- Dr. Aarons: There is a tradition among medical students that dealing with death humorously makes things easier. It doesn't. There may be a successful Joke about death in the abstract, but l have never heard it. About death in the particular, believe me there is nothing funny at all. I have been a pathologist for over twenty-five years, I haven't been able to get a single laugh out of it yet.
- Dr. Aarons: [lighting a cigarette] Well, gentlemen, you've completed your internship. You're practising physicians now. This will be your last staff meeting. You saw your first dissection on this very table - and l think it's fitting that we say goodbye here. Now a pathologist usually has the last word, in this particular case it's a very hard word to find, because - well, because if you don't know it by now - if it isn't in your hearts - it's too late for me to tell it to you. Goodbye. God bless all of you. And -- don't endorse any cigarettes!
- Dr. Aarons: I can see the picture you got of yourself already... a country road and an old Ford. It's a white house and you are Saint George complete in spotless armor. You get to a farmhouse. There's this man bleeding to death. Now alone, without instruments, without assistance, you perform an impossible operation, and because your heart is pure, you save him.
- Lucas Marsh: I haven't any th...
- Dr. Aarons: [Interrupting] You're going to go down that road. When you get there, you know what you're going to find? A man with a boil on his backside. You hear me? A boil on his backside! You will lance it and go home.
- Lucas Marsh: [Smiling ironically and turning to leave] Good-bye, Doctor.
- Dr. Aarons: [Loudly across the room] Marsh, you're one of the most brilliant students we've ever had here. You'll be aa great physician. Stop living your life like a Greek tragedy, or you'll muff it!
- Lucas Marsh: [Soberly] Thank you.
- Dr. Aarons: [Quietly] Goodbye, Doctor.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: [Meeting Al for the first time] I was told you'd have a Cadillac.
- Alfred Boone: [Wryly] It's just a front. The Cadillac has me.
- Dr. Aarons: Now fix firmly in your heads that seven hours ago this was a living soul, housed in an edifice constructed by a supremely capable Architect.
- [picks up a scalpel]
- Dr. Aarons: You are about to violate it.
- Dr. Lettering: High drama, eh, gentlemen? Men in white, acting swiftly against death, flashing knives, flowing blood, mystery - just like on television. Don't be seduced by it. lt's mechanic's work. A hundred years ago it was the physician who was important. Surgery was left to the barbers.
- Alfred Boone: l think it's a dirty, stinking, lousy thing to do. You're taking advantage of a poor square-head who's afraid of being an old maid.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: Naked ye come into the world, and naked ye shall leave it. You're a country doctor now.
- Harriet Lang: They always warn you about solitary drinking, but they never tell you how to get people to stay up and drink with you.
- Lucas Marsh: All right, I'll ask. What happened?
- Alfred Boone: Nothing.
- Lucas Marsh: Nothing? A tiger like you?
- Alfred Boone: This kid's very sick. She needs a lot of help., She's got an absolute obsession about virtue.
- Lucas Marsh: You mean she didn't go for you, huh?
- Alfred Boone: I think she's hyper-thyroid.
- Lucas Marsh: Well, there are plenty more fish in the sea.
- Alfred Boone: Yeah, but this fish cost me 18 bucks in a night club.
- Kristina Hedvigson: [referring to Ava Gardner in "The Barefoot Contessa"] When l was small, l used to hate women like that.
- Lucas Marsh: Like what?
- Kristina Hedvigson: The girl in the movie. l used to think it wasn't fair. lf tings were arranged right, all women would be that pretty.
- Lucas Marsh: Well you're pretty. You've got a nice figure.
- Kristina Hedvigson: Oh?
- Lucas Marsh: You know what l mean - you - you're put together right. Everything fits - the way you move - the way you walk - even the way you talk.
- Kristina Hedvigson: l'm just not sexy the way she is.
- Lucas Marsh: You don't know what you are - so stop talking like that.
- Kristina Hedvigson: What do you want with me?
- Bruni: You like Svenskafood, Luke?
- Lucas Marsh: Yeah.
- Bruni: Kristi fixed it. All last night, early this morning she worked. She cooks good, ya?
- Lucas Marsh: Wonderful.
- Bruni: She sews good, too. That dress - she made it. Even her underwear she makes sometimes. Believe me, she's got what it takes.
- Mrs. Fields: l just don't know what to do with him, Doctor. lf he isn't running around like a wild lndian getting all dirty, he's getting into trouble in the kitchen or pestering his father on his day off or bothering me to go to a movie, and on top of that he keeps blinking, blinking, blinking, it drives me crazy and there must be something you can do about it, Doctor.
- Lucas Marsh: l have a feeling, Mrs. Fields, he'd stop blinking if you'd stop talking.
- Alfred Boone: This is not the kind of a dame you marry!
- Lucas Marsh: l'm marrying her!
- Alfred Boone: Look, a Doctor's wife gets him patients. She went to the right school. Her folks belong to the right country club. She's charming. She was brought up that way. This dame ought to marry a farmer!
- Dr. Aarons: Gentlemen, if there is a single description of a doctor, it is this: a doctor is memory! Now the survivors of this course will be members of the only group in modern society privileged to commit manslaughter with immunity from the law. Therefore you will learn everything. Not seventy percent - but everything! Otherwise you will be dropped.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: Look, when they come in and they've got a pain, treat it. When they come in and they only think they've got a pain, treat the pain they think they've got. You can't practice medicine; you have to treat people.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: Your patients buy "Reader's Digest" and the first thing you know they have diseases you never heard of.
- Lucas Marsh: Why didn't you send her to surgery? You know when you cut it off like that you may have released cancer cells right into her bloodstream?
- Alfred Boone: l don't think it was a melanoma.
- Lucas Marsh: You don't think. How would you know? You spend all your time making passes at the nurses.
- Kristina Hedvigson: l'm happier than l've ever been in my whole life. l thought maybe l'd miss working, but l don't. l go around all day telling myself how - how smart l am to be a woman and your wife.
- Ed - 67 Year Old Patient: Dave, have l got what l think l have? Now don't kid me!
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: Yes, Ed.
- Ed - 67 Year Old Patient: Will it hurt?
- Lucas Marsh: We can take care of that.
- Ed - 67 Year Old Patient: Just like that, eh?
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: You're sixty-seven years old, Ed. You've lived it up like an international playboy.
- Ed - 67 Year Old Patient: Takes one to know one, Dave. No regrets!
- Lucas Marsh: Well, you're gonna have to quit.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: Look, l've already got old man's kidneys and trouble in the prostate. lt's not going to be so much fun from now on, anyway.
- Lucas Marsh: What instructions did he give?
- Nurse Odell: None. He never does in these cases.
- Lucas Marsh: These cases?
- Nurse Odell: When their time comes Doctor always lets the old ones cross over peacefully. This one won't last until morning.
- Kristina Hedvigson: l wish she didn' t look so beautiful in that dress.
- Dr. Dave W. Runkleman: lf l spent that much time and money, l'd look beautiful myself.
- Dr. Aarons: Marsh, you're wallowing in self-pity. Look, l want to tell you something. l was a promising student, too. l had to face the same problems you're facing now - and a lot more. You're not a Jew. I'm part of the five-percent they let in here because they were ashamed to keep us out entirely. Now you've got me wallowing.
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