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!


--Robert Preston (as ) in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

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!


--Robert Preston (as ) in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

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.


--Robert Preston (as Tate Riling) in Blood on the Moon

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


--Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) in The Music Man

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*!


--Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) in The Music Man

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?


--Robert Preston (as Tate Riling) in Blood on the Moon

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.


--Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) in The Music Man

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!


--Robert Preston (as ) in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

[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.


--Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) in The Music Man

[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!


--Robert Preston (as Harold Hill) in The Music Man