A Star Is Born (1954 film)

"[seeing Norman drunk] Mr. Maine is feeling no pain!"

"I can remember my first job singing with the band. And then one night stands clear across country by bus. Putting on nail polish in the ladies rooms of gas stations, waiting on tables. Wow! That was a low point. I'll never forget it. And I'll never never do that again, no matter what. But I had to sing. I somehow feel most alive when I'm singing."

"He gave me a look at myself I've never had before. He saw something in me nobody else ever did. He made me see it too. He made me believe it."

"[to Esther] You've got that little something extra that Ellen Terry talked about. Ellen Terry, a great actress long before you were born. She said that that was what star quality was - that little something extra. Well, you've got it."

"Listen to me, Esther, a career is a curious thing. Talent isn't always enough. You need a sense of timing - an eye for seeing the turning point or recognizing the big chance when it comes along and grabbing it. A career can rest on a trifle. Like - like us sitting here tonight. Or it can turn on somebody saying to you, 'You're better than that. You're better than you know.' Don't settle for the little dream. Go on to the big one...Scared? Scared to take the plunge? Don't ever forget how good you are. And hang on to that. Because I'm right. [pause] I just want to take another look at you."

"You know, Oliver, I sometimes think I was born with a genius - an absolute genius - for doing the wrong thing."

"I shall have to introduce myself all over again to a lot of people. They won't know me when I'm not drinking."

"There's nothing left anymore. It happened long before last night...20 years of steady and quiet drinking do something to a man."

"If you'll be kind enough to glance between my shoulder blades, Mr. and Mrs. Gubbins, you'll find there a knife buried to the hilt. On its handle are your initials."

"[to Vicki] Sympathy? That's not what you're getting from me, baby. You don't deserve it. You're a great monument to Norman Maine, you are. He was a drunk, and he wasted his life, but he loved you. And he took enormous pride in the one thing in his life that wasn't a waste, you. His love for you and your success. That was the one thing in his life that wasn't a waste. And he knew it. Maybe he was wrong to do what he did, I don't know. But he didn't want to destroy that, destroy the only thing he took pride in. And now you're doing the one thing he was terrified of, you're wiping it out! You're tossing aside the one thing he had left. You're tossing it right back into the ocean after him. You're the only thing that remains of him now. And if you just kick it away, it's like he never existed, like there never was a Norman Maine at all."

"The applause of the world -- and then this!"

"Destiny came at her with a leer!"

"Judy Garland - Esther Blodgett / Vicki Lester"

"James Mason - Norman Maine (Ernest Sidney Gubbins)"

"Jack Carson - Matt Libby"

"Charles Bickford - Oliver Niles"

"Tommy Noonan - Danny McGuire"

"Amanda Blake - Susan Ettinger"

"Lucy Marlow - Lola Lavery"

"Irving Bacon - Graves"