Mr. Potter: [to George Bailey] Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world. You once called me "a warped, frustrated, old man!" What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help. No securities, no stocks, no bonds. Nothin' but a miserable little $500 equity in a life insurance policy.
[Potter chuckles]
Mr. Potter: You're worth more dead than alive!


--Lionel Barrymore (as Mr. Potter) in It's a Wonderful Life

Mr. Potter: What have you been doing lately, George? Playing the market with the company's money?
George Bailey: No, of course not.
Mr. Potter: Or is it a woman you're involved with? It's all over town that you've been giving money to Violet Bick.
George Bailey: What?
Mr. Potter: Not that it's any skin off my nose.


--Lionel Barrymore (as Mr. Potter ) in It's a Wonderful Life

Otto Kringelein: Mr. Preysing, I am not taking orders from you here.
Preysing: What is this insolence? Please go away.
Otto Kringelein: You think you have free license to be insulting? Believe me, you have not. You think you're superior, but you're quite an ordinary man. Even if you did marry money, and people like me have got to slave for you for 320 marks a month!
Preysing: Will you go away, please! You are annoying!
Flaemmchen: Mr. Preysing, please!
Otto Kringelein: You don't like to see me enjoying myself. When a man's working himself to death, that's what he's paid for. You don't care if a man can live on his wages or not.
Preysing: You have a very regular scale of wages, and there's the sick fund for you.
Otto Kringelein: [sarcastically] Oh, what a scale, and what a fund. When I was sick for four weeks, you wrote me a letter, telling me I'd be discharged if I was sick any longer. Did you write me that letter, or did you not?
Preysing: I have no idea of the letters that I write, Mr. Kringelein. I know that you're here in the Grand Hotel, living like a lord. You are probably an embezzler.
Otto Kringelein: [shocked] An embezzler?
Preysing: Yes, an embezzler!
Otto Kringelein: You will take that back, right here in the presence of this young lady! Who do you think you're talking to? You think I'm dirt? Well, if I'm dirt, you're a lot dirtier, Mr. Industrial Magnate Preysing!
Preysing: You're discharged! Get out!
Flaemmchen: You can't do that to him...
Preysing: Oh, I don't know the man. I don't know what he wants. I never saw him before.
Otto Kringelein: I know you! I've kept your books for you and I know all about you! If one of your employees was half as stupid in a small way as you are in a big way...
Preysing: [lunges for Kringelein] What do you mean
[tries to strangle him. When several people try to break them up, he finally lets go]
Preysing: You're discharged! You're discharged, you hear?
Otto Kringelein: Wait! You can't discharge me. I am my own master for the first time in my life. You can't discharge me. I'm sick. I'm going to die, you understand? I'm going to die, and nobady can do anything to me anymore. Nothing can happen to me anymore. Before I can be discharged, I'll be dead!


--Lionel Barrymore (as Otto Kringelein) in Grand Hotel

Alice Sycamore: Wish I'd known her (her grandma). What was she like?
Grandpa Vanderhoff: Look in there (points to mirror).


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Wilbur G. Henderson (Internal Revenue Department):: Mr. Vanderhoff, our records show that you've never paid an income tax.
Grandpa Vanderhoff: That's right.
Wilbur G. Henderson (Internal Revenue Department):: Why not?
Grandpa Vanderhoff: I don't believe in it.


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Wilbur G. Henderson (Internal Revenue Department):: Now Mr. Vanderhoff, that's a very serious thing, not filing an income tax return.
Grandpa Vanderhoff: Well, now suppose I do pay you this money? Mind you, I don't say that I'm going to, but just for the sake of argument -- what's the government going to do with it?
Wilbur G. Henderson (Internal Revenue Department):: What do you mean?
Grandpa Vanderhoff: Well, what do I get for MY money? For instance, if I go into a dept store and buy something, why there it is, I can see it. What are they going to give me?


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Grandpa Vanderhoff: What do you mean fooling around with all these dull figures? Seems to me Mr. uh, Poppins... seems to me, Mr. Poppins, that THIS is the kind of work you ought to be doing (inventing things).


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Grandpa Vanderhoff: (saying grace) Well, Sir, here we are again. We've been getting along pretty good for quite a while now - we're certainly much obliged. Remember all we ask is just to go along the way we are, keep our health; as far as anything else is concerned, we leave that up to you. Thank you.


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Grandpa Vanderhoff: (talking about his wife, Alice's grandma) Oh, nothing phenominal about it. I just had it bad, that's all. I never got over it either. Right up to the very last, she couldn't walk into a room without my heart going thump, thump, thump.


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You

Grandpa Vanderhoff: Can't even talk about him, can you?
Alice Sycamore: Not rationally.
Grandpa Vanderhoff: Well, who's asking you to be rational?


--Lionel Barrymore (as Martin Vanderhof) in You Can't Take It With You