Film Quotes by Robert Preston

Rubin Flood: [To Lottie after he overhears her prejudice comments towards Catholics] Hogwash! Malarky! Horse manure! Woman you oughta get yourself a broom and ride over the housetops! You oughta buy yourself a sheet and poke two holes in it and go around setting fires! Or better still, get yourself a big piece of tape and put it over your mouth because you're too ignorant to live! Lottie sometimes I'm ashamed to be related to you even by marriage!

Rubin Flood: Oh, you always got a excuse. But the plain fact is, a lot of time goes by without our making love. Cora, this is a marriage!
Cora Flood: There are other things in marriage.
Rubin Flood: Yeah, but the part I'm talking about is natural! It's normal and it's necessary! God planned it that way, and ain't nobody come up with anything better since Adam and Eve!

Tate Riling: Your cut will be $10,000.
Jim Garry: What do I have to do to earn it?
Tate Riling: Lufton's tough and my ranchers aren't. You make up the difference.

Marcellus Washburn: I heard you was in steam automobiles.
Harold Hill: I was.
Marcellus Washburn: What happened?
Harold Hill: Somebody actually *invented* one-!

Marcellus Washburn: This is where I work.
Harold Hill: You mean you *live* in this town?
Marcellus Washburn: Yeah, I like it, too. I mean it's not Brooklyn, New York. It's not the City of Homes and Churches and...
Harold Hill: [amazed] "Brooklyn"? Marce, this isn't even *Dubuque*!

Jake Pindalest: Here's the item we were talking about the other day. I think you'll find it satisfactory.
Tate Riling: United States dollars are usually satisfactory, aren't they?

Marian Paroo: No, please, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
Harold Hill: Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.

Executive: We sell new machinery. What do you know about drilling equipment for oil fields?
Rubin Flood: Not a thing.
Executive: Then why should we hire you?
Rubin Flood: You chew tobacco, mister?
Executive: I beg your pardon!
Rubin Flood: You talk crops and weather? You know who's had a baby lately? You know who goes to church and who don't? Who likes corn liquor and who likes store liquor? Who's a Republican, who's a Democrat?
Executive: Our methods are a little more modern than that.
Rubin Flood: Well, I'm telling you that the people out here are farmers, no matter how much oil they got in their land. You want to come out of this territory with a profit? You'd be better off taking that diamond stickpin out of your tie and putting a straw hat on the back of your head and a chaw in your cheek! You're gonna have to hunker down and talk business with a man who's cleaning out his pigsty. That's where a lot of sales are made... and it can't be done in a New York suit!

[in song]
Harold Hill: I rant and I rave for the virtue I'm too late to save / I smile, I grin when the gal with a touch of sin walks in / I hope and I pray for Hester to win just one more "A" / The sadder but wiser girl's the girl for me / The sadder but wiser girl for me.

[in song]
Harold Hill: Seventy-six trombones led the big parade / with a hundred and ten cornets close at hand / They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos / the cream of every famous band!