thought it was more or less lousy.

  Gwen French : Well, that isn't so. It might have lacked something in craftsmanship; but, it's a really powerful study of rejection.

  Dave Hirsh : Oh, that it was. It was rejected by 42 publishers and almost all of the English-reading public.

• Gwen French : Oh! We'll have no more of that. I'm not one of your barroom tarts!

  Dave Hirsh : You're right, teacher. You're a hundred percent right. I've been a bad boy. I've been naughty. Matter of fact, I don't even belong in your class.

  Gwen French : Quite possibly you don't.

  Dave Hirsh : Well, you won't get a chance to flunk me again.

• Gwen French : Oh, Dave, we've met exactly three times. What do I know about you? What do you know about me?

  Dave Hirsh : I just know that I'm the kid who wants to marry you. Gwen, it's something I want more than anything else in the world.

• Dave Hirsh : I'm told that you teach creative writing.

  Gwen French : Yes, I do.

  Dave Hirsh : Would you like to teach me?

• Gwen French : Do you always drink this much?

  Dave Hirsh : Only when I have money.

• Gwen French : I wear my hair this way to please the school board. If you wanna flatter me, I've only one good feature: my mind. You'd be on safer ground.

  Dave Hirsh : Who wants to be on safer ground?

• Gwen French : [Dave moves close to Gwen while she's driving]  I have a theory that writers create to compensate for some lack in their personal lives.

  Dave Hirsh : That's because we need to be stimulated.

• Gwen French : When I suggested there might be a lack in your life, I wasn't offering myself as compensation.

  Dave Hirsh : No, but that's a peachy idea. Why don't we just go park somewhere and talk it over?

  Gwen French : Mr. Hirsh, do I look like a delinquent teenager?

  Dave Hirsh : No, you don't, teacher.

• Ginnie Moorehead : Gee, you don't look like a schoolteacher.

  Gwen French : Thank you. I assume that was a compliment.

• Gwen French : It is true, I believe, that good writers feel more deeply than the rest of us. They have greater appetites for life. If I'd known Poe, I would undoubtedly have been repelled by his drinking; but, I would have tried to understand him. Just as I would have tried to understand Dr. Johnson for his gluttony, De Quincey for using drugs, and Baudelaire for his neurotic promiscuity. They were big men. Big in weakness, bigger in strength.

• Gwen French : Don't handle me, Dave. Your hands on me are not in the least persuasive.