- Kapoor: I am most interested in justice but I am not in the habit of expecting it to be applied to me.
- Jimmy Porter: Anyone who doesn't like jazz has no real feeling for music, or people.
- Helena Charles: Rubbish.
- Alison Porter: [on bears and squirrels] Its sort of a silly symphony for people who can't bear the pain of being human any longer.
- Alison Porter: I suppose none of this could ever really have worked. I do love you, Jimmy, I shall never love anyone as I love you. But I can't go on. I can't take part in all this suffering, I can't.
- Jimmy Porter: It's no good fooling about with love, you know. You can't fall into it like a soft job without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. If you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice tidy soul, you better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint, because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world... or the next.
- Jimmy Porter: Ladies and gentlemen, a little recitation entitled "She was only a gravediggers daughter but she loved lying under the sod."
- Jimmy Porter: I'm sorry.
- Alison Porter: Get out.
- Jimmy Porter: You think I did it on purpose?
- Alison Porter: Clear out of my sight!
- Cliff Lewis: 14lbs of jelly babies, what do you want to get all them for?
- Jimmy Porter: Kids have got a craze on.
- Cliff Lewis: They better have.
- Jimmy Porter: You know, Mummy and I took a quick look at each other and from then on the age of chivalry was dead.
- Cliff Lewis: Don't brawl, boyo, it won't do any good.
- Jimmy Porter: Why not? It's the only thing I'm good at.
- Helena Charles: Never used to know whether he was joking or being serious.
- Cliff Lewis: He doesn't know himself half the time - if in doubt mark it down as an insult.
- Cliff Lewis: Don't think I'll stay much longer.
- Jimmy Porter: Why not?
- Cliff Lewis: I don't know, sweet store's alright but I'd like to try something else. You're highly educated, it suits you, but I need something a bit better.
- Jimmy Porter: I didn't know about the baby. I don't exactly relish the idea of pain and suffering but it wasn't my first loss you know.
- Alison Porter: It was mine.
- Alison Porter: I don't think I want anything more to do with love. Not any more, I can't take it on.
- Cliff Lewis: You're a brave girl.
- Alison Porter: I don't feel very brave Cliff, I really don't. I don't think I can take much more. I feel rather sick.
- Alison Porter: I keep looking back as far as I remember. I can't think what it was like to feel young, really young. Jimmy said the same thing to me the other day and I pretended not to be listening, because I thought it would hurt him, I suppose. But I knew just what he meant. Oh I suppose it would've been so easy to say "Oh yes darling, I know what you mean, I know how you're feeling." It's these easy things that seem to be so impossible with us.
- Doctor: What does your husband do, what's his profession?
- Alison Porter: He runs a sweet stall at the market.
- Doctor: I thought you said he's been to university.
- Mrs. Tanner: We had lots of fun, him and me. Being alive, just being alive. That's enough for an old girl like me. Chewing the cud and having a little of what you fancy.
- Jimmy Porter: Hardly a moment when I'm not watching, wanting you. Nearly 2 years in the same room as you and I still can't stop my sweat breaking out when I see you do something as ordinary as cooking or leaning over the ironing board. Trouble is... you get used to people, even their trivialities become indispensable to you.
- Helena Charles: Does he drink?
- Alison Porter: He's not an alcoholic, if that's what you mean.
- Helena Charles: Oh, that trumpet! It's almost as if he wanted to kill someone and me in particular. I've never seen such hatred in someone's eyes before, it's horrifying... and slightly exciting.
- Helena Charles: Tell me, why did you...?
- Alison Porter: Marry him? Oh there must be about six different answers. I met him at a party. He'd come there on his bicycle and there was oil on his jacket. It had been such a lovely day. Everything about him seemed to burn: his face, the edges of his hair glistened. His eyes were so blue and full of sun.
- Helena Charles: So you took him on.
- Alison Porter: There never seemed to be any choice.
- Helena Charles: Did he love you?
- Alison Porter: A howl of outrage went up from my family.
- Helena Charles: Well, you can see their point.
- Alison Porter: And that made up his mind, he had to marry me.
- Helena Charles: I think you're a very tiresome young man.
- Jimmy Porter: Oh dear, oh dear, my wife's friends. Pass Lady Bracknell the cucumber sandwiches.
- Jimmy Porter: I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American age, apart from if you're an American of course.
- Jimmy Porter: Shall I tell you the truth about her? She is a cow. I wouldn't mind that so much only she's in great danger of becoming a sacred cow as well.
- Jimmy Porter: Well, what's the matter with you?
- Helena Charles: I just feel quite sick, that's all. Sick with contempt and loathing.
- Jimmy Porter: You just sit there and do nothing.
- Cliff Lewis: That's right, I just sit here.
- Jimmy Porter: What sort of a man are you?
- Cliff Lewis: I'm not the District Commissioner, you know.
- Cliff Lewis: I love those two people very much and I pity all of us.
- Helena Charles: I don't understand you or him or any of it.
- Alison Porter: You know what he said about mummy, he said she was an overfed, overprivileged old cow.
- Colonel Redfern: I see, and what did he say about me?
- Alison Porter: He doesn't seem to mind you, in fact I think he rather likes you. Poor old daddy, just one of those sturdy plants left over from the Edwardian era wondering why the sun doesn't shine any more.
- Colonel Redfern: Why did you have to meet this young man?
- Alison Porter: Oh daddy, please don't put me on trial now. I've been on trial every day and night for the past two years.
- Colonel Redfern: But why you, my daughter?
- Helena Charles: You're hurt because everything's changed and Jimmy's hurt because everything's stayed the same. Something's gone wrong somewhere, hasn't it?
- Helena Charles: If you'd stop thinking about yourself for just one moment, I'll tell you something I think you ought to know. You wife is going to have a baby!
- [pause]
- Helena Charles: Well? Doesn't that mean anything? Even to you?
- Jimmy Porter: [pause] If you'd permit me to interrupt your... female wisdom, there's something perhaps you ought to know. I don't care! I don't care if she's going to have a baby. I don't care if it has 2 heads!
- [pause]
- Jimmy Porter: Well, do I disgust you? Go on, slap my face! I just came back from seeing somebody I love very much go through the sordid process of dying. And you expect me to be overcome with awe because some stupid, cruel girl is going to have a BABY?
- [pause]
- Jimmy Porter: Now the performance is over. Now leave me alone - and get out, you evil-minded little virgin!
- [Helena slaps Jimmy]
- Helena Charles: How was it?
- Jimmy Porter: It was a funeral. No flowers, no word, no sign...
- Helena Charles: What do you mean?
- Jimmy Porter: I mean Alison... The injustice of it is about perfect: the wrong people going hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying.
- Jimmy Porter: [singing] Don't be afraid to sleep with your sweetheart, just because she's better than you.
- Cliff Lewis: It's not the same, is it?
- Jimmy Porter: Of course not, it's never the same you idiot. Today's meal is always different from yesterday's, the last woman is always different from the one before.
- Helena Charles: Sorry he's gone.
- Jimmy Porter: So am I. He's sloppy and irritating, but he's got a good heart. You can forgive someone almost anything for that.
- Helena Charles: I love you.
- Jimmy Porter: Perhaps you do. Perhaps it means something to have your General lie back in your arms though he's heartily sick of the whole campaign, tired, hungry and dry.
- Spectacled Man: Look if you don't want to watch the film, don't spoil it for those that do. If they don't like this country why the hell don't they get out?
- Jimmy Porter: What made you come to this bloody country anyway?
- Kapoor: I came because in India I was an outcast, an untouchable.
- Jimmy Porter: What do you say we get out of this place and start from scratch, what do you say?
- Helena Charles: I'd say that's wonderful.
- Jimmy Porter: Come on, we'll do that. We'll get pleasantly tiddly, then I'll take you home and make such love to you as you'll forget about anything at all.
- Helena Charles: Let's go and have a drink.
- Jimmy Porter: I know I'm a lost cause, but I thought if you loved me it didn't really matter.
- Alison Porter: It does matter. I was wrong. I don't want to be neutral, I want to be a lost cause. Don't you understand? It's gone, that helpless human being inside my body. I thought it was so safe and secure in there', but its gone. All I wanted was to die. I was in pain and all I could think about was you and what I'd lost.
- Jimmy Porter: You ever seen anybody die?
- Alison Porter: No, I haven't.
- Jimmy Porter: For 12 months, I watched my father die when I was ten years old. He'd come back from the war in Spain, you see. All my mother could think was that she was married to somebody who was on the... on the wrong side in all things. Perhaps she pitied him. I was the only one who cared. Hour upon hour... I sat in that little room. And he would talk, you know. Pour out all that was left of his life to a small, frightened boy who could barely understand half of what he said. All I could feel was the despair, and the bitterness, the sweet, sickly smell of a dying man. See, I learned at an early age what it is to be angry... Angry. Helpless.
- Jimmy Porter: [to Alison] Remember that time we first met? Grisly party. Didn't really notice me at all. I couldn't take my eyes off you all evening. You seemed to have such a wonderful relaxation of spirit. I knew that was what I wanted. Then after we were married, I realized it wasn't relaxation, after all. To relax you've got to sweat your guts out. You, you never had a hair out of place or a bead of sweat anywhere.
- Jimmy Porter: Nigel and Alison, they're what they sound like, sycophantic, phlegmatic and pusillanimous.
- Cliff Lewis: Big words.
- Jimmy Porter: Shall I tell you what they mean?
- Cliff Lewis: No not interested, don't want to know.
- Jimmy Porter: Soapy, stodgy and dim.
- Colonel Redfern: I think you take after me my dear, you like to sit on the fence. Its comfortable and more peaceful.
- Alison Porter: Sitting on the fence? I married him, didn't I?
- Jimmy Porter: Do you know brother Nigel?
- Cliff Lewis: No I don't.
- Jimmy Porter: You never heard so many well-bred commonplaces come from beneath the same bowler hat. The Platitude from Outer Space, that's brother Nigel.
- Jimmy Porter: I'm getting hungry.
- Cliff Lewis: You're a bloody pig. You're like a sex maniac, only with you it's food. You'll end up in the News of the World, you wait - James Porter, 25, was bound over last night after pleading guilty to interfering with a small cabbage and a tin of beans. The accused said he hadn't been feeling well for some time and had been having blackouts.
- Jimmy Porter: Look down your nose at her once more...
- Alison Porter: I just couldn't bear to be touched.
- Jimmy Porter: You made that perfectly plain.
- Mrs. Tanner: I'm just going to have a look at me husband's grave, make sure it's kept nice. You know, if you don't keep an eye on things people steal the flower boxes and grass grows all over the place. I wouldn't want him to think I was neglecting him.