Key Quotes for An Inspector Calls Characters

'not quite at ease, half-shy, half-assertive' (stage directions)

'she's got a nasty temper sometimes, but she's not bad really' (early bickering with Sheila)

'why shouldn't they try for higher wages? We try for the highest prices'

'I was in that state where a chap easily turns nasty'

'I wasn't in love with her (...) she was pretty and a good sport'

'you're not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble'

(Inspector) 'you used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she were an animal, a thing, not a person'

'I say the girl's dead and we all helped to kill her'

'the money's not the important thing. It's what happened to the girl and what we did to her that matters'

'a rather cold woman and her husband's social superior' (stage directions)

'men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on business'

'he's only a boy' (when Eric's drinking problem is revealed, she also calls them 'children')

'We do not want to hear further details of the disgusting affair'

'he should be made an example of' ('publicly')

'I consider I did my duty' and 'I did nothing I am ashamed of'

'it was one of the things that prejudiced me against the case' 'I used my influence'

'as if girls of that sort would ever refuse money'

'she was claiming fine airs and scruples that were simply absurd for a girl in her position'

'he never even looked like one' (determined that she was right about the Inspector being fake)

'you're the kind of son in law I've always wanted'

'perhaps we can look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together - for lower costs and higher prices'

'hard-headed, practical man of business'

'a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own'

'community and all that nonsense'

'nothing to do with the wretched girl's suicide'

'most of this is bound to come out. There'll be a public scandal'

'who here will suffer more from this than I will?'

'by Jingo! A fake!'

'the famous young generation who know it all. And they can't even take a joke'

'mummy - isn't it a beauty?'

'oh, how horrible!' (response to the news of suicide) but also 'I've been so happy tonight. Oh I wish you hadn't told me' and 'I feel I can never go there again. Oh - why had this to happen?'

'these girls aren't cheap labour - they're people'

'I was in a furious temper'

'I'm not a child, don't forget'

'you and I aren't the same people that sat down to dinner here'

'we've no excuse now for putting on airs and if we've any sense we won't try'

'Eric's absolutely right. And that's the best thing any one of us has said tonight, and it makes me feel a bit less ashamed of us'

'if it didn't end tragically, then that's lucky for us. But it might have done.'

'well bred young man-about-town' (stage directions)

'I told you, I was awfully busy at the works all that time' (hint of a slight lie)

'I knew her. Let's leave it at that' reluctant to give the truth - he then attempts to send Sheila out

'I've just suddenly realised - taken it in properly - that she's dead'

'I want you to understand that I didn't install her there so that I could make love to her'

'she didn't blame me at all. I wish to God she had now. Perhaps I'd feel better about it'

(Inspector) 'he at least had some affection for her and made her happy for a time'

'everything's alright now, Sheila'

'need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness' (stage directions)

'after all it's better to ask for the earth than to take it'

'if it was left to me, I wouldn't know where to draw the line' (between respectable citizens and criminals)

'if there's nothing else, we'll have to share our guilt'

'public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as priviledges'

'she was here alone, friendles, almost penniless, desperate' 'she needed not only money but advice, sympathy, friendliness'

'her position not is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab'

'just used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, a thing'

(Gerald) 'he at least had some affection for her and made her happy for a time'

'there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us'

'we don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other'

'if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish'

(Birling) 'she'd had a lot to say - far too much'

(Inspector) 'these young women counting their pennies in their dingy little back bedrooms'

(Sheila) 'but she was very pretty and looked as if she could take care of herself'

(Gerald) 'she gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help'

(Mrs Birling) 'she had only herself to blame'

(Inspector) 'she was here alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate'

(Inspector) 'her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab'

(Eric) 'she was pretty and a good sport'

(Inspector) 'there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us' 

(Eric) 'the money's not the important thing. It's what happened to the girl and what we did to her that matters'