Down with Love

Barbara Novak:
We're acting just like two people... in love.

Vickie Hiller:
Barbara?

Peter MacMannus:
Vickie!

Catcher Block:
Nancy!

Peter MacMannus:
Who are you calling Nancy?

Peter MacMannus:
I think Vickie was only talking about marriage so I'd wanna have sex with her. And then I did, and now she never talks to me, except to come back for more. I feel so used.

Catcher Block:
I'm so sorry, Miss Novak, the darndest thing. I got waylaid by the sweetest Swedish Lapphund who kept me up half the night, and I'm afraid I'm still in bed.

Barbara Novak:
You sure do get way laid.

Peter MacMannus:
Where's my geisha? I need my shoes.

Catcher Block:
But this "Down with love"-chick is too busy? Doing what? Eating chocolate?

Vickie Hiller:
So you're a homosexual hopelessly in love with Catcher Block, that's no reason the two of us can't be married.

Peter MacMannus:
Catch, you are the best friend a guy with twenty diagnosed neuroses ever had.

Catcher Block:
Oh, we've been friends a long time... I knew you when you only had twelve.

Catcher Block:
You said she was a spinster.

Peter MacMannus:
I've never used the word "spinster" in my life. Okay, once, when I told my mother it was technically incorrect to call her son a spinster.

Catcher Block:
Earth still is my favourite planet.

Barbara Novak:
Another ruse, Catcher? You know I have no interest in seeing you.

Catcher Block:
But you know you have to, and you know I know you have to. I'm sure you know how things are at KNOW ever since your new NOW.

Barbara Novak:
I have no way of knowing how things are now at KNOW. I knew how things were at KNOW before NOW.

Catcher Block:
Then you should know now at KNOW things are a lot like they are at NOW, we have to interview every applicant for every job, and so do you or you'd be going against NOW's definition of discrimination and you wouldn't want the readers of NOW or KNOW to know that, now would you?

Barbara Novak:
Have a seat, Mr. Block.

Barbara Novak:
I'm not gonna storm out of here, Catch. And I'm not gonna admit that you got Barbara Novak to fall in love... because I'm not Barbara Novak. There is no Barbara Novak.

Catcher Block:
Huh?

Barbara Novak:
And I didn't fall in love with Zip Martin. I fell in love with Catcher Block. And that was a year ago, when for three and a half weeks, I worked as your secretary. I don't expect you to remember me. I wasn't a blond then. But you did ask me out. And it broke my heart to say no, but I loved you too much. I couldn't bear to become just another notch in your bedpost. With your dating habits, I knew that even if I was lucky enough to get a regular spot on your rotating schedule... I would never have your undivided attention long enough for you to fall in love with me. I knew I had to do something to set myself apart. I knew I had to quit my job as your secretary... and write an international best-seller controversial enough... to get the attention of a New York publisher as well as "KNOW" magazine... but insignificant enough that as long as I went unseen, "KNOW" magazine's star journalist would refuse to do a cover story about it. I knew that every time we were supposed to meet, you would get distracted by one of your many girlfriends and stand me up... and this would give me a reason to fight with you over the phone... and declare that I wouldn't meet with you for a hundred years. And then all I would have to do was be patient and wait... the two or three weeks it would take for everyone in the world to buy a copy of my best-seller - and then I would begin to get the publicity I would need for you... to, one, see what I look like, and, two, see me denounce you in public as the worst kind of man. I knew that this would make you wanna get even by writing one of your exposés. And in order to do that, you would have to go undercover, assume a false identity and pretend to be the kind of man who would make the kind of girl I was pretending to be fall in love. And I knew that since I was pretending to be a girl who would have sex on the first date you would have pretend to be a man who wouldn't have sex for several dates. And in doing so, we would go out on lots of dates to all the best places and all the hit shows until finally, one night, you would take me back to your place - that you were pretending was someone else's - in order to get the evidence you needed to write your exposé... by seducing me until I said, "I love you." But saying "I love you" was also my plan. I just wanted to tell you the truth so that when you heard me say, "I love you" you would know that I knew who you were, and you would know who I was. Then you, the great Catcher Block, would know that you'd been beaten at your own game... by me, Nancy Brown, your former secretary. And I would have, once and for all, set myself apart from all the other girls you've known, all those other girls that you never really cared about, by making myself someone like the one person you really love and admire above all others: you. Then, when you realized that you had finally met your match... I would have at last gained the respect that would make you wanna marry me first and seduce me later.

Barbara Novak:
I just wanted you to hear all this from me before you heard it from your private eye.

Barbara Novak:
This is Barbara Novak!

Peter MacMannus:
What would you say is the average length, for most men?

Catcher Block:
How would I know? You think I spend all my time in the locker room at the club making a comparative study?

Peter MacMannus:
Let me see yours again, then. We could measure. I'll get a ruler.

Catcher Block:
Better make it a yardstick!

Peter MacMannus:
Let's be accurate. Make sure you've got it fully extended. Have it up the whole way.

Catcher Block:
It stays up all the way, all day long, man! That's the miracle I was telling you about: better living through chemistry. You got... 16 inches.

Peter MacMannus:
16 inches! How long does a man's hose have to be?

Catcher Block:
That's 32 inches of confidence in every step. Don't forget - I've got two of 'em!

Vickie Hiller:
The men who resent my success won't give me the time of day, and the men who respect my success won't give me the time of night.

Peter MacMannus:
I'd respect you and resent you night and day!

Catcher Block:
I love you, Barbara.

Barbara Novak:
I know.

Narrator:
The place: New York City. The time: Now, 1962. And there's no time or place like it. If you've got a dream, this is the place to make that dream come true. That's why the soaring population of hopeful dreamers has just reached eight million people. Oh! Make that eight million and one.

Catcher Block:
Here, this'll put hairs on your chest. Not that I would want that.

Barbara Novak:
Mmm-hmm.

Barbara Novak:

Catcher Block:
It doesn't take a NASA rocket scientist to figure *that* out.

Barbara Novak:
I'd like to get to know you better.

Catcher Block:
How much better?

Barbara Novak:
All the way better.

Catcher Block:
Well, I can't know you all the way better till I know you much, much better

Barbara Novak:
Do you feel you know me well enough for me to buy you a drink?

Catcher Block:
I sure could go for a Tang.

Vickie Hiller:
At one point, I had even convinced myself that life was all one big zany sex comedy and you had switched keys with the lead to use his swinging pad to snare me.

Barbara Novak:
Have a candy bar for your trouble, and thanks again for thinking of us.

Catcher Block:
But I'm always thinking of you, Miss Novak. I can't stop thinking of you, and I'd like you to reconsider considering me.

Barbara Novak:
Even at a pay cut of 96.6%?

Catcher Block:
It's only money. Besides, I've been on top so long I thought it might be nice to try a new position

Barbara Novak:
And you think you could be comfortable in a position under a woman?

Catcher Block:
I look forward to it. Starting at the bottom, working my way up slowly to the top.

Catcher Block:
I never once said a word about Nancy Brown, and the only prize I wanted to win, was you. Crazy, Isn't it? After all our tricking each other and our game playing, I'm the one with the love letter and your the one with the scoop. Still, I'll keep my eyes on the billboards.

Barbara Novak:
Vegas?

Catcher Block:
We can get married there right away. I'm not letting you get away again

Barbara Novak:
Oh, Catch.

Catcher Block:
I love you, Barbara.

Barbara Novak:
I know.

Vickie Hiller:
I don't get it. How could a person lose their built-in bar?

Peter MacMannus:
You're fired.

Catcher Block:
No I'm not.

Peter MacMannus:
Oh, Yes you are.

Peter MacMannus:
We Americans? Why? We Americans are good, Nazis are bad.

Catcher Block:
You see Lola shakes her maracas while Rosa bounces her bongo's while Nina is all hands. 120 words a minute.

Peter MacMannus:
The story? It's written? Whoa Catch. But is it safe to print? NASA is gonna blow its stack.

Catcher Block:
Well, they forgave Germany they can forgive us.

Barbara Novak:
Oh, I'd like to Zip, really, I would. But just the fact that I'd like to give you another chance is the very reason I absolutely must not. Goodbye, Catch.

Barbara Novak:
Ok, one more chance. I'll just um... say goodnight, and goodbye.

Catcher Block:
I don't care about sex anymore. I just want to get married.

Peter MacMannus:
Well me too. But fat chance now.

Gladys:
The only man who could have his way with me now is Milton Hershey.

Theodore Banner:
You're my creative team, create a reason to get rid of her or I'll create a new creative team.

Theodore Banner:
Not since Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, which changed forever the landscape of man's destiny, has one book reached so many and achieved so much; reminding all of us here today of the noble goal which called us to toil in the field of publishing to begin with... sales.

Peter MacMannus:
4,000,000 women in the naked city, and the one you let get away, the one you had to get on the bad side of, is the one all the other 4,000,000 are listening to.

Peter MacMannus:
It's not like Catch to be late.

Barbara Novak:
No, he usually calls to cancel right on time...

Vickie Hiller:
At the risk of sounding like my mother, just stay perfectly still and let him get it over with.

[After the credits; Vickie and Peter call each other on the telephone at the exact same moment. They proceed to speak entirely in unison throughout the scene]

Vickie Hiller and Peter MacManus:
I'm sorry, you'll have to hold. Peter / Vickie?! Do you want to marry me or not?! I'm not giving up my career! [Equal astonishment] I wouldn't ask you to! Then it's a deal? Deal!

Catcher Block:
I'm taking [Barbara] to my place which she still thinks is your place by saying the guy she thinks I am who acts like you has a meeting there with you and the guy who she still doesn't know I really am.

Catcher Block:
I'm sorry I have to say this, Barbara but....I love you. So I can make love to you heartfelt, passionate, worshiping, adoring love and you can still have meaningless sex with me, right?