The Little Foxes

Horace Giddens:
Maybe it's easy for the dying to be honest. I'm sick of you, sick of this house, sick of my unhappy life with you. I'm sick of your brothers and their dirty tricks to make a dime. There must be better ways of getting rich than building sweatshops and pounding the bones of the town to make dividends for you to spend. You'll wreck the town, you and your brothers. You'll wreck the country, you and your kind, if they let you. But not me, I'll die my own way, and I'll do it without making the world worse. I leave that to you.

Regina Giddens:
I hope you die! I hope you die soon! I'll be waiting for you to die!

Ben Hubbard:
[From his balcony] Mornin', Regina.

Regina Giddens:
Really, Ben! You look very silly in your nightgown. You shouldn't show yourself.

Ben Hubbard:
That's why I never got married. I shall dress and come over for breakfast with you and Alexandra.

Regina Giddens:
No, don't. I hate conversation before I've had something hot.

Ben Hubbard:
Regina, you're a fool! How many times did Mama tell you it's unwise for a good-lookin' woman to frown? How many times have I told you that softness and a smile will do more to the hearts of men?

Regina Giddens:
I'll do things in my own way, Ben. I know what I'm doing.

Ben Hubbard:
I hope you do, Regina.

Regina Giddens:
How much more time can you give me?

Ben Hubbard:
Horace has refused.

Regina Giddens:
He'll change his mind. I'll find a way to make him. How much longer can you wait?

Ben Hubbard:
Well, I could wait a few days, but I can't wait a few days. I could, but I can't. Could and can't. [laughs]

David Hewitt:
Do you like me?

Alexandra Giddens:
Not today.

David Hewitt:
Why, I'll come back tomorrow.

David Hewitt:
[Listening to African-Americans singing] Well, white people may have the pianos, but the colored folks got the voices.

Ben Hubbard:
Then, too, one loses today and wins tomorrow.

Regina Giddens:
[about marrying Horace] It didn't take me long to find out my mistake. Then it was just as if I couldn't stand the sight of you. I couldn't bear to have you touch me. I thought you were such a soft weak fool, you were so understanding when I didn't want you near me. The lies and excuses I used to make to you, and you believed them. That was when I began to despise you.

Horace Giddens:
[starts looking agitated] Why didn't you leave me?

Regina Giddens:
Where was I to go? What money did I have? I didn't think about it much, if I had, I'd have known you'd die before I did. But I couldn't have guessed you'd get heart trouble so early and so bad. I'm lucky Horace. I've always been lucky. I'll be lucky again.

[Horace drops his emergency medicine]

Horace Giddens:
The other bottle. Please, upstairs in my room, in the drawer.

[Regina does nothing. Horace stumbles upstairs himself and collapses]

Regina Giddens:
[about a possible marriage between Alexandra and Leo] There are a lot of things to consider. After all, they are first cousins.

Oscar Hubbard:
Well, that isn't unusual, our grandfather and grandmother were first cousins!

Regina Giddens:
Yes, and look at us.

[laughs]

Regina Giddens:
I was lonely when I was young. Not in the way people usually mean. I was lonely for all the things I wasn't gonna get.

David Hewitt:
You know, that's the first time I ever heard your mother tell you to do something, and you didn't hop to do it.

Alexandra Giddens:
That's a funny thing to say

David Hewitt:
You know, you take one step. And then you take another. After a while you'll find out you're walking all by yourself.

Regina Giddens:
Cal, the grits is cold. Take it back.

Cal:
Yes'm. [runs back to the kitchen with the grits] The grits didn't hold the heat! The grits didn't hold the heat!

Leo Hubbard:
[Arriving for work at the bank] Good morning, Mr. Manders... Well, what can I do for you today?

Sam Manders:
You can do one thing, Leo.

Leo Hubbard:
Yes, sir? What's that?

Sam Manders:
You can try keeping awake... ALL day.

William Marshall:
You don't have to convince me about 'Hubbard Sons.' I'm sure you're the right people for the deal. You want the mill here, I want it here. But it's not my business WHY you want it.

Ben Hubbard:
They're to bring the machine to the cotton, and not the cotton to the machine.

Ben Hubbard:
Four conversations are three too many.

Ben Hubbard:
[to Regina] That's cynical. But cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.

Alexandra Giddens:
[Referring to David, appearing in his nightclothes] Ooh... Just getting up at 11 o'clock in the morning.

Mrs. Lucy Hewitt:
Mornin', Zan. He's not just getting up, he's just going to bed. He's been writing all night.

Alexandra Giddens:
Writin' things to put in the newspaper?

Mrs. Lucy Hewitt:
No... He said he's writing things they WON'T put in the newspaper.

David Hewitt:
I'll tell you what you could do if you went away, Zan: if you could find some place where they pay wages for talkin' silly, you could make a fortune.

Ben Hubbard:
I always say to myself, I don't like nervous people. I can't trust 'em. Leo, you are one of the people who bore me. An' I'm getting' too old to wanna' be bored. I'm just getting' so I hate it. Now you take your nerves on outta' here and go upstairs and take a warm bath. That'll be good for you - a nice, warm bath.

Regina Giddens:
[having learned what her brothers and cousin Leo have been up to, laughing] Well, this'll make a fine little scandal.

Horace Giddens:
Couldn't it?

Regina Giddens:
A fine little scandal to hold over their heads. Ha ha! How could they be such fools?

Horace Giddens:
I want to know why Zan came to fetch me.

Addie:
I don't know, Mr. Horace. All I know is, big things is goin' on. Everybody gonna be high-toned rich. You too. All 'cause smoke gonna start from a building that ain't even up yet.

Regina Giddens:
You're a good loser, Ben. I like that.

Ben Hubbard:
Well, I say to myself, what's the good? You and I aren't like Oscar. We're not sour people. I think that comes from a good digestion. [Regina giggles]

Ben Hubbard:
Until one loses today, and wins tomorrow. I say to myself, years of planning, and I get what I want. And then I don't get it... But I'm not discouraged. The world's open for people like you and me. There's thousands of us all over the world. We'll own the country some day. They won't try to stop us. We'll get along.

Regina Giddens:
[Amused] I think so.

Regina Giddens:
Why, Alexandra! You have spirit after all. I used to think you were all sugar water.

Regina Giddens:
[final lines] Would you like to talk to me, Alexandra? Would you... like to sleep in my room tonight?

Alexandra Giddens:
Why, Mama? Are you afraid?

Regina Giddens:
Alexandra, I've come to the end of my rope. Somewhere there's got to be what I want, too. Life goes too fast. You can go where you want, do what you want, think what you want. I'd like to keep you with me but I won't make you stay. No, I won't make you stay.

Alexandra Giddens:
[thoughtful] You couldn't, Mama. Because I don't want to stay with you. Because I'm beginning to understand about things. Addie said there were people who ate the earth and those that stood around and watched them do it. And just then Uncle Ben said the same thing. Really the same thing. Tell him from me, Mama, I'm not going to watch you do it.

Ben Hubbard:
Down here we have a strange custom. We drink the last drink as a toast. That's to prove that the Southerner's always on his feet for the last drink. [later he admitted to making that up for the occasion]

Cal:
Where's the Lord say that 'bout feedin' the hungry. What book?

Addie:
I don't know. But if he didn't, he shoulda.

Oscar Hubbard:
The ones that are rich enough to give are smart enough to want.

Addie:
Nobody gets growin' pains no more. Just like there was some style on what you got. One year illness got it, and the next year you 'aint.