Longfellow Deeds: [to the Court] It's like I'm out in a big boat, and I see one fellow in a rowboat who's tired of rowing and wants a free ride, and another fellow who's drowning. Who would you expect me to rescue? Mr. Cedar - who's just tired of rowing and wants a free ride? Or those men out there who are drowning? Any ten year old child will give you the answer to that.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Longfellow Deeds: About my playing the tuba. Seems like a lot of fuss has been made about that. If, if a man's crazy just because he plays the tuba, then somebody'd better look into it, because there are a lot of tuba players running around loose. 'Course, I don't see any harm in it. I play mine whenever I want to concentrate. That may sound funny to some people, but everybody does something silly when they're thinking. For instance, the judge here is, is an O-filler.
Judge May: A what?
Longfellow Deeds: An O-filler. You fill in all the spaces in the O's with your pencil. I was watching him.
[general laughter]
Longfellow Deeds: That may make you look a little crazy, Your Honor, just, just sitting around filling in O's, but I don't see anything wrong, 'cause that helps you think. Other people are doodlers.
Judge May: "Doodlers"?
Longfellow Deeds: Uh, that's a word we made up back home for people who make foolish designs on paper when they're thinking: it's called doodling. Almost everybody's a doodler; did you ever see a scratchpad in a telephone booth? People draw the most idiotic pictures when they're thinking. Uh, Dr. von Hallor here could probably think up a long name for it, because he doodles all the time.
[general laughter; he takes a sheet off the doctor's notepad]
Longfellow Deeds: Thank you. This is a piece of paper he was scribbling on. I can't figure it out - one minute it looks like a chimpanzee, and the next minute it looks like a picture of Mr. Cedar. You look at it, Judge. Exhibit A for the defense. Looks kind of stupid, doesn't it, Your Honor? But I guess that's all right; if Dr. von Hallor has to, uh, doodle to help him think, that's his business. Everybody does something different: some people are, are ear-pullers; some are nail-biters; that, uh, Mr. Semple over there is a nose-twitcher.
[general laughter]
Longfellow Deeds: And the lady next to him is a knuckle-cracker.
[general laughter]
Longfellow Deeds: So you see, everybody does silly things to help them think. Well, I play the tuba.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Longfellow Deeds: People here are funny. They work so hard at living they forget how to live. Last night, after I left you, I was walking along and - and lookin' at the tall buildings, and I got to thinking about what Thoreau said. 'They created a lot of grand palaces here, but they forgot to create the noblemen to put in them.' I'd rather have Mandrake Falls.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Longfellow Deeds: When the servant comes in, Mr. Hallor, I'm going to ask him to show you to the door. Many people don't know where it is.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Lou Gehrig: All the arguing in the world can't change the decision of the umpire.


--Gary Cooper (as Henry Louis 'Lou' Gehrig) in The Pride of the Yankees

Lou Gehrig: People have to live their own lives. Nobody can live it for you. Nobody could have made a baseball player out of Uncle Otto, and nobody can make anything but a baseball player out of me.


--Gary Cooper (as Henry Louis 'Lou' Gehrig) in The Pride of the Yankees

Michael 'Beau' Geste: There'll be a flag flying out there in the morning that I swore to uphold. Armies of good men have died for it gladly. It's a battle flag and it's a flag of victory. I'm rather proud to be under it. And I wouldn't want to go out in the morning like you and know that I was going to be a traitor to it!


--Gary Cooper (as Michael 'Beau' Geste) in Beau Geste

Robert Jordan: A man fights for what he believes in, Fernando!


--Gary Cooper (as Robert Jordan) in For Whom the Bell Tolls

Robert Jordan: Are you afraid?
Maria: Not now. I love you, Roberto. Always remember. I love you as I loved my father and mother, as I love our unborn children, as I love what I love most in the world, and I love you more. Always remember.
Robert Jordan: I'll remember.
Maria: Nothing can ever part us now, can it?
Robert Jordan: Nothing, Maria.


--Gary Cooper (as Robert Jordan) in For Whom the Bell Tolls

Stretch Willoughby: I'd advise you to get off your high horse and stop talkin' down to people, and the same goes for your smart-aleck friends here!
Oliver Wendell Henderson: I beg your pardon!
Stretch Willoughby: You know you don't give a hang what I think!


--Gary Cooper (as Stretch Willoughby) in The Cowboy and the Lady