- Kit Latimer: I've never been anywhere like this before. I never even knew it was here.
- Johnny Schumacher: Well, that's Chicago.
- Kit Latimer: Chicago.
- Johnny Schumacher: It's you and me. "Oh I see, flashing, that this America is only you and me. Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me. Past, present, future, are you and me."
- Kit Latimer: Walt Whitman, isn't it?
- Johnny Schumacher: Yeah.
- Kit Latimer: He's my favorite poet, too.
- Smiley Jackson: Say, cutie, uh, how do you look in tights?
- Johnny Schumacher: She's not in show business.
- Smiley Jackson: Oh, too bad. I got a marvellous spot in my show for a girl in tights.
- Kit's Attorney: Mr. Jones, will you tell the jury, in your own words, what you think of the music the defendant is charged with playing?
- Tom Jones: It sends me, brothers, it sends me.
- Ella: It's trouble music, that's all it is. It's trouble music. When folks has got trouble, they get it off their mind with singin'. Singin' the songs I hear since before I can remember. If a body's got ears, they can hear it everywhere, even here in Chicago. Folks can't help it.
- Ella: I ain't never seen nothin' wrong in music and in folks bein' natural. Music comes right from her soul and there can't be no harm in that.
- Paul Porter: I've always liked sweet music. This stuff makes me jumpy.
- Kit Latimer: Well, that's what it's supposed to do.
- Smiley Jackson: I'm the guy with the golden apple tree, and the little Miss is gonna shake 'em down for us.
- Kit Latimer: Oh, it's wonderful, Johnny!
- Johnny Schumacher: You really think so?
- Kit Latimer: Oh, swell.
- Johnny Schumacher: Oh, uh, it'll never be like Rex, though.
- Kit Latimer: You shouldn't be! You've got a style of your own. Rex is - is New Orleans, Basin Street, and you're Chicago. Ohh, you pick up where Basin Street leaves off.
- Rex Tearbone: We're gonna hit that open road. There must be some spot around here where they still like it hot. Where a man don't have to beat his brains out on a set routine of music. Where a man can play just what he feels. And don't it say in the good book, "Seek and ye shall find"? Well, we're gonna start seeking.
- Johnny Schumacher: The world is yours, you do what you want with it.
- Kit Latimer: I wanna put it in my pocket and dance on the moon.
- Johnny Schumacher: I saw guys who were a lot worse off than me, guys who were beat down, slapped around, coming from no place, going nowhere. Yet every night, somewhere along the road, they'd stopped and come to life. They hadn't forgotten how to laugh. They could still sing - music made up by guys in a jam. Songs about broken lives and busted dreams. I was like crazy when I heard it. It made me see what brings people together. They wanna get rid of their troubles - talk 'em, sing 'em, or dance 'em away.
- Kit Latimer: They're not dancing just to forget their troubles. They're getting something they can carry away. They're dancing to music that comes from the heart, music that's American-born.
- Ella: I don't want no son of mine playing in a place like this.
- King Jeffers: And why not?
- Ella: I want him to study music like the white folks do.
- King Jeffers: Listen, Ella, Reggie got something that no teacher can give no one, no how. Every once in a great while, the Lord takes a tiny little spark and drops it inside of someone. That spark can be snuffed out - one, two, three - but if you leave it alone, it can grow into a great, big ball of fire, just-a burnin' so bright, just-a givin' off such big heat that after the man die, folks can still sit around that fire and keep warm. Let Reggie be with me and I'll watch over that spark of his.
- George Latimer: Let me show you something. There's New Orleans, reckless daughter of the Mississippi. By day, she looks no different than other towns. At night, she suddenly springs to life. It's a rough, old, charming town. And she's been battered and bruised, praised and damned by the scum of the land and the flower of the earth. Her streets have been sprinkled with the blood of saints - and sinners. Every night she dies like an old man, only to be born each morning a husky, laughing baby built on mud - sand and mud. But, beneath it all, she's got a foundation that's solid and strong enough to build up to the stars. A heart that beats with life.
- Tom Jones: My name's Tom Jones. Baptised Thomas. I belong to the Methodist church, third-degree Mason, Woodman of the World. I'm an Elk, a Moose, and a Maccabee. I voted for Woodrow Wilson, yes, sirree, but I don't believe in votes for women. Who's gonna do the cooking?
- Singer on Piano at Party: [singing] You made me love you, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it, You made me want you, And all the time you knew it, I guess you always knew it, You made me, oh, so happy, You made me glad, But there were times, dear, You made me feel so sad, You made me sigh for, I didn't wanna tell you, I didn't want to tell you, I want some love, that's true, Yes I do, indeed I do, you know I do, So, gimme, gimme, gimme what I cry for, You know ya got the kind o' kisses that I'd die for, You know you made me love you...
- Johnny Schumacher: I don't like things that make too much sense, Kit. People who always add one and one are two. Why can't it be three? Just once, one and one are three.
- Kit Latimer: Wonderful, Johnny.
- Johnny Schumacher: Ah, the one time you people come clear across town to hear us, we have to sound like six drunken plumbers in a tin shop.
- Military Policeman: I hate to disturb you boys, but the General's waiting to tuck you in. Outside, soldiers!
- Johnny Schumacher: Say, you fellas are terrific. I never heard anything like it before.
- Rex Tearbone: You just ain't been to the right place, boy. Stick around, we don't get warmed up until after midnight.
- Johnny Schumacher: Is that a special kind of cornet you use? Mine looks the same, but I can't get anything out of it like that.
- Rex Tearbone: Grab a chair, we'll show you how it's done.
- Johnny Schumacher: You mean I can sit in?
- Rex Tearbone: You can't learn this music with no book, soldier. Luke, toss him that brand-new horn.
- Johnny Schumacher: Gee.
- Johnny Schumacher: There's no room in the classy spots for a little jazz outfit. They don't go for hot stuff. They want it dished out sweet like a marshmallow sundae.
- Kit Latimer: Don't leave me! Please, Johnny.
- Johnny Schumacher: I was just gonna put on the light.
- Kit Latimer: I like the dark.
- Johnny Schumacher: He's not a bad guy. Whenever a musician gets bumped off in his place, he always gets a first-class funeral.
- Kit Latimer: When did you first know you loved me, Johnny?
- Johnny Schumacher: When I started to take showers with my clothes on.
- Johnny Schumacher: You guys are chumps. Instead of coming along with me, you beat your brains out in nickel-and-dime joints.
- Smiley Jackson: Some crowd, huh?
- Cafe Singer: I'll say. Makes me feel like the third man in the telephone booth.
- Smiley Jackson: Just another jazz band.
- Kit Latimer: You're slipping, Smiley. Listen, can't you hear? It's more than just jazz. it's got kind of a swing. It's new.
- Smiley Jackson: It's too new for me.
- Kit Latimer: Listen to that horn...
- House Detective: I still think there's something funny going on in this room. Well, pleasant dreams.
- Johnny Schumacher: I wonder how long this will last for us.
- Kit Latimer: It was worthwhile, even if it lasts only tonight.
- Kit Latimer: It seems to me I've heard that tune years ago.
- Smiley Jackson: Well, look, cutie, just between you and me and the lamppost, I picked it up on a Mississippi River boat from a boot black boy. They play it slow in Memphis, they sing it blue in St. Louis. But up here in the windy city, we just give it a needle and rock it back to life with that ol' razzmatazz.
- Kit Latimer: It's still New Orleans,