BBC Play of the Month

Duke:
Beware, gentle knight. There is no greater monster than reason.

Don Quixote:
Happy the days and happy the centuries to which the ancients gave the name of "golden". Those who lived then did not know the meaning of those fateful words "thine" and "mine"... And it is only in these detestable, corrupted times that a knight-errant is needed...

Officer of the Holy Brotherhood:
We are releasing this troublemaker into your care, and you will be responsible for any further misdeeds that he may commit.

Village Priest:
But he's mad, poor fellow, not wicked. Half the rooms in his brain are vacant.

Sancho Panza:
I thought your name was Alonso Quixano.

Don Quixote:
I know who I am, and I know that I am perfectly capable of being whom I choose to be.

Dulcinea:
[to Don Quixote, after she has been brought to the Duke's castle] Forgive me - for doubting you.

Village Priest:
[disguised as the Knight of the White Moon, he has just defeated Don Quixote, who lies on the ground] Now get up, go home, and look after your estate, like a good Christian soul.

Don Quixote:
[desperate] Kill me!

Adrian Blenderbland:
She is the meanest person in England.

Epifania:
That is why I also am the richest.

Epifania:
He has never been married, I have. And I tell you in the very happiest marriages not a day passes without a thousand moments of unfaithfulness. You begin by thinking you have one husband. You find you have a dozen. There is the creature you hate and despise and are tied to for life and before breakfast is over the fool says something nice and becomes the man you admire and love. And between these extremes there are a thousand degrees with a different man and woman at each of them. A wife is all women to one man. She is everything that is devilish, the thorn in his side. The jealous termagant, the detective dogging all his movements, the nagger, the scolder, the worrier. He has only to tell her an affectionate lie and she becomes his comfort, his helper. At best his greatest treasure, at worst his troublesome but beloved child. All wives are all these women in one. All husbands, all these men in one. What do the unmarried know of this infinitely dangerous, heart-tearing life of adventure we call marriage.

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
[referring to Epifania] There is no Might and no Majesty save in Thee, oh Allah, but oh most great and glorious... is this another of Thy terrible jokes?

Epifania:
Are you married?

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
I am married to Science; one wife is enough for me... though by my religion I am allowed four.

Epifania:
Four! What do you mean?

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
I am what you call a Mohammedan.

Epifania:
Well, you have to be content with two wives if you marry me.

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
Is there any question of that between us?

Epifania:
Yes! I want to marry *you*.

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
Nothing doing, lady! Science is my bride!

Epifania:
You can have Science; I shan't be jealous of her.

Epifania:
Oh, bother Allah! What did you do with it? [referring to the 150 pounds she gave him]

Dr. Ahmed el Kabir:
Allah is never bothered.

Julius Sagamore:
Please, please keep your temper.

Adrian Blenderbland:
Keep your own temper! Has she lamed YOU for life? Has she raised a bump on YOUR head? Has she called YOU a skunk?

Julius Sagamore:
No, but she may at any moment.

Epifania:
No man can resist a ten-pound note if you crackle it under his nose.

Epifania:
[Julius Sagamore has just given her a prescription for poison so that she can commit suicide] You seem tro take my death rather cooly, Mr. Sagamore.

Julius Sagamore:
I'm used to it.

Epifania:
You mean to say you have so many clients driven to despair that you keep a precription for them?

Julius Sagamore:
I do. It's infallible.

Epifania:
And you're sure they've all died painlessly and instantaneously?

Julius Sagamore:
No, they're all alive.

Epifania:
Alive! The prescription's a harmless fraud!

Julius Sagamore:
No, it's a deadly poison but they don't take it.

Epifania:
Why?

Julius Sagamore:
I don't know, but they never do.

Julius Sagamore:
[to Adrian Blenderbland] Mr. Blenderbland, it's a mistake for anyone to go in to court in the character of a man who's been called "a skunk". It's also very difficult for a plaintiff to get sympathy in the character of man who's been thrashed by a woman. Now if Mrs. Fitz-Fassenden had stabbed you or shot you or poisoned you, that would have been quite in order; your dignity would not have been compromised.

Lord Henry Wotton:
Uncle George, I want to get something out of you.

Lord Fermor:
Money, I suppose.

Lord Henry Wotton:
No, no, no, it isn't money I want. You see, it's only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine.

Lord Fermor:
Is she pretty?

Lord Henry Wotton:
She behaves as if she were beautiful. All American women do; it's the secret of their charm.

Lord Fermor:
Why can't American women stay in their own country? They keep telling us it's a woman's paradise.

Lord Henry Wotton:
It appears to be. That is why, like Eve, they are so anxious to get out of it.