Finian McLonergan: Don't be superstitious, it's bad luck.


--Fred Astaire (as Finian McLonergan) in Finian's Rainbow

Finian McLonergan: Now that you're half mortal, you're indecent.


--Fred Astaire (as Finian McLonergan) in Finian's Rainbow

Franklyn Ambruster: You're at a level where you can only afford one mistake. The higher up you go, the more mistakes you're allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style.


--Fred Astaire (as ) in The Notorious Landlady

Johnny Brett: [singing] So, move Grant's Tomb to Union Square / and put Brooklyn anywhere / but please, please / I'm down on my knees / don't monkey with Broadway!


--Fred Astaire (as Johnny Brett) in Broadway Melody of 1940

Johnny Brett: Nice black coffee for that nice black hangover.


--Fred Astaire (as Johnny Brett) in Broadway Melody of 1940

Johnny Parkson Riggs: This isn't a country. It's a cemetery with a train running through it.


--Fred Astaire (as Johnny Parkson Riggs) in Yolanda and the Thief

Julian Osborne: I shouldn't drink, you know. I inevitably say something brilliant.


--Fred Astaire (as Julian Osborne) in On the Beach

Julian Osborne: The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn't any. The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained - - by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use - - without committing suicide. Everybody had an atomic bomb, and counter-bombs, and counter-counter bombs. The devices outgrew us; we couldn't control them. I know, I helped build them. Somewhere, some poor bloke probably looked at a radar screen and thought he saw something. He knew that if he hesitated for a second that his own country would be wiped off the map. So he pushed a button and the world went crazy.


--Fred Astaire (as Julian Osborne) in On the Beach

Julian Osborne: The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't possibly use without committing suicide.


--Fred Astaire (as Julian Osborne) in On the Beach

Julian Osborne: There was a choice. It was build the bombs, and use them - or risk the United States, the Soviet Union, and the rest of us, would find some way... to go on living.
Morgan: [scoffs] That's wishful thinking if ever I heard it.
Julian Osborne: [softly] I'm not against wishful thinking. Not now.


--Fred Astaire (as Julian Osborne) in On the Beach