How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from All About Eve.
Quote #4
BILL: The Theatuh, the Theatuh—what book of rules says the Theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? […] Want to know what the Theater is? A flea circus. […] Wherever there's magic and make-believe and an audience, there's Theater. […] The Theater's for everybody, you included, but not exclusively, so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your Theater, but it's Theater of somebody, somewhere.
Bill's the opposite of Addison. He loves and respects the theater, but he doesn't see it as an exclusive club. He's fine with accepting Hollywood, or any form of entertainment, as a version of theater in a way because it speaks to someone.
Quote #5
BILL: When you start judging an idealistic dreamy-eyed kid by the barroom, Benzedrine standards of this megalomaniac society, I won't have it! Eve Harrington has never by word, look, thought or suggestion indicated anything to me but her adoration for you and her happiness at our being in love! And to intimate anything else doesn't spell jealousy to me; it spells a paranoiac insecurity that you should be ashamed of!
Bill's comparing Eve's innocence and naïveté to the jaded, narcissistic world of theater people. He thinks this right up until the moment she makes a shameless pass at him.
Quote #6
LLOYD: I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself as a mind. Just when exactly does an actress decide they're her words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?
MARGO: Usually at the point when she has to rewrite and rethink them to keep the audience from leaving the theater!
LLOYD: It's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto!
Oh, snap! Lloyd's famous for his plays, but it must frost him to see Margo getting all the glory delivering lines he's written. This is what Addison was talking about when he said that writers and directors are considered as just building the scaffold for the actress to perch on top. Joseph Mankiewicz had heard prior to filming that Bette Davis was a terrible actress to work with because she brought a yellow pad to shoots and marked up all the dialogue. He was happy to find out that in this case, she left every word just as it was.