Quotes / I Love Lucy

"In this city live Lucy and Ricky Ricardo.
Of course, you know Ricky as the famous orchestra leader and singer.
And Lucy is the famous, um, well she's...
her hair is very red. And she's married to Ricky.
In this little district close to theaters and nightclubs where Ricky works,
they have a little apartment where they laugh, love, and thoroughly enjoy life."

—Opening Narration to Pilot

Season 1

Lucy: What's the matter? What are you standing up for?

Ricky: Because two gorgeous ladies entered the room.

Lucy: They did? Where?

Ethel: They mean us.

Lucy: Oh! You great big latin lover you![she pinches Ricky's cheek]

Ethel: Oh! You sweet, handsome man you! [she pinches Fred's cheek]

Ricky: You gorgeous, exciting, woman you! [he pinches Lucy's cheek]

Fred: I pass.

Fred: Hey Rick, are you doing anything Monday night?

Ricky: I don't think so. It's my night off, why?

Fred: I'd like you to join me in commemoration of an 18-year-old tragedy.

Ricky: What do you mean?

Fred: Well, it's our wedding anniverary.

Ricky: Oh, you want us to join you in the celebration?

Fred: I'd prefer to think of it as a grim reminder.

Lucy: [getting weighed] How much do I weigh?

Ricky: 47 pounds and stop leaning on me.

Ethel: What if I cried every time I put on a pound?

Fred: We'd be up to our ears in tears.

Ricky: [Lucy was hiding under the table with the dog to steal tablescraps] What do you have to say for yourself?

Lucy: [holds her hands up like a dog] Arf arf arf!

Lucy: Lets see, it was either the upstairs maid, or the butler, or the cook.

Ricky: It was her husband.

Lucy: Her husband? He didn't have any reason to do it.

Ricky: He was married wasn't he?

Ricky: Lucy's acting crazy!

Fred: Crazy for Lucy or crazy for ordinary people?

Ethel: What's the matter?

Lucy: You're looking at a future doornail.

Ethel: Huh?

Lucy: Ricky just tried to kill me.

Ethel: [smiling] Really? Then I'm a better fortune teller than I thought![pause] What am I saying? What are you talking about?

Lucy: I overheard him on the phone! He's been planning this a long time, and he finally decided to do it! Last night was just a dress rehearsal.

Ethel: Oh, no, Lucy, you must have just misunderstood him.

Lucy: No, I didn't, he took a shot at me already, but he missed!

Ethel: [They look for a bullet hole] Was that the noise I heard just now?

Lucy: Yeah, he bought a gun specially for it. Let's see if it's in that desk!

Ethel: [Lucy finds a gun in the desk] Oh, you poor thing!

Lucy: [Lucy picks up an ink blotter] Ricky wrote something when he was talking on the phone and he blotted it on this blotter!

Ethel: [Moves away from the desk] Where are you going?

Lucy: The mirror!

Ethel: Mirror? Oh, so you can read it! My, you're clever!

Lucy: I don't read mystery books for nothing.

Ethel: [Reading the list] Helen, Anne, Mary... What does it mean?

Lucy: [Wailing] I'm not even cold yet and Ricky's lining up girls to take my place! Helen, Anne, Mary, Cynthia, Alice, Theodore. [does a double-take] THEODORE!

Lucy: [Thinking Ricky has poisoned her] Ricky, no matter what you've done, I forgive you. [She collapses]

Ricky: Thank you!

Lucy: [Dragging herself back up before falling down again] You're welcome.

Ricky: Geez! That's a powerful sleeping powder!

Lucy: [Standing up] Sleeping powder? Ha! The sleep from which no-one returns.

Ricky: Oh, honey, come on, you better lie down. Let me help you lie down! Lie down, honey, lie down!

Lucy: Don't rush me! I'll be lying down for a long, long time.

[Falls asleep on the couch]:

Lucy: I got a Mickey from Ricky.

Ricky: She seems to have some idea that I'm going to kill her.

Ricky: Listen, Professor, can you play that thin'?

Lucy: What thin?

Ricky: Never mind makin' fun of my English.

Lucy: That's English?

Lucy: Hello, I'm looking for Risky Riskardo.

Ricky: Oh, well I'm Ricky Ricardo.

Lucy: Oh nice to meet you, do you know where I can find Risky Riskardo?

Ricky: Can you play that instrument there?

Lucy: Where?

Ricky: [points] There.

Ricky: There.

Lucy: [follows his arm, looks to the cello] Oh! That instrument!

Ricky: Can you play it?

Lucy: Oh, well... naaah!

Lucy: You know, I've been thinking about shows like Burns and Allen. George Burns uses his wife on the show. Why don't you?

Ricky: I'd love to! Do you think she would leave George?

Ricky: For goodness' sakes don't tell Lucy, will you? If she knows the audition is tonight she'll be pestering the life out of me to get into the act. How am I gonna get rid of her for the day?

Fred: Well, you could lock her in the bathroom. If she stays in there as long as Ethel does she'll never even know the door's locked.

Ethel: Ethel to Tillie, Ethel to Tillie, come in Tillie!

Mr. Merriweather: Tillie, is that you?

Lucy: [In a high voice] Yes, it's meeeeee, Tillieeeeeee!

Mr. Merriweather: But, Tillie, that sneeze! Are you sick?

Lucy: Sick? I'm dead!

Mr. Merriweather: My horoscope says no more business after noon today.

Lucy: Oh, you follow horoscopes?

Mr. Merriweather: Yes! I'm Scorpio.

Lucy: I'm Taurus.

Ricky: I'm cooked.

Lucy: Now, you read that book and see for yourself, Five.

Ricky: Five?

Lucy: Yeah, that's your name in numerology, I figured it out.

Ricky: Oh, no...

Lucy: You might be going through life with the wrong name. Hey, I better figure out the right one for you! Maybe if you're something besides Five, it'll help our vibration.

Ricky: Lucy!

Lucy: What?

Ricky: [Pretending to be hurt] Don't you like the way I vibrate?

Ethel: Good morning, Lucy.

Lucy: [to Ricky] She's a woman.

Ricky: I guess so.

Ethel: Well, thanks! Now that that's settled, how are ya, Three?

Lucy: I'm fine, Seven.

Ricky: [Groaning] Oh...

Lucy: Five got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Ricky: Goodbye, Three.

Lucy: Goodbye, Five!

Lucy: [To Ricky] Why do you have that idiotic smile on your face?

Ricky: I was just thinking of a perfect Sixteen I used to know.

Lucy: Oh, get out of here!

Mr. Merriweather: Oh, you study numerology?

Lucy: Of course.

Mr. Merriweather: I'm a 1.

Lucy: I'm a 3.

Ricky: I'm a 5.

Mr. Merriweather: We're all odd, aren't we?

Lucy: [at false seance, introducing Ethel in disguise] This is Madam Ethel Mertzola. She'll be our medium tonight. She's psychopathic.

Ethel: Well, I must say you're taking it calmly.

Lucy: Now it comes. What's on your mind, Ethel?

Ethel: Look, honey, you don't have to pretend with me. I come to you this morning not just as a landlady, not just as a friend, but as a shoulder upon which to weep in this time of crisis.

Lucy: Well, I think you've been twisting those curlers too tight.

Ricky: Aw, honey, I don't care anything about that new dancer.

Lucy: Hah!

Ricky: Aw, honey, you can trust me.

Lucy: I can, huh?

Ricky: Why sure. I'm as faithful as an old dog.

Lucy: Yeah, old Rover!

Ricky: [When Lucy suggests performing as a USO singer] Have you ever heard Lucy sing?

Fred: No.

Ricky: Our fighting men have been through enough.

Ricky: Lucy's been acting strange lately!

Fred: Strange? How can you tell?

Lucy: There's just two things keeping me from dancing in that show.

Fred: Your feet?

Jean Valijean Raymand: Oh, madame, but you have such a beautiful hand!

Lucy: Oh, really? Well I have another one just like it!

Jean Valijean Raymand: Oh, but you don't understand, madame! The apache dance is a dance of amour. One must warm up to it.

Lucy: Yeah, well I think you started warming up on the way over here!

Jean Valijean Raymand: I can't help it. I can't help that there's a pounding in my heart.

Lucy: You don't watch out, there'll be a pounding on your head!

Ladies Club Chairwoman: You have just seen Mrs. Glazingham's play entitled Pearl One, Drop Two, or Much Ado about Knitting.

Lucy: Time to make another call to Ethel. [disguised voice] Hello, this is the Ajax Salvage Company. We buy old glass, I understand you have some rings that you're interested in selling.

Ricky: Ha ha ha ha!

[Fires air hammer into the phone]:

Lucy: [to Ricky] Think harder, we can be nastier than that.

Ricky: Now look, Lucy, we're not going to go over all this again. You cannot be in the show.

Lucy: Give me one good reason.

Ricky: You have no talent.

Lucy: Give me another good reason.

Lucy: Here I am with all this talent bottled up inside of me and you're always sitting on the cork.

Lucy: Now, what about boys your own age?

Peggy: Oh, they're all so icky.

Lucy: They're icky, huh?

Peggy: Yeah. Except Arthur... Arthur Morton. He's wonderful. He's got curly hair, big, sad eyes, and floppy ears. He looks like Gregory Peck.

Lucy: Sounds more like Lassie!

Arthur: But... You're a woman.

Lucy: Yes, my husband likes me that way.

Ricky: Why are we whispering?

Lucy: If my feet find out this was my idea, they'll kill me.

Ricky: [Finds Lucy soaking her feet] What's the matter?

Lucy: I gave Arthur a dancing lesson.

Ricky: Arthur? Arthur who?

Lucy: Believe me, it wasn't Arthur Murray!

Peggy: I can't believe this whole thing! Why, I just saw you at rehearsal yesterday, dancing around and beating your conga drum.

Ricky: Oh, yes. Well, I'm glad you saw that. That was my farewell performance.

Lucy: Yeah, he's ba-ba'd his last lu.

Peggy: Do you still know how to dance?

Lucy: [insulted] I think I can recall a few variations on the Turkey Trot.

Lucy: [trying to discourage teenage neighbor Peggy from her infatuation with Ricky] Well, there's a little thing you overlooked, Peggy. Ricky is married.

Peggy: I know. Doesn't that make it sophisticated!

Lucy: Well, yes.

Peggy: And he's so much more worldly than the boys I know.

Lucy: Well, I should hope so. He's a little older, too.

Peggy: I know. He's middle-aged!

Lucy: What?

Peggy: He must be pushing 23.

Lucy: Yeah, he's pushing 23 all right. In fact, he's pushed it all the way to 35. I suppose you think that I'm pushing 23, too?

Peggy: Oh, no. A woman can always tell another woman's age.

Lucy: Yes, well, now about Ricky. You know, there's another thing you overlooked, Peggy.

Peggy: What?

Lucy: I love him, too.

Peggy: I was afraid of that. You're gonna be terrific competition.

Lucy: Well, thanks.

Peggy: Gosh, you've got that 'certain something'.

Lucy: Well, that's... that's quite a compliment. But how would a girl your age know that I have that 'certain something'?

Peggy: I can tell by the way my mother looks at my father when my father looks at you.

Season 2

Ricky: Believe me, if you traded places with me, you'd be surprised.

Lucy: [pregnant, but hasn't yet told Ricky] Believe me, if I traded places with you, YOU'D be surprised!

Lucy: I’ve been feeling really dauncy.

Ethel: Dauncy?

Lucy: That’s a word my grandmother made up for when you’re not really sick but you’re feeling lousy.

Ethel: Lucy...You don’t suppose you’re gonna have a baby?”

Lucy: A baby?

Ethel: Yeah. That’s a word my grandmother made up for tiny little people.

"Next time you want a hamburger without onions, ask for a hamburger without onions! Don't just stand there yelling, "Bring the bull in the ring and laugh in his face"!

—Lucy, about Ricky's attempt at diner slang, "The Diner".

Fred: Let's just hope for the best.

Lucy: Don't worry, Fred, Ethel'll come back.

Fred: I said let's hope for the BEST.

Ricky: What do you know about rice?

Fred: Well, I had it thrown at me on one of the darkest days in my life.

Lucy: But Ricky, tonight is Monday. You were going to take me to a movie and dinner.

Ricky: I was?

Lucy: Well, I didn't tell you about it yet, but you were.

Season 3

• After Ethel tells their friends that Lucy has sworn not to tell a lie for a full day:

Caroline Appleby: Caroline Appleby: Lucy, how old are you?

Marion Strong: Marion Strong: How much do you weigh?

Ethel: Ethel Mertz: What color would your hair be if you didn't dye it?

Lucy: Lucy Ricardo: 33, 129, and mousey brown.

Fred: Rick, did I ever tell you what happened to Ethel and me on our honeymoon?

Ricky: [with a touch of sarcasm] Not lately.

Fred: Oh. Did I tell you, Lucy?

Lucy: Yes.

Ethel: [Fred turns toward Ethel] I was there!

Ricky: Lucy, you remember the musicians' picnic last Fourth of July?

Lucy: Oh, what a day that was.

Ethel: What happened?

Lucy: Oh, well, we...

Ricky: I'll tell it, Dear. The musicians' local was having a picnic... and all the boys in the band wanted to go... We left about, eh, ten o'clock.

Lucy: It was twelve o'clock.

Ricky: No, Dear, it was ten o'clock.

Lucy: No, Honey, it was twelve o'clock.

Ricky: Well, what's the difference?

Lucy: We're gonna be on television.

Fred: Who is?

Ethel: Our Women's Club.

Fred: Well, that ought to bring back movies.

Season 4

Clerk: Now, what's the date of your birth?

Lucy: August sixth.

Clerk: August sixth, what?

Lucy: August sixth, period.

Lucy: [to Ethel, after they fight] Happy Birthday, and I hope you live another 75 years!

Ethel: [Lucy] said I looked like a hippopatamus.

Lucy: I merely intimated that she was a little hippy but on second glance she does have the biggest potamus I've ever seen.

Season 5

Ricky: Why are you so interested that I go to the studio party tomorrow night?

Lucy: You want the truth?

Ricky: That would be refreshing, yes.

Lucy: The whole truth?

Ricky: That would be even more refreshing.

Lucy: I lied.

Ricky: That sounds like the truth.

Conductor: [after Lucy has pulled the train's emergency stop handle] Madam, did you stop this train by pulling that handle?

Lucy: Well I didn't do it by dragging my feet.

Lucy: What happened? You look like you ran into something.

Ricky: I did.

Lucy: What?

Ricky: The back of the train.

• Ethel pulls out her birth certificate

Fred: Show it to 'em, Honey.

Ethel: No.

Lucy: She doesn't want us to see the year

Fred: Put your finger over the year. I thought they might like to see what Lincoln's signature looks like.

Dr. Peterson: I'm the doctor who brought your wife into the world.

Ricky: Oh you are? Well I don't know whether to thank you or punch you in the nose!

Ricky: Will somebody mind telling me what's going on here?

Ethel: Why? You'll never believe it.

Lucy: Well now, I just figured maybe I'd have to stow away if I wanted to get to Europe and I knew that a seal could live in there, so I supposed maybe I could and when I tried it on for size, I got locked in it.

Ricky: [to Ethel, deadpan] What makes you think I wouldn't believe it?

Season 6

Ricky: Ricky, what are you going to say when you meet your grandmother?

Little Ricky: 'Buenos días, abuela.'

Ricky: Very good. Very good.

Little Ricky: What are you going to say, Mommie?

Lucy: What, dear?

Ricky: What are you going to say when you meet my mother?

Lucy: Oh. 'Bonos dyes, may-dree.'

Ricky: 'Bonos dyes, may-dree?' Heh, heh, Honey, it's 'Buenos días, madre.'

Lucy: I don't think that's very nice, making fun of my Spanish.

Ricky: Well, you've been making fun of my English for fifteen years.

Lucy: Well, that's different. Spanish is a foreign language.

Ricky: Well, English is a foreign language to me.

Lucy: Well, the way you speak it, it is to me, too.

Ethel: Oh, just think. You'll be visiting your relatives in a foreign land. Sometimes I wish I had married a Cuban.

Fred: That makes two of us.

Lucy: [Ricky tells Lucy that he was unable to get Superman for Little Ricky's birthday party] Oh, I've already told Little Ricky and all the other children...

Ricky: Well, Honey, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't cross your bridges before they're hatched.

Lucy: What?

Ricky: You shouldn't burn your chickens behind you.

Ricky: [yelling at Lucy because she is out on the ledge] In the fifteen years that we've been married...

Superman: Wait a minute Mr. Ricardo, do you mean to tell me that you've been married to her for fifteen years?

Ricky: Yes, fifteen years.

Superman: And they call me Superman.