“He was blaming her for being sick, and she kept repeating, 'I'm forty, do you hear? I'm forty and I've been through enough. I'm forty, it was too much.”

“Like that time I came home and Mum was sick, not letting me upstairs. Later on I heard Dad actually blaming her for being sick. That must have been the first time I felt queer.”

“I've got a lot of ideas about God. I pray about as much as anybody, even though i am tough , yet I'm not too sure I liked God. It seems to me that is he is what they say he is, he has a very funny way of showing it.”

“Before a man's forty, girls cost nothing. After that you have to pay money, or tell a story. Of the two, it's the story that hurts most. Anyway I'm not forty yet.”

“[Mr. Sullivan to Mrs Sullivan]"I'm a very popular man, plenty of friends, and I can move in any circle and I'm always a perfect gentleman. I'd have plenty of friends if it wasn't for you. And you talk about being humiliated by me. People think you are queer, that's what people think about you”

“[in reference to Mothers refusal to go to a party] "I'm past being humiliated by you in public, having to watch your drunken foolishness and everybody looking on”

“If you never bothered to to look or see anything much you wouldn't be worrying'"I'd have to be very dumb to be like that""Then be dumb, see nothing, hear nothing”