"I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood"
About this Quote
Wilder’s line is a love letter with a safety catch: all devotion, instantly hedged. “I’d worship the ground you walked on” arrives as grand romantic submission, the kind of hyperbole meant to melt resistance. Then he swerves: “if only you walked in a better neighborhood.” The punch isn’t just that he insults the beloved’s surroundings; it’s that he reveals the speaker’s affection as conditional, curated, and faintly snobbish. Adoration is easy when it comes with good lighting.
The intent is pure Wilder: puncture sentimentality before it gets sticky. He lets romance announce itself, then undercuts it with a single practical clause that turns desire into a real-estate evaluation. That’s the subtext: you’re extraordinary, but your world is inconvenient to me. Or sharper: I want you, but not the baggage, the class markers, the risk. The “neighborhood” can be literal (a rough part of town) or social (bad company, messy reputation, the wrong circle). Either way, it frames love as something that needs zoning approval.
As a director who specialized in sophisticated comedies with a hard moral edge (Sunset Blvd., The Apartment, Some Like It Hot), Wilder understood how Americans sell virtue and romance while quietly running cost-benefit analyses. The line works because it exposes that hypocrisy without moralizing. It’s funny, but it’s also a tiny act of cruelty: the beloved is reduced to an address, and the speaker’s worship is revealed as self-protective performance. Wilder’s genius is making the knife look like a compliment.
The intent is pure Wilder: puncture sentimentality before it gets sticky. He lets romance announce itself, then undercuts it with a single practical clause that turns desire into a real-estate evaluation. That’s the subtext: you’re extraordinary, but your world is inconvenient to me. Or sharper: I want you, but not the baggage, the class markers, the risk. The “neighborhood” can be literal (a rough part of town) or social (bad company, messy reputation, the wrong circle). Either way, it frames love as something that needs zoning approval.
As a director who specialized in sophisticated comedies with a hard moral edge (Sunset Blvd., The Apartment, Some Like It Hot), Wilder understood how Americans sell virtue and romance while quietly running cost-benefit analyses. The line works because it exposes that hypocrisy without moralizing. It’s funny, but it’s also a tiny act of cruelty: the beloved is reduced to an address, and the speaker’s worship is revealed as self-protective performance. Wilder’s genius is making the knife look like a compliment.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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