Memorable quotes for
The Secret of My Succe$s (1987) More at IMDbPro »

[after sex]
Brantley Foster: Can I make a personal observation?
Vera Prescott: Um, anything but the thighs.
Brantley Foster: You know, somebody sold you a bill of goods and convinced you you had to be 21 forever. I think you're terrific; I think the only thing wrong with you is your husband is a jerk. You're beautiful, you're intelligent, you're sensuous...
Vera Prescott: Say that again!
Brantley Foster: Which part?
Vera Prescott: All of it!
[sounds of car]
Vera Prescott: Oh, no.
Brantley Foster: What, what is it?
Vera Prescott: It's the jerk.
[Brantley rushes to the window]
Vera Prescott: My husband.
Brantley Foster: My uncle!
Vera Prescott: Your what?
Brantley Foster: Oh God, that makes you...
Vera Prescott: Auntie Vera?
Brantley Foster: Oh! God!
[Vera laughs]
Brantley Foster: Oh God, oh God, oh God! What's my mother going to say? I've disgraced my whole family!
Vera Prescott: Oh, the hell you did!

---

Grace Foster: Take this. It's Uncle Howard's phone number in New York.
Brantley Foster: I've got an uncle in New York?
Grace Foster: My cousin Ellen married his half-sister's nephew, before she got bit by that dog and died.

---

[on entering his newly rented apartment]
Brantley Foster: All right, listen up. If there are any bugs in here, or rats, or anything that has more legs than I do, you just stay on your side of the room, okay? I'll stay on mine. I should warn you, I'm packing an iron.

---

[after reviewing Brantley's (faked) résumé]
Mrs. Meacham: Outstanding! Outstanding!
Brantley Foster: You're not going to tell me I have too much experience, are you?
Mrs. Meacham: Certainly not - you're perfect for the job.
Brantley Foster: Great!
Mrs. Meacham: Except...
Brantley Foster: No! No exceptions! I want this job, I need it, I can do it. Everywhere I've been today there's always been something wrong, too young, too old, too short, too tall. Whatever the exception is, I can fix it. I can be older, I can be taller, I can be anything.
Mrs. Meacham: Can you be a minority woman?

---

[Brantley said "good morning" to an executive]
Fred Melrose: Not the suits, man! You never consort with the suits unless they consort with you first.
Brantley Foster: Wait a minute, that's ridiculous! He's a person, I'm a person. I can't say hello to him?
Fred Melrose: He's not a person, he's a suit! You're mailroom. No consorting.

---

Vera Prescott: [into phone] This is the third weekend in a row he's found an excuse not to come to the country... No, I don't know, but knowing him it's probably some teenage airhead from the steno pool. Hmph. The last one I caught him with was so dumb, she thought "dictation" was some kind of S&M trip.

---

Howard Prescott: What you are doing in here?
Vera Prescott: [half naked] Feeling romantic...
Howard Prescott: Oh. What's for dinner?
Vera Prescott: Ohh, Howard! You really know how to sweep a girl back onto her feet.

---

[at Brantley's apartment]
Brantley Foster: Oh, God. What are you doing here?
Vera Prescott: Brantley, darling, I heard you calling me telepathically - I'm VERY psychic - so of COURSE I rushed right over.
Brantley Foster: I would've used the phone...
Vera Prescott: Mental telepathy's much more reliable.

---

Brantley Foster: We have a problem.
Vera Prescott: What?
Brantley Foster: It's your husband: he's my boss.
Vera Prescott: O-oh, him. We won't tell him. Besides, Howard's working late tonight - on whom, I have no idea.

---

Christy Wills: You want me to spy on him?
Howard Prescott: No, I don't want you to spy on him. I want you to get to be friends with him, and then rifle through his papers and tell me what you find.

---

Christy Wills: Just tell me one more time what your solution is to this crisis.
Brantley Foster: We don't cut, we expand.
[the waitress, Sheila, arrives]
Sheila: I agree. Expansion is a positive reaction to the universe, while retraction, or cutting back, or pulling off, those are all negative forces. I used to be very negative, and then I took this personality workshop - my whole life turned around. Hiya, my name's Sheila. You make a good-looking couple - how long you been going together?
Brantley Foster: About 20 minutes.
Sheila: Ohhhhh, first date, huh? Good luck.
Christy Wills: No, we're business colleagues.
Sheila: Colleagues, who needs that? You should go together. You look good together. - Oh, oh, d'you want to order?
Brantley Foster: Yeah, we need to see some menus, Sheila.
Sheila: Menus! I'm sorry. - I'm studying to be an actress. I'm a much better actress than I am a waitress. Concentration, that's my big problem. I'll be right back.
Brantley Foster: Well, Sheila's in favor of expansion.
Christy Wills: We should bring her to our next executive meeting. I think Art Thomas would like her a lot.
Brantley Foster: Sheila is also in favor of us seeing each other.
Christy Wills: Yes, well, Sheila is clearly a nut.
Sheila: [from across the room] I heard that! You should try to be more positive with your life, or you're gonna wind up miserable.
Christy Wills: [hiding behind her hand] She heard me!

---

Brantley Foster: What's up? You seem kind of upset.
Christy Wills: I hate men.
Brantley Foster: Well! Glad I'm not one of 'em.

---

[Vera tries to seduce Brantley at the office]
Brantley Foster: Aunt Vera, listen, since the last time we met there's been a change.
Vera Prescott: Yes... nice suit, Brantley!
[she starts undressing him; he tries to escape]
Brantley Foster: Agh! Ow! Look, what I mean to say is... Oh, Christ! I'm not free any more!
Vera Prescott: What, you're going to charge me? Oh ho, you're getting awfully cynical - does your mother know about this?
Brantley Foster: Ohh, no, I am not available.
Vera Prescott: Oh, good, you're not going to charge me.

---

Brantley Foster: Look, I like you, I really like you, but I gotta tell you, I have become seriously and emotionally involved with someone who isn't my aunt.
Vera Prescott: I forgive you, Brantley.
[continues trying to seduce him]

---

Vera Prescott: I'm going to introduce you to the most powerful money men in New York, and if you can do to them what you've done to me...
Brantley Foster: I can't do that!
Vera Prescott: I mean bowl them over, darling! You're irresistible when you turn on that boyish charm.

---

Howard Prescott: Let me get this straight - Brantley is Whitfield?
Brantley Foster: That's right. Brantley is Whitfield; Whitfield is Brantley.
Vera Prescott: And Christy is the bimbo! Well, now that we've all had Mouseketeer roll call, I'm just going to go call my lawyer.
Howard Prescott: [lying] No, wait a minute. Christy is not the bimbo I was screwing around with at the office.
Christy Wills: People better stop calling me bimbo!
Howard Prescott: It was an entirely different bimbo altogether.
Vera Prescott: That's fine; how many bimbos would you say there were?
Howard Prescott: I misspoke myself. There weren't any bimbos at all.
Brantley Foster: Except Christy.
Howard Prescott: Right. No!

---

Brantley Foster: Whoa, whoa, listen, I'm going to need your help, both of you.
Fred Melrose: Is it something I could get fired for?
Brantley Foster: Absolutely.
Fred Melrose: I like it!

---

Vera Prescott: Why haven't I met you before?
Fred Melrose: Maybe you ain't been hangin' out in the mailroom.
Vera Prescott: Oooh, the "male room." I like that sound!

---

Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield: Okay, so you don't eat lunch. Do you eat dinner?
Christy Wills: Occasionally.
Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield: Tonight?
Christy Wills: Booked.
Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield: Tomorrow night?
Christy Wills: Booked.
Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield: All right, but don't beg, okay? It's embarrassing.

---

Jean: I was having fun on this job! You had all this energy, and all these crazy ideas... and you kept taking your pants off.

---

Barney Rattigan: Any questions?
Brantley Foster aka Carlton Whitfield: Yeah, what do I call you?
Barney Rattigan: You call me God.

---

Vera Prescott: That was a very expensive vase, you bitch!

---

[Brantley is carrying a briefcase into the mailroom]
Fred Melrose: What's in there?
Brantley Foster: My lunch.
Fred Melrose: Your lunch? In a briefcase?
Brantley Foster: Yeah. I ran out of brown bags.

---

Brantley Foster: At least I didn't sleep with the boss.
Christy Wills: No, you slept with the boss's wife!

---

Howard Prescott: Why are you wearing a suit?
Brantley Foster: Because of the funeral.
Howard Prescott: Whose funeral?
Brantley Foster: A friend. He died. We buried him.

---

Brantley Foster: How do I get to Litchfield?
Barney Rattigan: You'll find it. Just follow the smell of money.

---

Brantley Foster: Please God, help me get out of this. I swear I'll go all over the world telling people not to screw the boss's wife.

---

Unnamed employer: I'm sorry, Mister...
Brantley Foster: Foster.
Unnamed employer: I'm sorry, Mr. Foster. We need someone with experience.
Brantley Foster: But how can I get any experience until I get a job that GIVES me experience?
Unnamed employer: If we gave you a job just to give you experience, you'd take that experience and get a better job. Then that experience would benefit someone else.
Brantley Foster: Yeah, but I was trained in college to handle a job like this, so in a sense I already have experience.
Unnamed employer: What you've got is college experience, not the practical, hard-nosed business experience we're looking for. If you'd joined our training program out of high-school, you'd be qualified for this job now.
Brantley Foster: Then why did I go to college?
Unnamed employer: [laughs] Had fun, didn't you?

---

Brantley Foster: [reading mail while sorting] Some of this stuff doesn't make any sense. They send requisitions through two departments to get procurements for a third. What kind of thinking is that?
Fred Melrose: That's suit thinking. Something happens to a man when he puts on a necktie. Cuts off all the oxygen to his brain.

---

Brantley Foster: Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water.

---

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