The Inspector Calls Quotes

Question 1

Mr Birling

Answer 1

“Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”
“You’d think everybody had to look after everybody, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense”
“If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth”
“(Pointing at Eric and Sheila) Now look at the pair of them - the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke

The telephone rings sharply”

Question 2

Mrs Birling

Answer 2

“(Staggered) It isn’t true”
“Unlike the other three, I did nothing I’m ashamed of […] you have no power to make me change my mind”
“She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl of that position”
“As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money”

Question 3

Inspector

Answer 3

“She was alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate. She needed not only money, but advice, sympathy, friendliness. You’ve had children. You must have know what’s she was feeling. And you slammed the door in her face”

“We don’t live alone, we are all member of one body, we are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men don’t learn that lesson, then they will be taught in for and blood and anguish”

Question 4

Sheila

Answer 4

“(Taking out the ring) Oh - it’s wonderful! Look - mummy - isn’t it a beauty”
“But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people”
“I felt rotten about it at the time and now I feel a lot worse. Did it make much difference to her?”
“Fire and bloody and anguish”

Question 5

Eric

Answer 5

“Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for best possible prices”
“[Bursting out] You’re beginning to pretend as if nothing tells really happened at all. And I can’t see it like that. The girls still dead. Isn’t she?
“You killed her - and the child she’d have had too - my child - your own grandchild […] you don’t understand anything. You never did”

Question 6

Gerald

Answer 6

“My god!… I’ve suddenly realised - taken it all in properly - that she’s dead”
“I didn’t install her there so that I could make love to her. I made her go to Morgan Terrace because I felt sorry for her”
“Everything’s alright now Sheila. [Holds up the ring] What about the ring?” Sheila: “No not yet. It’s too soon. I just think”