10 Greatest 'Devil Wears Prada' Quotes, Ranked

6 days ago 9

When The Devil Wears Prada was released 20 years ago, the designer wardrobe, Anne Hathaway's bangs, and Meryl Streep's icy stare as the instantly iconic Miranda Priestly was permanently burned into the audience's memory. More unexpected, however, is that, in a movie about fashion, the dialogue is just as unforgettable as the clothes.

Whether a ruthless jab from a perpetually impatient Miranda or surprisingly heartfelt advice from Runway art director Nigel (Stanley Tucci), the screenplay boasts a parade of iconic lines from the moment Andy Sachs (Hathaway) first purchases an onion bagel. With a sequel now out in theaters at Disney, fans of the original are being blessed with a new crop of quotes that are as groundbreaking as florals for spring. So gird your loins for the best lines of The Devil Wears Prada, ranked by how funny, witty, and outright unforgettable they are.

10 "I'm on this new diet. I don't eat anything, and when I feel like I'm about to faint, I eat a cube of cheese."

Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt)

Emily Blunt as Emily Charlton in 'The Devil Wears Prada'

Andy and Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), Miranda's first assistant, experience a role reversal throughout the movie. While her initial incompetence at her job allows Emily a sense of smug condescension, Andy's assimilation into the world of Runway flips the tables. Eventually, she surpasses Emily as Miranda's favorite, forcing her British foe into a dynamic in which she is subordinate.

Whereas Emily previously only deigned to speak to Andy in one-word answers and overt insults, here she subtly acknowledges that Andy has become a person worth talking to and begins to divulge more of her inner world. Emily's anxiety is on full display in this quote, showcasing just how desperate she is to fit in with the fashion world. It's a testament to Emily's masochistic dedication to her job that she excitedly expresses her willingness to sacrifice anything, even her health, to succeed. Emily Blunt's incredible line reading makes it all the more poignant, equal parts funny and tragic.

9 "Can you please spell 'Gabbana'?"

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway)

Andy exposes just how foreign she is to the fashion world with this line, which she delivers during one of her first attempts to take calls for Miranda. Her nonchalance is also on full display as she clumsily scribbles on a Post-it rather than smoothly entering the call into a database like Emily does with ease. Andy then merely shrugs when the caller hangs up without answering her question.

This moment serves as a comparison point as Andy's approach to her job evolves throughout the movie. Mid-film, Andy practically becomes a Miranda mind-reader and fashion encyclopedia and would likely be horrified at her former self's ignorance about one of the most famous designer labels in the world. By the time Andy leaves her job, not only could she spell Gabbana, but she could identify a D&G piece on sight.

8 "You went upstairs. Oh my god, why didn't you just crawl into bed with her and ask for a bedtime story?"

Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt)

In a pivotal moment for her relationship with Miranda, Andy is given the responsibility of delivering The Book, the mock-up of that month's Runway issue, to Miranda's Upper East Side townhouse. Although Andy was instructed to leave The Book on a table in the foyer, Miranda's mischievous twin daughters trick her into bringing it upstairs, where Andy interrupts a tense moment between Miranda and her husband.

The indiscretion becomes a massive setback for Andy, and Emily is flabbergasted at her audacity. While the power dynamic between Andy and Emily has already begun shifting in Andy's favor, her costly mistake allows Emily to re-assume her position of dominance, and she declines to offer Andy support in favor of slinging this sarcastic reprimand. Once again, Blunt's dry, prickly delivery is stellar, although she mixes it with a sense of genuine disbelief at Andy's apparent stupidity.

7 "Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender female paratrooper? Am I reaching for the stars here?"

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)

Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada

From the moment she's introduced, Miranda's delegating style is shown to be rapid-fire, unreasonably long lists of complaints and instructions that she requires her staff to immediately retain. This demanding EIC expects a level of attunement just short of mind-reading and expresses disgusted incredulity if anyone suggests that her demands can't be met with the ease with which she assigns them. This gem of a quote is slipped into her introductory monologue, showing that Miranda's lofty expectations aren't reserved for just the Runway employees.

For a feature on female paratroopers that ostensibly would prioritize the article over the photos, optics still reign supreme for Miranda. Her belief that everyone should conform to Runway's standard of beauty is perfectly encapsulated in this expectation that an elite military unit would be full of Victoria's Secret models. But, as with all of Miranda's demands, her staff finds a way to make it work, showing that Miranda doesn't just dictate the composition of the magazine; sometimes, she influences reality itself.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

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Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

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How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

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What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

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What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

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Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

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What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

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What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

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How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

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What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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6 "That's really what this multi-billion dollar industry is all about anyway, isn't it? Inner beauty."

Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci)

As Andy dabs corn chowder from her cerulean, poly-blend sweater, Nigel slings this barb in response to her naive belief that her outward presentation would be irrelevant to her job as Miranda's assistant. Citing the fact that Miranda knew what she looked like before hiring her, Andy insists that she shouldn't bother changing herself when she isn't going to work in the fashion industry forever. Nigel can barely suppress an eye roll at the suggestion that work ethic and integrity matter more than aesthetics.

Between the lines, however, the always-insightful Nigel is jabbing at something deeper than Andy's clothes. At this early stage of the film, Andy is still entrenched in her belief that she's inherently more complex and insightful than the superficial Kool-Aid drinkers at Runway. With this quote, Nigel unmasks Andy's sense of moral superiority and dismisses her rejection of fashion as being just as trite and shallow as Andy considers those who worship it to be. Once she realizes that Nigel views her defiance as having all the performative depth of an after-school special, Andy is forced to reconsider how she relates to him.

5 "That's all."

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)

Never have two words spoken so quietly inspired so much fear. Miranda might deliver her chilling catchphrase after rattling off a list of demands, dressing down an employee for their incompetence or shooting a contemptuous glance toward Andy's hideous shoes, but the subtext is always, "You are no longer of use to me."

The emotional response Miranda can elicit with the otherwise innocuous sentence speaks to her power. She doesn't need to raise her voice or demonstrate her wit for her employees to bend the knee. Once she deploys a "That's all," whatever conversation just transpired is officially closed for any further discussion, and whomever she is finished speaking to is now dismissed for good. With this short, powerful phrase in her back pocket, Miranda always has the last word.

4 "This place, where so many would die to work, you only deign to work. And you want to know why she doesn't kiss you on the forehead and give you a gold star on your homework at the end of the day."

Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci)

Stanley Tucci as Nigel Kipling in 'The Devil Wears Prada'

Stanley Tucci is at his best in The Devil Wears Prada, and nowhere is that more apparent than in this line, which blends fatherly wisdom with unapologetic sass. When Andy complains to Nigel that Miranda chews her out for the smallest mistakes while refusing to acknowledge anything she does right, Nigel doesn't have the patience for her whining.

With this hefty dose of tough love, Nigel forces Andy to confront her sense of entitlement and rigidity. Andy takes his words to heart, and this moment serves as a turning point in her attitude toward her job. In this conversation, Nigel shows that, while he may share the biting tone of his coworkers, he legitimately wants to see Andy succeed.

3 "The Chanel boots? Yeah, I am."

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway)

Once it finally sinks in for Andy that a fashion victim will never succeed at a fashion magazine, she begrudgingly accepts Nigel's mentorship. With the resources of a veritable fashion museum at their disposal, Nigel turns Andy into a one-woman runway show that even her cattiest coworkers can't ignore. Cue the makeover montage to end all makeover montages.

By the time Emily notices Andy's new wardrobe, the clearance bin caterpillar has transformed into a designer-label butterfly. Not only is Andy modeling the items that Emily covets, including the Chanel boots, but Andy has now become savvy enough to rub Emily's jealousy in her face. An unspoken understanding passes between the two assistants at this moment: their hierarchy may not be as obvious as Emily initially believed.

2 "Everybody wants to be us."

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)

After spending most of the film trying to win her approval, this quote, in one of the closing scenes, indicates that Andy has finally earned Miranda's acceptance along with a harsh wake-up call. If the Prada-clad devil considers Andy to be her protégé, what does that say about Andy's character? The acknowledgment of the extent to which Andy has changed throughout the story is enough to inspire her first moment of defiance, as she chooses to walk away from Miranda and throw her instantly ringing phone into a fountain.

What makes the quote more remarkable is that it was changed by Meryl Streep on the fly. While the line was originally written as "Everybody wants to be me," Streep made the small but impactful change to "us," which indicates that Andy doesn't simply want to be like Miranda: she already is. To Miranda, granting this designation is the highest honor, but Andy recognizes this exchange as a stark reminder of how much integrity she has sacrificed to reach this very moment.

1 The Cerulean Monologue

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)

Oh, okay. I see. You think a list of quotes has nothing to do with great movie monologues. You watch a movie and pick out, I don't know, a quip, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you value brevity too much to care about world-building and character development. But what you don't know is that this monologue is not just about fashion; it's not about economics. It's actually about power.

Miranda's long diatribe against Andy is one of the most memorable moments in The Devil Wears Prada, and with good reason. This monologue represents the unseen influence of the fashion industry and Andy's first taste of its cutthroat world. It perfectly summarizes the film's main themes and challenges the audience to think beyond and stop treating the fashion industry as vapid or meaningless. And it's sort of comical that you think it's a choice that should be exempted from this list when, in fact, you're reading about a defining moment in cinema that was selected for you by a writer with too much time on her hands... from a pile of quotes.