- Richard Sturges: [after Richard and Julia have been quarreling over who will have custody of their son] My dear Julia, I've been around enough bridge tables to recognize someone who's holding a high trump - play it now if you will.
- Julia Sturges: We'll discuss it later.
- Richard Sturges: Now!
- Julia Sturges: All right, Richard. One question first?
- Richard Sturges: If it's about Norman, you know the answer. No court in the world, no power in the heavens can force me to give up my son.
- Julia Sturges: He is not your son.
- Annette Sturges: Mama, you should have protested. It's a really bad table. There's not a person we know at the end of this room.
- Julia Sturges: Be brave Annette. These tragedies happen sometimes in life.
- Stoker: Don't go in there, sir. The starboard boiler's gone and the port one's about to go.
- Rev. Headley: Are there men in there?
- Stoker: A few, pinned under the rig. For God's sake mister, don't go in there.
- Rev. Headley: For God's sake, I am going in there.
- Richard Sturges: [after a crewman plays a trumpet to announce dinner] Why do the British find it necessary to announce dinner as if it were a cavalry charge?
- Richard Sturges: [after Richard has rejected his son Norman when Richard discovers that he is not Norman's true father] As you pointed out, Norman and I began as strangers. So be it.
- Julia Sturges: Oh, my poor Richard. How you hate me, and for the wrong reasons. Not because I committed an offense against common decency, but because Norman isn't an elegant extension of Richard Ward Sturges. For you what happened isn't a mortal sin, it's an inexcusable breach of etiquette.
- Richard Sturges: Thank you, Julia. I stand reproved.
- Maude: [after Richard has rejected his son Norman and refused to play in the shuffleboard match with him] It certainly clouded up. Well, word'll do it faster than a hickory stick any time.
- Richard Sturges: I wonder if you'd tell me, Julia. Have I been the laughing stock of our friends all these years? Does everybody know?
- Julia Sturges: No one except you and me.
- Richard Sturges: Aren't you forgetting at least one other person?
- Julia Sturges: Not even he. I never saw him again.
- Richard Sturges: What very good manners.
- Julia Sturges: There's no way for me to make it seem right. It happened after one of those endless rows and private humiliations, in the days before you made me over into your image. One of the summers we had the beach house. I'd left a party because I knew I'd cry if there was one more reference made to my gaucherie, to the... to the dress I had chosen to wear. On the beach by our cottage a young man was skipping stones across the water. He assured me he was not a burglar, and we began to talk. He said something admiring to me when I needed it most, a pure, sweet, unsolicited compliment. I... I took his face in my hands, and kissed him out of gratitude. You... you needn't trouble yourself as to who he was, except that he was a much nicer person than you or I.
- Earl Meeker: Hey, you can't come up here. This is reserved for first class only.
- Richard Sturges: Really. I'll do my best to behave properly.
- Maude Young: I've seen that look before. He's a runaway.
- Earl Meeker: From what, some woman?
- Maude: No, he's running too fast for that.
- crewman: All passengers go to their cabins and put on lifejackets. There is no cause for alarm!
- Second Officer Lightoller: [while loading Collapsable D] Please sit down the moment you get in the boat.
- Second Officer Lightoller: [He turns to see an old woman standing next to him] Allright, Mrs. Straus.
- Ida Straus: Please sir, no.
- Second Officer Lightoller: [Looking confused] But Mrs Straus this is the last lifeboat!
- Ida Straus: Please Sir, I have been with Mr Straus most of my life, and I will not leave him now.
- [Mr and Mrs Straus embrace]
- Second Officer Lightoller: [Lightoller sighs, and turns to another woman] All right, madam.
- Second Officer Lightoller: [shouting through Mega-Phone] Lower away!
- Richard Sturges: Well, Norman, I didn't count on this.
- Norman Sturges: All the other men were staying. I thought perhaps I should too. I'm wearing long trousers, sir.
- Richard Sturges: I guess long trousers are enough to prove you're a man.
- Norman Sturges: Just the same, you're sore at me for coming back, aren't you, sir?
- Richard Sturges: Yes, I'm sore at you, the way I've always been sore at those fool drummer boys who stayed on to play "Last Retreat".
- Norman Sturges: I thought maybe we could make a swim of it. Together.
- Richard Sturges: Well, whatever happens, I love you very much. I've been proud of you every day of your life, but never as much as at this moment. I feel tall as a mountain.
- Julia Sturges: Oh Richard, where did we miss out on each other? I beg your pardon, Sir. I put you down as a useless man, someone to lead a cotillion.
- Richard Sturges: After all, it was my major talent.
- Julia Sturges: I'm sorry, sorry about everything.
- Richard Sturges: We have no time to catalog our regrets. All we can do is pretend 20 years didn't happen. It's June again. You were walking under some elm trees in a white muslin dress, the loveliest creature I ever laid eyes on. That summer, when I asked you to marry me, I pledged my eternal devotion. I would take it as a very great favor, Julia, if you would accept a restatement of that pledge.
- [They embrace passionately]
- [to Julia]
- Richard Sturges: Twenty years ago I made the unpardonable error of thinking I could civilize a girl who bought her hats out of a Sears-Roebuck catalog.
- Richard Sturges: Finish your coffee, Julia. Then, we'll take a little walk around the deck while I tell you what I think of you.
- Julia Sturges: I have no interest in what you have to say, and I'm in no hurry to finish my coffee.
- Captain E. J. Smith: Can you still keep up steam?
- Boiler Room Engineer: We'll give it a try, sir.
- Captain E. J. Smith: Good, we need power for the Marconi instrument, and I want to keep the lights burning as long as possible. If there's a ship coming she has to see us.
- Boiler Room Engineer: Right, sir.
- Captain E. J. Smith: I presume you know, you may not make it out of here.
- Boiler Room Engineer: Yes sir, that's the way of it sometimes.
- Harry - Bar Steward: Mr. Sturges, there's a boy up forward looking for you, sir.
- Richard Sturges: Yes Harry, I found him. He's my son.
- Julia Sturges: [after losing the argument with Richard, when their daughter decides not to stay with her mother in Michigan but to return to Europe with her father on the next boat] Thank you, Richard. You were most helpful. Now you see why I wanted to steal a little more time.
- Richard Sturges: Please, Julia. Let's not bicker, since there's no love lost between us.
- Julia Sturges: That's the tragic part, Richard. There's been so much love lost between us.
- Rev. Headley: [after Julia has escorted the inebriated Rev. Headley back to his cabin] I want to thank you for not mentioning my strange luggage.
- Julia Sturges: Are you a minister?
- Rev. Headley: Priest. Or, rather, I was until last week. At three o'clock on April the eighth, my duties, my privileges, as a servant of God were formally terminated. It was this.
- [indicating a bottle]
- Rev. Headley: You know why I started, at least the reason I gave myself? A priest in a slum parish knows all the sadness of the world. He needs support. I used to lean on a little Hennessey's. Just a little at first. People said, "Well, that's only natural. Young Father has a bad cold." But it got so I used to have those colds in the middle of July. Lots of 'em. I can hear the bishop's voice now: "You prefer that stuff to your God?" Well, God and I knew better, but I couldn't stop because I had a private devil all my own. In Rome, they were very kind, but they were very final. I was sacked, and prayed for, and sent off in the morning. How do you cover that in ten words, in a wireless, to a family that loved you and sacrificed for you?
- [pause]
- Rev. Headley: You see, my dear lady, you're not the only one who walks in trouble.
- Julia Sturges: [after a pause, understandingly] Good night.
- Richard Sturges: [to Annette and Norman in their lifejackets] You two look fat and funny in those, sort of like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
- Richard Sturges: You crazy woman. You're talking about the most important thing in my life. I have plans for Norman.
- Julia Sturges: What plans? That he should grow up to be you?
- Richard Sturges: Possibly. I'm satisfied. Is it so extraordinary that I should want to have some hint, some portion of myself survive?
- Julia Sturges: Some portion of... Oh yes, I forgot, the best dressed man of his day. That's what they're going to put on your tombstone. Well, that may be all right for you, but I won't have it for Norman. He stays with me!
- Julia Sturges: Before you go down and eat and drink, you'd better know how things are going to be. I've given up on Annette. Her standards will always be the chic club, the best table, the royal enclosure, and that's her decision. She's almost of age. But, Norman is still a child. I'm not taking any chances with him. He stays in America.
- Richard Sturges: Now wait a minute, Julia. What is this all about?
- Julia Sturges: I should think it would be perfectly clear. I'm not going to see Norman thrown away. He stays with me. And if you try to interfere, I'll be as common as you think I am! I'll fight you tooth and nail! I'll take you to the courts!
- Richard Sturges: [closing the cabin door] Could you be common in a slightly lower voice.
- Julia Sturges: I'll say it in any tone you want! I'll whisper it. I'll write it down, but that's the way it's going to be! He stays with me!
- [last lines]
- End Narrator: Thus, on April the 15th, Nineteen hundred and twelve, at 0220 hours, as the passengers and crew sang a Welsh hymn, RMS Titanic passed from the British registry. Seven hundred and twelve people in 19 lifeboats survived.
- Julia Sturges: Where's Norman? Norman? Norman!
- Undetermined Role: He gave a woman up front his seat.
- Julia Sturges: Norman! Norman!
- Maude: [after unmasking a male passenger on the lifeboat disguised as a woman] I see you made it, Mr. Meeker!
- Norman Sturges: Shouldn't I wait and go on the boat with you?
- Richard Sturges: The officer put you here, didn't he?
- Norman Sturges: Yes, sir.
- Richard Sturges: You know the rules: a good soldier obeys orders. Au revoir, my pets.
- Richard Sturges: They're loading your lifeboat. I'd better go to my own. It's on the other side.
- Julia Sturges: It will be a long walk, Richard, but thank you for lying. I know you're trying to make it easy for us.
- Richard Sturges: This way is easier for me, too.
- Gifford "Giff" Rogers: I don't think it's so serious. We'll get help.
- Annette Sturges: I think so too.
- Gifford "Giff" Rogers: I'll bet there are practically seven or eight ships coming right now. But, anyway, just in case we get on different boats and you get to New York first... would you mind calling home for me?
- Annette Sturges: Of course not. They'll be worried.
- Gifford "Giff" Rogers: There's just Jackie - that's my kid sister. You can tell her I didn't win any medal, but that I bought her a pocketbook instead. With beads on it. It was supposed to get there for Easter.
- Annette Sturges: You'll be there to tell her, Giff. You're just as apt to be there before me.
- Gifford "Giff" Rogers: Oh, sure.
- [turning serious]
- Gifford "Giff" Rogers: But even if not, there's one thing I want you to know - I don't think you'll believe it - but I wouldn't have missed this boat trip, not for anything.
- [they embrace and kiss goodbye]
- Richard Sturges: [fingering his hastily tailored suit] It's nice material.
- Ship's Tailor: Yes, sir. It's a beautiful suit.
- Richard Sturges: [sharply] I said it was nice material.
- Julia Sturges: Richard, please try to see this sanely. We're Americans, we belong in America. And yet for years, we've been galloping all over Europe to be at the proper places at the proper time: winter in St. Moritz, Deauville in season, summer in... oh, what's the use, the same silly calendar year after year. Look at Annette!
- Richard Sturges: I have, with great pride. She's entertaining, she's discriminating, she has grace and style.
- Julia Sturges: She's an arrogant little prig.
- Richard Sturges: So, you've chosen to bring her back to the glories of Mackinac, Michigan.
- [Pronounces it "Mackinack" instead of the correct pronunciation of "Mackinaw"]
- Julia Sturges: Any town in any state becomes comic on your lips. But comic or not, that's where she's going.