An Affair to Remember Quotes
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Source: An Affair to Remember
Speaker: Terry McKay
"It was the nearest thing to heaven."
Oh, it was nobody's fault but my own. I was looking up. It was the nearest thing to heaven. You were there.
Context
This line is spoken by Terry McKay, played by Deborah Kerr, in the film An Affair to Remember, directed by Leo McCarey (1957).
How's this for a great idea? A couple agrees to have a romantic rendezvous atop the Empire State Building. No, it's not Sleepless in Seattle (1993) or Love Affair (1939). It's An Affair to Remember, the remake of Love Affair, starring Carey Grant as Nickie and Deborah Kerr as Terry.
Terry wants to meet Nickie at the Empire State Building because "The Empire State Building is the closest thing to heaven in this city." But on the day of their meeting, Terry is struck by a car on her way there. Heaven isn't as welcoming as it used to be, we guess. When Nickie finally finds her, this line is how she explains her accident.
Where you've heard it
Sleepless in Seattle was inspired by An Affair to Remember, although Meg Ryan wouldn't get run over until City of Angels (because, like Terry, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going).
Finally, the quote probably appears in some form in Tracy Jordan's A Blaffair to Rememblack.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
This quote is less pretentious if you have actually just been hit by a cab when you say it.