"The lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives, then it should be brighter and harder." - Stage directions

"I am talking as a hard-headed, practical man of business" - Mr. Birling

"Lady Croft - while she doesn't object to my girl - feels you might have done better for yourself socially" - Mr. Birling

"And I've always been regarded as a sound, useful party man. So-well-I gather there's a very good chance of a knighthood." - Mr. Birling

"Everyone has to look after everyone else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense" - Mr. Birling

"She'd swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course" - Inspector

"But these girls aren't cheap labour - they're people." - Sheila

"A nice little promising life there, I thought, and a nasty mess somebody's made of it" - Inspector

"How could I know what would happen afterwards? If she'd been some miserable plain little creature, I don't suppose I'd have done it." - Sheila

"And you think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?" - Inspector

"A girl died tonight. A pretty, lively sort of girl, who never did anybody any harm. But she died in misery and agony-hating life" - Inspector

"I'm to blame - and I'm desperately sorry - but I can't believe - I won't believe - it's simply my fault that in the end she - committed suicide" - Sheila

"I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class-" - Mrs Birling

"I suppose it was inevitable. She was young and pretty and warm-hearted - and intensely grateful." - Gerald

"You killed her. She came to you to protect me - and you turned her away - yes, and you killed her - and the child she'd have had too - my child - your own grandchild - you killed them both - damn you, damn you." - Eric

"Just used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, not a person. No, you won't forget." - Inspector

"There are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes, and fears, their suffering, and chance of happiness." - Inspector

"You're beginning to pretend now that nothing's really happened at all. And I can't see it like that. This girl's still dead, isn't she?" - Eric