An Inspector Calls Flashcards
Mr Birling
“Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”
“Probably a socialist or some sort of crank”
“You’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up like bees in a beehive…”
“There’s every excuse for what your mother and I did”
“I’m talking as a hard-headed man of business”
Mrs Birling
“Girls of that class”
“I’m very sorry. But I think she only had herself to blame.”
“She was giving herself ridiculous airs… claiming elaborate fine feelings… that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.”
“Didn’t I say I couldn’t imagine a real police inspector talking to us like that?”
“You’re behaving like a hysterical child tonight”
Eric
“Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages?”
“It’s isn’t as if you can go and work somewhere else.”
“I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty”
“He was our police inspector all right”
“And I say the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her - and that’s what matters.”
Sheila
“Yes, go on, Mummy”
“These girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people.”
“And if I could help her now, I would.”
“I’ll never, never do it again to anybody…”
“It frightens me the way you talk.”
Gerald
“You couldn’t have done anything else”
“Gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help”
“She told me she’d been happier than she’d ever been before”
“Everything’s all right now Sheila. What about this ring?”
“That man wasn’t a police officer… I’m almost certain”
The Inspector
“We often do on the young ones. They’re more impressionable.”
“It’s better to ask for the Earth than to take it.”
“You think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?”
“She died in misery and agony, hating life…”
“We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire, and blood, and anguish. Good night.”
