Heartbreak House

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Shall I turn up the light for you? No, give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light.

Captain Shotover: How much does your soul eat? Ellie: Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with.

The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.

People don't have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.

Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money. They think the less money you have, the more soul you have. Young people nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing to keep: much more so than a motor car.

If we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all.

One turns the cheek: the other kisses it. One provides the cash: the other spends it.

HECTOR Well, I don't mean to be drowned like a rat in a trap. I still have the will to live. What am I to do? CAPT. SHOTOVER Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as an Englishman. HECTOR And what may my business as an Englishman be, pray? CAPT. SHOTOVER Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be damned.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household.

Lady Utterword: What a lovely night! It seems made for us. Hector: The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night?

It's a dangerous thing to be married right up to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all day, like a damned soul in hell.

Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of Dying

If she comes, I’m not at home. If she wants anything, let her take it. If she asks for me, let her be informed that I am exceedingly old and I have totally forgotten her.

It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to be accepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fully in my next volume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to the subject. For