My Brilliant Career (1979)

Patricia Kennedy: Aunt Gussie

Quotes 

• Sybylla : I think ugly girls should be strangled at birth by their parents. It's bad enough being born a girl... but being born ugly and clever...

  Aunt Gussie : Aw, clever, are you?

  Sybylla : Well, I hope so. I'm done for if I'm not! There has to be something I'm good at.

  Aunt Gussie : There's sure to be.

• Sybylla : Why does it always have to come down to marriage?

  Aunt Gussie : Don't be foolish child. It's natural to want someone as part of your life.

  Sybylla : Well, I don't want to be part of anyone.

  Aunt Gussie : Do you imagine you're the only female on earth to have such notions?

• Sybylla : [feeding the birds in the aviary]  They're fortunate, aren't they. Every day they get their food.

  Aunt Gussie : As long as I remember.

  Sybylla : They never have to look for water in a dried up creek. Scratch for a living, like all our countrymen, forced on the road to beg.

  Aunt Gussie : Peerhaps they're meant to counterbalance the ugly things in life.

• Aunt Gussie : Dear Lucy's daughter, there's little resemblance.

  Sybylla : No, I'm sorry.

  Aunt Gussie : A pity. Well, come in. Come along, child, I'm not going to eat you.

• Aunt Gussie : You washed your hair. It'll never dry by dinner.

  Sybylla : Perhaps I should cut it all off!

  Aunt Gussie : No. No, dear. It'd be a pity to lose your finest asset.

  Sybylla : My only asset, more like.

  Aunt Gussie : Oh, I wouldn't go quite as far as that.

• Aunt Gussie : Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence. Sybylla, don't throw away reality for some impossible dream.

  Sybylla : It's not impossible! It's not!