's Pygmalion
and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney
flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist
, in order that she may pass as a proper lady.
The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a hit, setting what was then the record for the longest run of any major musical theater production in history.
I could have danced all night, I could have danced all night, and still have begged for more. I could have spread my wings and done a thousand things I've never done before.
Women are irrational, that's all there is to that! Their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags. They're nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening and infuriating hags!
Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs are second nature to me now, like breathing out and breathing in.
There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
I have often walked down this street before; But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before. All at once am I Several stories high, Knowing I'm on the street where you live.
Art and music will thrive without you. Somehow Keats will survive without you. And there still will be rain on that plain down in Spain, even that will remain without you. I can do without you!"
All I want is a room somewhere, Far away from the cold night air. With one enormous chair, Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' arse!
I ain't done nothin' wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers if I keep off the curb. I'm a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him 'cept so far as to buy a flower off me.
The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated.