| Quote |
Character |
Act |
| “When you’re married you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You’ll have to get used to it, just as I had.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act One |
| “What an expression, Sheila. Really, the things you girls pick up these days.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act One |
| “Oh – its wonderful! Look – Mummy – isn’t it beauty?” |
Sheila Birling |
Act One |
| “I think Sheila and I had better go into the drawing-room and leave you men” |
Mrs Birling |
Act One |
| “Sheila is still admiring her ring” |
Stage Directions |
Act One |
| “You’d think a girl never had any clothes before she gets married. Women are potty about them.” |
Eric Birling |
Act One |
| “She’d had a lot to say – far too much – so she had to go.” |
Mr Birling |
Act One |
| “Nothing to do with you, Sheila. Run along.” |
Mr Birling |
Act One |
| “so you used the power you had, as a daughter of a good customer and also of a man well-known in the town, to punish the girl just because she made you feel like that?” |
Inspector Goole |
Act One |
| “And you think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?” |
Inspector Goole |
Act One |
| “Women of the town?” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Two |
| “I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women.” |
Gerald Croft |
Act Two |
| “She looked young and fresh and charming and altogether out of place down there.” |
Gerald Croft |
Act Two |
| “she only escaped with a torn blouse.” |
Sheila Croft |
Act Two |
| “gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help.” |
Gerald Croft |
Act Two |
| “I didn’t ask for anything in return." |
Gerald Croft |
Act Two |
| “She was a woman. She was lonely.” |
Inspector Goole |
Act Two |
| “But I think she has only herself to blame.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Two |
| “You’ve had children. You must have known what she was feeling. And you slammed the door in her face.” |
Inspector Goole |
Act Two |
| “She was giving herself ridiculous airs.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Two |
| “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Two |
| “Be quiet Sheila!... You’re behaving like an hysterical child tonight.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Two |
| “well, I was in that state where a man easily turns nasty.” |
Eric |
Act Three |
| “I wasn’t in love with her or anything – but I liked her – she was pretty and a good sport” |
Eric |
Act Three |
| “I hate these fat old tarts round the town” |
Eric |
Act Three |
| “She didn’t want to marry me [...] In a way, she treated me – as if I were a kid.” |
Eric |
Act Three |
| “Just used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person.” |
Inspector Goole |
Act Three |
| “Don’t be childish Sheila.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Three |
| “Now just be quiet so that you father can decide what we ought to do.” |
Mrs Birling |
Act Three |
