Certainly I've left out some of the greats, there's no way this can be definitively inclusive, but hoping you'll all help me by supplying your personal favorites from rom-com history, here we go...
Declarations
I really, truly, madly, passionately, remarkably, deliciously... juicily love you. (Alan Rickman in Truly Madly Deeply, Anthony Minghella)
Love is too weak a word for what I feel... I lurve you. Y'know, I loove you, I, I luff you. There are two f's. I have to invent... Of course I love you. (Woody Allen in Annie Hall, Woody Allen)
I love how you get cold when it's seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle right there when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you're the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. (Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, Nora Ephron)
He: I'm looking at you and I just... your face is so beautiful I just wanna smash it, just smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it... you're so pretty.
She: I know, I know. I know. I just wanna chew your face and scoop out your beautiful, beautiful eyes with an ice cream scooper and eat 'em and chew 'em and suck on 'em. (Adam Sandler and Emily Watson in Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson)
He: This is a really stupid question... but I wondered if by any chance--I mean, obviously not, because I am some git who's only slept with nine people, but I just wondered--I really feel... ahm... In short, to recap in a slightly clearer version--in the words of David Cassidy, in fact, while he was still with the Partridge Family--'I think I love you,' and I just wondered whether by any chance you wouldn't like to... No, no, of course not--I'm an idiot, he's not. Excellent. Excellent. Fantastic. Lovely to see you. Sorry to disturb--better get on... Fuck.
She: That was very romantic.
He: Well, I thought it over a lot, you know, I wanted to get it just right. (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis)
The Reasons Why
There's not much meat on her, but what's there is choice. (Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike, Ruth Gordan and Garson Kanin)
Arthur: She's sensational! I love her!
Hobson: She does have a certain Eleanor Roosevelt quality. (Dudley Moore and John Gielgud in Arthur, Steve Gordon)
I think you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends. (Dustin Hoffman to Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Buck Henry and Calder Willingham)
I need him like the axe needs the turkey. (Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, Preston Sturges)
You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, 'I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these.' You know? And then Job would have said, 'Yeah, well, you win.' (Woody Allen in Manhattan, Woody Allen)
When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad, I'm better. (Mae West in I'm No Angel, Mae West)
Ninotchka, it's midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half. (Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder)
You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts. (Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Donald Ogden Stewart)
You make me want to be a better man. (Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, James Brooks)
Damn, damn, damn, damn! I've grown accustomed to her face. (Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Alan Jay Lerner)
She: Do you know what's wrong with you?
He: No, what?
She: Nothing! (Audrey Hepburn to Cary Grant in Charade, Peter Stone)
Best Pick-up Line (In Theory)
You know, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of role-playing, but the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you. (Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange, who responds by throwing a drink in his face, in Tootsie, Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal)
Proposals
My heart is -- and always will be -- yours. (Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson)
He: Do you think... after we've dried off, after we've spent lots of time together, you might agree... not to marry me? And do you think not being married to me might maybe be something you could consider doing for the rest of your life? Do you?
She: I do. (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings, Richard Curtis)
Philosophy
Love don't make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and, to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die! I mean, the storybooks are bullshit! Now I want you to come upstairs with me, and get in my bed! (Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley)
I believe in long, slow, deep, soft wet kisses that last for three days. (Kevin Costner in Bull Durham, Ron Shelton)
I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man. (Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal)
She: You have to have a little faith in people. (Mariel Hemingway saying goodbye to Woody Allen at the end of Manhattan, Woody Allen)
Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love. (Woody Allen in Annie Hall, Woody Allen)
The Cameron Crowe Trifecta
You had me at hello.
You complete me.
(and, if you can construe #3 as being Jerry Maguire's Brokeback Linebacker kind of moment:)
Show me the money!
Bumps Along the Way
It isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you -- but, well, there haven't been any quiet moments. (Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde)
I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen. (John Cusack in Say Anything, Cameron Crowe)
He: I'm in love with you.
She: (slaps him, twice) Snap out of it! (Nicholas Cage and Cher in Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley)
I was rich. I was happy. That was before I met you!...Now I drink, I screw nobody, I may lose all my money! And for what? Forget it! Yes! Yes! I love you! Oh shit! My life is in the toilet! I can't marry Susan. Oh shit! I'm going to be poor! (Dudley Moore in Arthur, Steve Gordon)
A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands... is a dead shark. (Woody Allen in Annie Hall, Woody Allen)
Happy Endings
She: Baby, you are going to miss that plane.
He: (smiling) I know. (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunset, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke)
He: Love means never having to say you're sorry.
She: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. (Ryan O'Neal and Barbara Streisand in What's Up Doc, Buck Henry, David Newman and Robert Benton)
Jerry: Damn it, Osgood... I'm a man!
Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect. (Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder and I.A. Diamond)
...and My Favorite Non-Rom-Com Exchange That's Apropos:
Wyatt Earp: Mac, you ever been in love?
Mac: No, I've been a bartender all my life. (Henry Fonda and J. Farrell MacDonald in My Darling Clementine, Samuel G. Engel and Winston Miller)
Billy, loved the John Cusak line, "I have her my heart, and she gave me a pen."
When my heart waxes romantic and I think about recent movies the one that always gets me is "13 Going on 30." On the surface this movie looks like it never should have been a hit: teenager ghost of Christmass in the future flashing forward in her life to see where her life is heading has stinker written all over it to me, but...
This movie had one heck of a romanitic arc it. The steadfast guy who secretly longs for the same girl for years, and the girl who has it all coming to realization that he they key pience in her life.
Not a lot of great lines in "13 Going on 30" but a slew of memorable perfomance. Delicious perfomance by Judy Greer. Think Mark Ruffallo's perfomance was one for the ages.
That look Mark Rafallo gives while wait for the elevator to come pick him up is a clasic. Actually, Marks performance throughout the movie: loaded with subtext that the Jennifer Garder charcter doesn't see, but the auidences superious position does.
IF you have a heart for that kind of thing. Mark Rufallo's performance will strum it for oh... about an hour.
Then at the end of the movie, Jenna's tearful confession, and Mark's admitance, "Jenna... I have always loved you."
Interweaving character arc's played to perfection. Cinematic magic. Great Valentines Day fodder.
E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
Posted by: E.C. Henry | February 14, 2006 at 07:18 PM
Comprehensive. Was GOING to add the one from What's Up Doc?, my favest of fave romcoms then you beat me to it.
Not a rom-COM, but way more ROM than most:
"Here's looking at you, kid."
Happy Val to all.
Posted by: chris Soth | February 14, 2006 at 10:31 PM
That's an impressive list, to be sure, but can I suggest adding "shut up and deal" to the happy endings?
Posted by: Daniel W. | February 14, 2006 at 10:54 PM
Great list. I had to wait to read it until today--yesterday was romance overload.
Posted by: jamy | February 15, 2006 at 04:50 AM
Chris: is DOC a major cult movie (as it should be), do you think, or are we largely alone in this?
Daniel: Totally -- GMTA (Great Minds Think Alike)-- I considered that quote, but because I was already using Wilder in that endings category (and felt I'd overused Allen), and because it requires a little context to be readily appreciated, I reneged -- so thanks for adding it in!
Jamy, yes I can understand that after your Chad imbroglio...
Posted by: mernitman | February 15, 2006 at 06:58 AM
Billy -- I can't argue with "nobody's perfect" as a last line in general, but do you really think of Some Like It Hot as a romantic comedy? I wouldn't say so, but if it is, I would say that Joe and Jerry are the couple at the center of it, not Osgood and "Daphne", the two people in the "nobody's perfect" quote.
Posted by: Daniel W. | February 15, 2006 at 09:25 AM
One hell of a romantic line from the lastest romantic comedy that I love:
Because that's what people do. They leap, and hope to God they can fly, because otherwise. you just drop like a rock, wondering the whole way down, why in the *hell* did I jump? But here I am, Sarah, falling, and the only one that makes me feel like I can fly... is you.
Will Smith in "Hitch", Kevin Bisch
Posted by: writergurl | February 15, 2006 at 10:15 AM
Daniel, technically HOT is a hybrid (crime comedy/gender-bender rom-com) with Joe & Sugar as one couple, Jerry & Osgood as the other. Unless of course you subscribe to the "buddy movie as sublimated gay romance" idea, in which case, you're welcome to view Joe and Jerry as the couple.
WriterG, thank you for that, it's a neat, updating addition.
Posted by: mernitman | February 15, 2006 at 01:29 PM
:)
Happy to contribute! Glad ya liked it!
Posted by: Writergurl | February 15, 2006 at 09:01 PM
All fantastic choices! I lurve Truly Madly Deeply!
Posted by: Betsy | February 16, 2006 at 06:37 AM
Can't remember where it comes from... "I never fell in love. I stepped in it once or twice."
Posted by: Peter | August 15, 2010 at 02:41 AM
Peter: Sounds to me like Sturges.
Posted by: mernitman | August 26, 2010 at 10:44 PM
I've tried online dating. Unless you have good looks, it's pointless.
http://pastexpiry.blogspot.ca/2013/01/cartoon-dating-advice-for-women.html
Posted by: pastexpiry | January 27, 2013 at 04:52 PM
How about this one - for a best pick-up line - that worked!
"Sh*t, b**ger, f**k. I'm so sorry. I live just over there. I could have you cleaned up and back on the street in no time."
Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts in Notting Hill.
Posted by: Joanna Farnsworth | February 01, 2013 at 05:58 AM
Joanna, I think that William's (Hugh Grant) string of expletives and possible prostitution reference would not have worked on Anna (Julia Roberts) if he hadn't charmed her in his bookstore first. So, I suppose that, like "The Godfather," "Notting Hill's" cute-meet is a two-parter.
Posted by: Rob in L.A. | February 01, 2013 at 08:53 PM