Inspector calls

Key quotes for this character

“I’m talking as a hard-headed practical man of business” 
‘you’ll hear some people say war is Inevitable … fiddlesticks!’  
‘The Titanic – she sails next week…and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.’  
“I gather there’s a very good chance of a knighthood”  
“A man has to make his own way – has to look after himself – and his family too, of course”  
“(rather impatiently) Horrid business. But I don’t understand why you should come here.”  
“you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense.” 
“I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m still on the Bench – so I know the Brumley police offers pretty well” 
“there’s every excuse for what your mother and I did”  
“Probably a Socialist or some sort of crank”  
“Now look at the pair of them- the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke-”

“About fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior” 
“girls of that class”  
‘you know, my husband was Lord Mayor only two years ago and that he’s still a magistrate’  
‘I’m very sorry. But I think she only had herself to blame’ 
 “I’ve done nothing wrong – and you know it.”  
“Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility.”  
“She was giving herself ridiculous airs…claiming elaborate fine feelings…that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.”   “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” 
“I’m sorry she should have come to such a horrible end. But I accept no blame at all”  
“he ought to be dealt with very severely-…make sure that he’s compelled to confess in public his responsibility” 
‘he certainly didn’t make me confess – I had done no more than my duty’

“A pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited” 
“Yes, go on, Mummy” 
“(rather distressed) I can’t help thinking about this girl- destroying herself so horribly- and I’ve been so happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn’t told me.” 
“But these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people.” “She was a very pretty girl…that didn’t make it any better.” 
“I went to the manager and told him this girl had been very impertinent – and – and - ” 
“And if I could help her now, I would-” 
“I’ll never, never do it again to anybody…I feel now I can never go there again” 
“Why- you fool- he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don’t know yet. You’ll see. You’ll see. 
“You mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do the Inspector will just break it down. And it’ll be all the worse when he does” 
“No, he’s giving us the rope- so that we’ll hang ourselves” 
Bitterly ”I suppose we’re all nice people now”  
“He inspected us all right.” 
“It frightens me the way you talk”

 “In his early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive” 
“Why shouldn’t they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices” 
“it isn’t as if you can go and work somewhere else.”  
“He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out. I call it tough luck.”  
“I’d have let her stay”  
“Well I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty- and I threatened to make a row” 
“And that’s when it happened. And I don’t even remember- that’s the hellish thing.” 
“I wasn’t in love with her or anything- but I liked her- she was pretty and a good sport-” 
“she didn’t want me to marry her. Said I didn’t love her- and all that. In a way, she treated me- as if I were a kid. Though I was nearly as old as she was.”
“You’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble- that’s why.” 
“Then- 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-” 
“He was our police inspector all right” 
“(shouting) And I say the girl’s dead and we all helped to kill her- and that’s what matters-”  

“An attractive chap about thirty, rather too manly to be a dandy but very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town” 
“Well, it came just at the right moment. That was clever of you, Gerald.” 
“You couldn’t have done anything else” (sacking Eva Smith) 
“After all, y’know, we’re respectable citizens and not criminals” 
(about Sheila): “She’s obviously had about as much as she can stand”  
“Why should you [stay]? It’s bound to be unpleasant and disturbing”  
“It’s a favourite haunt of women of the town”  
‘[Daisy] gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help”  
“I insisted on Daisy moving into these rooms and I made her take some money to keep her going there…I want you to understand that I didn’t install her there so I could make love to her…I was sorry for her…I didn’t ask for anything in return”

“She told me she’d been happier than she’d ever been before”  
“Nearly any man would have done” (adored being ‘fairy prince’) 
“That man wasn’t a police officer…I’m almost certain” 
“But how do you know it’s the same girl? ... We’ve no proof it was the same photograph and therefore no proof it was the same girl” 
“Everything’s all right now Sheila. What about this ring?
“She was young and pretty and warm-hearted- and intensely grateful. I became at once the most important person in her life- you understand?"

“Need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.” 
“He is a man in his fifties, dressed in a plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks carefully, weightily and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking” 
“Two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary. She’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course” 
“A chain of events” (may have driven her to suicide) 
“it’s better to ask for the Earth than to take it” 
“Goole. G. double O-L-E”  

“it would do us all a bit of good if sometimes we tried to put ourselves in the place of these young women counting their pennies in their dingy little back bedroom” 
(To Gerald) “And you think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?” 
“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-” 
“If there’s nothing else we have to share our guilt”
(the young ones) “Are the most impressionable” 
“Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges” 
“You’ve had children. You must have known what she was feeling. And you slammed the door in her face” 
“And be quiet for a moment and listen to me. I don’t need to know any more. Neither do you. This girl killed herself- and died a horrible death. But each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it. (He looks from one to the other of them carefully)But then I don’t think you ever will. Remember what you did” 

“Two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary. She’d been taken there this afternoon because she’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course” 
“Now – about this girl, Eva Smith. I remember her quite well now. She was a lively good-looking girl – country-bred, I fancy – and she’d been working in one of our shops for over a year. A good worker too."
“…and died, after several hours of agony…” 
“She was a very pretty girl…that didn’t make it any better.” 
“She was young and pretty and warm-hearted- and intensely grateful. I became at once the most important person in her life- you understand?” 
“She was giving herself ridiculous airs…claiming elaborate fine feelings…that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.”   “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” 
“I wasn’t in love with her or anything- but I liked her- she was pretty and a good sport-” 

“she didn’t want me to marry her. Said I didn’t love her- and all that. In a way, she treated me- as if I were a kid. Though I was nearly as old as she was.” 
“Just used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person.” 
“But remember this. One Eva Smith has gone- but 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, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do.”

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