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Hold Back the Dawn Quotes

Hold Back the Dawn is a television program that appeared on TV in 1970 . Hold Back the Dawn completed its run in 1970.

It features Arthur Hornblow Jr. as producer, Victor Young in charge of musical score, and Leo Tover as head of cinematography.

Hold Back the Dawn is recorded in English and originally aired in United States. Each episode of Hold Back the Dawn is 116 minutes long. Hold Back the Dawn is distributed by Paramount Pictures.

The cast includes: Olivia de Havilland as Emmy Brown, Charles Boyer as Georges Iscovescu, Paulette Goddard as Anita Dixon, Walter Abel as Inspector Hammock, Victor Francen as Van Den Luecken, and Billy Lee as Tony.

Hold Back the Dawn Quotes

Charles Boyer as Georges Iscovescu

  • (Charles Boyer) "Do you believe in premonitions? When a black wave breaks over you and you suddenly know something terrible's going to happen? In my ears was the screeching of brakes, of tires taking a wild curve, before my eyes, with the foot on the gas pedal, pressing it down."
  • (American Immigration Official) "I see from your questionnaire that you wish to enter the United States permanently."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Yes sir."
  • (American Immigration Official) "That will require a quota number. Do you know what a quota is?"
  • (Charles Boyer) "No."
  • (American Immigration Official) "Every year, the United States permits the entrance of about 150,000 immigrants. That number is proportioned among the various European countries. You were born in Bucharest; so, you come under the Romanian quota."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Yes."
  • (American Immigration Official) "The Romanian quota is very small, very crowded."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Well, that means I have to wait?"
  • (American Immigration Official) "Between five and eight years, Mr. Iscovescu."
  • (Charles Boyer) "What did she say? You just marry an American. Its as easy as that. Five to eight years for idiots, maybe. Get ahold of a wedding ring and you can swing right over the fence. Just get into a good suit of clothes, shave, go on, go ahead, What do they call it? The pursuit of happiness?"
  • (Charles Boyer) "I am in your debt. For there is no way I can pay you for the loveliness of these few minutes. I thank you, Miss Brown."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "You're the strangest man."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Perhaps, the loneliest man."
  • (Charles Boyer) "What do you want?"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "I've been thinking about you all day. The way you used to hold me away from you when we danced. Those gigolo eyes of yours. You cold, selfish --"
  • (Charles Boyer) "Oh?"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Haven't you ever loved anybody in your life?"
  • (Charles Boyer) "I want you to go, Anita."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Georges --"
  • (Charles Boyer) "You're wasting my time."
  • (Charles Boyer) "You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown. Not a bit. You see, we are like -- two trains, halted for a moment at the same station. But we're going in different directions. We can't change our course, any more than we can hold back the dawn."
  • (Charles Boyer) "She kept talking about a United States, about Boulder Dam and how her brother went to school with a very famous man by the name of Joe DiMaggio and what the FHA is and what the word swell means. That's exactly what she was: swell."
  • (Charles Boyer) "You've got enough money to get you back to New York. I'll find you there when I'm ready."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Thanks. You just stand right in the middle of Times Square -- and whistle."
  • (Charles Boyer) "There is a fence back there, you Americans make a very definite point of it."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Just look at me, Miss Brown. Keep looking at me. It's like a sudden breeze in a stifling day."
  • (Charles Boyer) "It is not this kiss I want, it is all your kisses."
  • (Charles Boyer) "I'm sorry, madame. In Europe, we respect the institution of marriage."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Your husband?"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "No. No, O'Shaughnessy was a jockey from Caliente. Five foot three. Once over the border, I went to a judge. I said, a woman wants a man, not a radiator cap. Divorce granted, fifty dollars."
  • (Charles Boyer) "My own name is George Iscovescu. I was born in Romania. But, I have spent most of my life in Paris and Biarritz -- at the Lido; you know, following the seasons, going where rich people went to; rich women to be exact -- My papers give my occupation as a dancer, which is correct, in a general way. It was an easy life; if you had a deep voice and you knew how to look at the woman. But, the war came."
  • (Charles Boyer) "You needn't be afraid. Its like a classroom, isn't it? The pupils and their teacher, the rules of deportment, schedules, discipline. You are very conscientious, Miss Brown. No infringement of the regulations for you. No abandons. No violent desires. If you found one in your sober little mind, you would tell it to go and stand in the corner, wouldn't you Miss Brown?"
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "I don't know?"
  • (Charles Boyer) "Remember? Remember the rain beating on the windshield that night and the wiper going and the word it spoke: together, together, together, together, together. Breathe, darling, we're together, together. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe --"
  • (Charles Boyer) "You see how wild a dream can be? But, you are wise and sane and cool."
  • (Charles Boyer) "You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown."

Olivia de Havilland as Emmy Brown

  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Perhaps, when I first met you, I shouldn't have been so vain. I should have looked at your face more closely."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "No, thank you, I don't smoke. The school board doesn't approve. To tell you the truth, I don't like them much."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "What is it? What are you doing here? You have no right to be here."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Of course, I have no right to be here. No right to sit watching your face, longing to write it a poem. No right to listen to disturb your heart. No right to tell you that; I love you very much."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "It was a perfect madhouse back home. Nobody could believe it. And the questions they asked. How it happened and who you were and what you did? I had to make up a lot of the answers. And you ought to hear how they pronounce our name: Itskybitsky and Itskywhiskey."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "If it hurts too much, you blow the horn, promise?"
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Did you ever notice how they talk sometimes? Listen to those windshield wipers. Together. Together. Together. Together. Can you hear it?"
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Oh, please don't come near."
  • (Charles Boyer) "You needn't be afraid, Miss Brown. Not of a dead man. I am dead, you see. I've asked myself a thousand times why they shouldn't bury me. Why I should go on breathing and talking and walking; when I was dead. Perhaps I know now. Perhaps it was; to see the sunrise once more, to hear enchantment in a woman's voice, to feel her yearnings, the warmth of her lips."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Good night."
  • (Charles Boyer) "It's better than good. Somehow, these walls will not seem so empty inside. You will be here very close to me. Breathing in the same night."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Yes. Good night."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Good night."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "When they heard that I had married a foreigner, there was only one person who said anything nasty about you and that was Mrs. Bigelow who runs "Ye Ol' Pilgrim Tea Shopping". She said, "I suppose he's just one of those foreigners coming with empty hands to grab from America everything he can." Mr. McAdams put her in her place. He said, "I suppose your great great grandmother was Pocahontas, Mrs. Bigelow?" Funny?"
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "This is America. For the Rockefellers and the Joneses. For the Mcgonigles and the Frankfurters. For the Jeffersons and the Slavinskies. You see, its, its like, um, like a lake. Clear and fresh and it'll never get stagnant while new streams are flowing in."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Well, your people are building pretty high dams to stop those streams."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Just to keep out the scum, Georges."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "Who did that? I said, who did that?"
  • (Billy Lee) "It was me."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "You mean, it was I, Tony."
  • (Billy Lee) "No, it wasn't you Miss Brown, it was me."
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "I don't worry about you. Only for one thing, Georges."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Yes?"
  • (Olivia de Havilland) "You smoke too much."

Paulette Goddard as Anita Dixon

  • (Paulette Goddard) "Why are you so quiet? Well, if you hate me so much, why don't you say it. Well, go on, hit me. I'd much rather --"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Only the very rich will get a crack at Georges and Anita. We'll be very expensive, I'm afraid."
  • (Charles Boyer) "They can deduct us from their income tax."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "You make a wonderful deduction."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "You think you're a teacher. Why, you're a school girl that's learned life out of a book."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "I walked out on him, Georges. He wanted to buy me a pair of earrings. Suddenly, I couldn't stand his fingers another minute."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "All those years with all the others, I've shut my eyes and thought of you."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "He married you to pass that date. For the same reason that I married my little American and with the same ring. Just take a look inside at the engraving. "To Toots, For Keeps.""
  • (Paulette Goddard) "For years I've loved him, just as you do. Only there's this difference, I'm his sort. I'm dirt; but, so is he. We belong together."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Start with champagne, it will be champagne all the way."
  • (Charles Boyer) "I hope it will be a better vintage."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "It will be."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Hello, Georges."
  • (Charles Boyer) "What are you doing here?"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Your door was unlocked. I just dropped in to borrow a cup of sugar."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Isn't he wonderful. He certainly knows how to pluck at a heart string."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "I know what you're thinking, "This woman's a tramp and she's in love with him." Well, I am a tramp. And I am in love with him."
  • (Paulette Goddard) "I'll give you anything. Anything you want."
  • (Charles Boyer) "Anything, anything?"
  • (Paulette Goddard) "Anything."

Walter Abel as Inspector Hammock

  • (Walter Abel) "You know, its quite a surprise to see you down this side of the fence, Miss O'Shaughnessy. A gal who couldn't wait to hug every stripe and kiss every star. All 48 of them."
  • (Walter Abel) "I'll be the doggonedest dog to end all doggoned dogs. Maybe I'm just dumb."
  • (Mr. Dwight Saxon) "Say, look, is there something I can do?"
  • (Walter Abel) "Listen, you stick to directing pictures. Let me direct the traffic across the border."
  • (Walter Abel) "Say, what was this she was telling me all the way down, about the two of you raising olives?"

Victor Francen as Van Den Luecken

  • (Victor Francen) "Don't let us be impatient. Let's always remember the words they have on the Statue of Liberty."
  • (Walter Abel) ""Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.""
  • (Victor Francen) "No. You are referring to the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. What I meant, was a simple poem, inscribed on the base of the said statue -- "Give my your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Or, is it the shining door, Mr. Inspector?"
  • (Walter Abel) "I'm afraid you've got me there, Professor."

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