The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

Frank Chambers: With my brains and your looks, we could go places.
Frank Chambers: What are you, uh, Greek or something?
Cora: What... do I look Greek?
Sackett: Spit on the sidewalk and you'll die in jail!
Cora Smith: It's too bad Nick took the car.
Frank Chambers: Even if it was here we couldn't take it, unless we'd want to spend the night in jail. Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing a man's car, that's larceny.
Cora: I'm getting tired of what's right and wrong.
Frank Chambers: They hang people for that, Cora!
Cora: He wants to have a baby... How'm I gonna do that, Frank?
Cora: [disgusted, after seeing Frank drink milk directly from the bottle] Will you use a glass? What are you, an animal?
Cora: You're scum, Frank!
[laughs]
Cora: I knew that when I met you... You'll never change.
Cora: All I know is, it went dark... If he'd have turned around, Frank, they'd have hanged us for it... and something... something put that cop there... It's an act of God those lights went out!
Frank Chambers: Now, you got this on the dash. And you don't know where you got this.
[Frank to Cora as he is hitting her to stage the auto crash injuries]
Frank Chambers: You know, there's something about this that's like, well it's like you're expecting a letter that you're just crazy to get, and you're hanging around the front door for fear you might not hear him ring. You never realize that he always rings twice...
Cora Smith: It's my wedding present to him, but the way he wears it, you'd think it was a noose around his neck.
Frank Chambers: I can sell anything to anybody.
Cora Smith: That's what you think.
Cora Smith: That note I left Nick, if he gets back before we do and finds it...
Frank Chambers: Where'd you leave it?
Cora Smith: In the cash register!
Frank Chambers: That's terrific, that's the first place he'll look.
[about Nick]
Frank Chambers: I'd like to see him get plastered like that some night and drive off a cliff.
Cora Smith: I want to make something of this place, I want to make it into an honest-to-goodness...
Frank Chambers: Well, aren't we ambitious.
Nick Smith: [about his plan to sell Twin Oaks and move to Canada to take care of his sister] My mind's made up.
Cora Smith: So, you've given it a great deal of thought, your mind's made up? Without even talking it over with me, your mind's made up. Well, mine isn't!
Nick Smith: [coldly] That's too bad.
[Arthur Keats enters, closes the door]
Cora Smith: If it's the last thing I do, I'll put you out of business. There must be a law, even for lawyers.
Arthur Keats: Of course you know the district attorney fooled you into that confession, don't you? And you fell for it, both of you.
[small hrmph]
Arthur Keats: He planned to get you working against each other. Don't you see?
Cora Smith: You bet I see.
[turning to Frank]
Cora Smith: So when Sackett couldn't get anything out of me, he started in on you, and right away you turned yellow.
Arthur Keats: Yellow? Yellow is a color you figure on in a murder, and nobody figures it better than Kyle Sackett.
[to Frank]
Arthur Keats: That was Sackett's trump card. Once he tricked you into signing that complaint against her, he knew no power on earth could keep you
[to Cora]
Arthur Keats: from turning on him.
[back to Frank]
Arthur Keats: That way he gets you both.
Cora Smith: If you knew all that, why didn't you stop me from confessing?
Arthur Keats: Oh, I tried. I tried, but nobody could've stopped you. However, now that you've got it off your chest...
[moving to door, opening it]
Arthur Keats: Kennedy?
Ezra Liam Kennedy: Yes, sir?
[enters]
Arthur Keats: [closes door] That confession Mrs. Smith signed. What did you do with it?
Ezra Liam Kennedy: I gave it to Jimmy White to lock up in your safe like you told me to.
Arthur Keats: [opening door] That's all.
[Kennedy leaves, he closes door]
Cora Smith: You mean he's not from the D.A.'s office?
Frank Chambers: He's a plainclothes dick if I ever saw one.
Arthur Keats: He used to be a dick, but he's not a dick anymore. He works for me now. He's my gumshoe man. With the district attorney using high-pressure tactics, I had to fight fire with fire. Since you were due to spill the beans anyway, I figured you better do it to my man rather than to Sackett's.
Cora Smith: Why you...
Arthur Keats: That's why I said we'd plead guilty, so as to stop everything cold in that courtroom before you blew your topper right there and then.
Frank Chambers: Then the district attorney's got nothing against me.
Arthur Keats: No, Frank, you're not even under arrest.
Cora Smith: Oh, sure, he goes free, and I get tossed in for murder and attempt.
Arthur Keats: Unless... unless you let me handle it.
Cora Smith: Ha!
Arthur Keats: Listen, my girl, you're still in plenty of trouble, 'cause we don't know exactly what evidence Sackett's got against us. From now on, you speak only when you're spoken to, and in that court tomorrow try to look as young and innocent as possible under the circumstances. And remember I'm the only hope you've got.