The Pallisers

Alice Vavasor:
Lady Glencora, gentlemen, has the gift of laughter, which has always been hated by the poor in spirit and loved by the gods.

Phineas Finn:
Mr. Chaffenbrass, there's one special thing I want you to do for me. I do not desire merely to be found not guilty; I wish you to make men believe I am innocent of this crime.

Mr. Chaffanbrass:
Well, I trust we may succeed in making twelve men believe it.

Phineas Finn:
I don't give a straw for the twelve men. It's the world I wish you to convince.

Mr. Chaffanbrass:
That's a long order. I shall think the world may last if we only win the jury.

Phineas Finn:
My wife will be worth nothing to me unless the people, THE PEOPLE, Mr. Chaffenbrass, that I am innocent.

Mr. Chaffanbrass:
Don't worry about the people, Mr. Finn. I assure you that they ain't worth it. You and I, we must settle for the jury... if we can.

Violet Effingham:
Well, a young woman has to take care of herself.

Lord Chiltern:
She may and a man may do that, and any man worth calling a man is not made like the angels nor should any woman worth his care pretend that she is either, and that goes for you, Violet.

Duke of Omnium:
[Referring to his advanced years] There's no cures for Anno Dominis except to forget oneself in pleasure.

Madame Max Goesler:
[to Finn] It is very easy for a man to be a lord if his father is one before him, but for a man to make himself a lord or as good as one, now that I call very much indeed.

Lizzie:
You can't lay in bed all day!

Rev. Emilius:
Why not? It's Sunday, isn't it?

Lizzie:
Exactly! Your day for activity I should have thought.

Rev. Emilius:
[Turning over, suggestively] What sort of activity do you advocate?

Dolly Longstaffe:
Heaven, this place is dreary on Sundays! I do believe I'd be joyer at church.

Mr. Monk:
Then why not give it a go?

Dolly Longstaffe:
For the same reason that you don't, Monk. That I can't get up any interest in it.

Plantagenet:
Well, Cora, will it please you to be a duchess?

Glencora:
If it please you, it please me.

Glencora:
[to Madame Max] Well, when two women understand each other as thoroughly as we do, it can meither be love or contempt. We've chosen a better way.

Duke of Omnium:
[Feeling death approaching] It's nearly finished. Marie, the thing is done now... I hope for nothing, but I fear for nothing either. [He has a brief spasm, and passes on]

Marie Goesler:
Duke... My Lord Duke... [She walks back to the foot of the bed and bows to him] You hope for nothing and you fear for nothing, but, Duke of Omnium, no man should dare to live idly as you have done.

Plantagenet:
I hate cold anger.

Glencora:
[to Plantagenet] I do not love you as women do when they love their husband.

The Duke of Omnium:
There's a very funny smell here. It's time I got my nose to bear on it.

John Vavasor:
[to Alice] If you marry your cousin George, you will risk your health along with your bank balance.

The Duke of St. Bungay:
[Referring to Glencora] A young woman with a fortune such as hers needs a restraining hand.

Lizzie Eustace:
I've got a great deal to offer you... money and other things... I have a great deal to offer all around.

Frank Greystock:
[Smiling] Mmmm... and that is just how you offer it - all around.

Lord George:
Lizzie, whatever the end of this affair... you've led us all such a dance as the Devil himself can't keep up with. 'No! 'My dear corsair' or no. I'm not having you aboard my pay. [Leaving] You're too hot a cargo!

Glencora:
What's the point of being alive if you don't enjoy yourself?

Plantagenet:
Well, sometimes, Cora, my work is my enjoyment.

Glencora:
Then I wish to God you'd look as if you enjoyed it.

Glencora:
You'd clean Mr. Gresham's shoes if service to the country required it.

Plantagenet:
I would even have you clean Mr. Gresham's shoes if the service of the country required it.

Plantagenet:
Mr. Finn, I fear you're not yourself.

Phineas Finn:
Or ever shall be again.

Plantagenet:
[Referring to Glencora] She was human. She was fallible... like us all. My wife did not go away with her lover, and you did not murder Mr. Bonteen. You see, even with those whom we love, we trust the most, there's always the element of doubt.

Phineas Finn:
It's very hard to bear.

Plantagenet:
It must be bourn! We doubt and we doubt it, Finn, but it must be bourn, and the world must be faced... with dignity, and you, sir, you must show yourself - and soon - as the man you are.

The Duke of Omnium:
It's getting chilly. Summer evenings aren't as warm as they used to be.

Gerard Maule:
[after telling Maule that she has rejected Fawn's marriage proposal] He's desperate for a wife. Other men ain't!

Adelaide Palliser:
Gerald Maule, you're so smug I could hit you.

Gerard Maule:
I wouldn't try it, Missy. You might get as good as you get.

Adelaide Palliser:
You ain't a gentleman, that's what!

Gerard Maule:
You just discovered that?

Adelaide Palliser:
You've no need to look so pleased with yourself.

Gerard Maule:
Oh, but I'm not. On the contrary Miss Palliser, I am so conscious of my defects I can never presume to offer myself as a husband, least of all to a decent girl like you.

Adelaide Palliser:
But that's just it. When I'm with you, I don't care a bit for being decent. I feel positively indecent, and I like it! Now do you understand?

Gerard Maule:
[laughs] Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. Whatever shall we do with this? Whatever shall we do with you?

Dolly Longstaffe:
[Referrin to Bondeen] The Prince cut him dead in there - dead as catfish!

Mr. Monk:
[Noticing that Lord Fawn has replaced them as an invited guest in Glencora's boudoir] The Duchess seems to have rather a full program this evening.

Barrington Erle:
She's a sight too fond of sticking her fork in other people's dinner.

Mr. Bonteen:
If we leave it up to the Irish themselves, Lady Glen, nothing will be done in 10,000 years.

Lord Brentford:
[Talking about Kennedy's fortune] Of course, it comes back to her if he dies first, but madmen never do die. They have nothing to trouble them forever.

Barrington Erle:
Quite frankly, Lady Glen, Finn ain't been showing the right kind of form just lately. Well, it ain't just the right kind of form to get yourself talked about... as a married woman's lover.

Glencora:
[laughs] Don't be such an old woman, Barrington. I don't see why he should be cast aside just because of that. [In a stage whisper] It happens every day!

Lizzie Eustace:
...anyway, I don't want money. I want diamonds.

Mrs. Carbuncle:
Better to have the money than neither, my dear. Money may not look as nice as diamonds, but it might come in handy one day... or perhaps you could use it to buy other diamonds later on. If you have money, you see, you can have anything you want.

Lizzie Eustace:
But you will be true... You will take care of me in my ordeal?

Lord George:
I dare say, the Devil will if I don't.

Mrs. Hittaway:
[Condescendingly to Fawn] You may be deficient in charm, Frederick, but it is wonderful what sheer persistence will do.

Lady Fawn:
[Hearing that Clara wants to play matchmaker for her brother] Don't you think, Clara, that Frederick might like to decide that for himself?

Mrs. Hittaway:
[shouting because her mother is hard of hearing] If we leave it to Frederick, he will either marry a disaster or die an old maid.

Alice Vavasor:
I learned one must give one's heart its freedom while you still can.

Collingwood:
[Referring to Lady Monk] You know that Burgo Fitzgerald is the apple of her eye.

The Duke of St. Bungay:
Yes, and rotten to the core.

Glencora:
[to Plantagenant about the Duke] Better he die of drink than a tantrum... so much more dignified.

Lizzie Eustace:
How much do you think they are worth, these diamonds that were given to me for love?

Lizzie Eustace:
[to Frank] You might as well marry a towel rack!

Marie Finn:
To tell you the truth, Glencora, I don't think you will ever be able to make the duke believe in anything. Whatever he believes, he believes out of very old habit or the workings of his own mind.

Glencora:
I mean to show them they've got more than a Prime Minister to rule them. They have the Duke of Omnium.

Marie Finn:
Not to mention his Duchess.

Plantagenet:
[about horseracing] Oh, well, I know nothing about horses, Major Tifto, except that they have heads and tail.

Dolly Longstaffe:
I've been thinking...

Isabel Boncassen:
[Sarcastically] Good for you, Mr. Longstaff.

Silverbridge:
My father is much too old for his age.

Lady Mabel Grex:
And perhaps his son is a little too young.

Silverbridge:
What an accursed thing money can be!

Lady Mabel Grex:
You mean the lack of it, Lord Silverbridge!

Duke of St. Bungay:
Governments are made out of men, and men are made out of vanity.

Glencora:
[Angrily to Plantagenet] You're becoming so autocratic, I'll have to go into women's rights.

Glencora:
[Joking to Marie about a doctor] He's killed more lords and ladies than Robespierre.

Lady Mary:
[to her father] Why should you wish to make me unhappy for the rest of my life?

Glencora:
i read somewhere the other day that great ships always have little worms attached to them, but the great ships swim on, and there's nothing of the little worms.

Plantagenet:
And the worms conquer at the last.

Glencora:
They shall not conquer you.

Ferdinand Lopez:
You don't trust me a yard, do you, Walton?

Abel Wharton:
[Contemptuously] Not a millemeter!

Emily Lopez:
[to Lopez] My God! Reptile! You spit upon my father, and you'd dance on his grave if you could, but now that he's in some way saved you, all you can do is wriggle and spit your puny venom like a worm trying to imitate a snake. [He tries to put his hand on her cheek] Don't you touch me!

Glencora:
I have told you, Duke, if you should remain as Prime Minister, someone must smile at your supporters. If not you, then me.

Marie Finn:
I have always believed that a husband and wife should be a great deal apart. Love is easily staled, Phineas.

John Vavasor:
Swiss cooking is as dull as their doughy faces.