Heartbreak House quotes

Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war.

When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded.

In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens we were warned against many evils which have since come to pass; but of the evil of being slaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps there was no shadow.

Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost.

But when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance. For four years she smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt never dreamed.

… of an addition to the body of scientific knowledge, they operated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale, clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the bodies of their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, nor parliament dare ever have claimed.

The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution compared to the General Medical Council.

Heartbreak House was far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that cruelty was at least effective.

these veterans also, when they returned from the field, were as much pleased by what they knew to be stale and foolish as the novices by what they thought fresh and clever.

Wellington said that an army moves on its belly. So does a London theatre.

Before a man acts he must eat. Before he performs plays he must pay rent. In London we have no theatres for the welfare of the people: they are all for the sole purpose of producing the utmost obtainable rent for the proprietor.

… war of our time a war for an idea, the conquerors, confronted with a heroic task of reconstruction, turned recreant, and spent fifteen years in abusing their victory under cover of pretending to accomplish the task they were doing what they could to make impossible.

Alas! Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.

With what anguish of mind the President sees that we, the new conquerors, forgetting everything we professed to fight for, are sitting down with watering mouths to a good square meal of ten years revenge upon and humiliation of our prostrate foe, can only be …

As for myself, why, it may be asked, did I not write two plays about the war instead of two pamphlets on it? The answer is significant.

You cannot make war on war and on your neighbor at the same time.

War cannot bear the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares on the stage.

It has been a very unpleasant surprise to me to find that nobody expects me.

You’ll get used to it, miss: this house is full of surprises for them that don’t know our ways.

Looking in from the hall suddenly: an ancient but still hardy man with an immense white beard, in a reefer jacket with a whistle hanging from his neck. Nurse, there is a holdall and a handbag on the front steps for everybody to fall over.

I am not glad.

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

My daughter Ariadne was born when I was forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes, I am not at home. If she wants anything, let her take it.

Yes, pettikins, I do.

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

Staring at her thoughtfully. There’s something odd about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don’t know why I’m talking to you so calmly.

Staring at her thoughtfully. There’s something odd about this house, Hesione, and even about you. I don’t know why I’m talking to you so calmly.

I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like what I thought it must be.

Fondling her. It’s only life educating you, pettikins. How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?

Fondling her.

It’s only life educating you, pettikins.

How do you feel about Boss Mangan now?

Sententiously. How little it tells us, after all!

The great question is, not who we are, but what we are.

Taken aback. What am I?

No. Give me deeper darkness.

Money is not made in the light.

Well, I thought you were rather particular about people’s characters.

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

A child like you talking of “we women”! What next! You’re not in earnest?

it’s a mercy I wasn’t—and then you think I was only asleep. If you’d let me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have been flattened for life against the floor. But I’ve found you all out, anyhow.

I know the sort of people I’m among now.

I’ve heard every word you’ve said, you and your precious father, and to Mrs. Hushabye you too. So I’m an object, am I? I’m a thing, am I? I’m a fool that hasn’t sense enough to feed myself properly, am I?

Coming forward to the sofa. I should let him have it, my dear.

The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have your own way.

She won’t get them, Mr. Mangan. Providence always has the last word.

I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won’t have him there. Do you expect servants to keep company with thieves and all sorts?

Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same flesh and blood.

I’ll have no boatswain on my quarterdeck. Off with you both.

In a strangely calm voice, staring into an imaginary distance. His heart is breaking: that is all. The Captain appears at the pantry door, listening.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonishment of the rest. How dare you?

Raising her with grim tenderness.

If you had no heart how could you want to have it broken, child?

Rising with a bound. Lady Utterword, you are not to be trusted. You have made a scene. He runs out into the garden through the starboard door.

Never looking up.

One rock is as good as another to be wrecked on.

I am not in love with him.

Why do women always want other women’s husbands?

Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is broken-in to one that is wild?

With a short laugh. I suppose so. What a vile world it is!

I didn’t say prudent. I said look ahead.

It’s prudent to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. But don’t forget that your soul sticks to you if you stick to it; but the world has a way of slipping through your fingers.

Wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander restlessly about the room. I’m sorry, Captain Shotover; but it’s no use talking like that to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think you can have a soul without money.

but it’s no use talking like that to me. Old-fashioned people are no use to me. 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.

Is it? How much does your soul eat?

Now I have found you out. You pretend to be busy, and think of fine things to say, and run in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get away before they can answer you.

It confuses me to be answered. It discourages me.

I cannot bear men and women. I have to run away. I must run away now. He tries to.

Yielding. Take care: I am in my dotage.

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

They sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affectionately against him with her head on his shoulder and her eyes half closed.

Dreamily. I should have thought nothing else mattered to old men. They can’t be very interested in what is going to happen to themselves.

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

When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer.

You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked for hardship, danger, horror, and death, that I might feel the life in me more intensely.

I did not let the fear of death govern my life; and my reward was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

Sitting up impatiently. But what can I do? I am not a sea captain: I can’t stand on bridges in typhoons, or go slaughtering seals and whales in Greenland’s icy mountains. They won’t let women be captains. Do you want me to be a stewardess?

Later still you will sleep even in the morning; and you will awake tired, tired of life. You will never be free from dozing and dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum.

I drink now to keep sober; but the dreams are conquering: rum is not what it was: I have had ten glasses since you came; and it might be so much water.

Go get me another: Guinness knows where it is. You had better see for yourself the horror of an old man drinking.

Gripping the hand. It seems so; for I feel now as if there was nothing I could not do, because I want nothing.

That’s the only real strength. That’s genius. That’s better than rum.

Throwing away his hand. Rum! Why did you spoil it?

Yes. And Lady Utterword told me she never made scenes. Well, don’t waste your jealousy on my moustache.

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long run.

Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-the-world pose, which you carry so well in other respects.

Gravely, coming to him.

My friend, the Shotover sisters have two strange powers over men. They can make them love; and they can make them cry.

Thank your stars that you are not married to one of them.

It is long past ten. See that he goes to bed at once, Hector. She goes into the garden.

Is there any slavery on earth viler than this slavery of men to women?

Rising resolutely. I’ll not speak to her tomorrow. I’ll not speak to her for another week. I’ll give her such a lesson. I’ll go straight to bed without bidding her good night. He makes for the door leading to the hall.

What a lovely night! It seems made for us.

The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night?

He sits down moodily in the deck chair.

I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride really well because I didn’t begin as a child.

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.

It isn’t mere convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who don’t are the wrong ones.

Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission.

What more have any of us but travelling expenses for our life’s journey?

But you have factories and capital and things?

Contemptuously. I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into parliament or pushing his way into the Government. We’ve not come to that yet, thank God! What do you say, Mrs. Hushabye?

Oh, I say it matters very little which of you governs the country so long as we govern you.

We? Who is we, pray?

We? Who is we, pray?

The devil’s granddaughters, dear. The lovely women.

Raising his hands as before. Fall, I say, and deliver us from the lures of Satan!

it’s human nature. But it’s not human nature to tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens your mouth I go like this he cowers as if to avoid a missile, afraid of what will come next.

How are we to have any self-respect if we don’t keep it up that we’re better than we really are?

I quite sympathize with you, Mr. Mangan. I have been through it all; and I know by experience that men and women are delicate plants and must be cultivated under glass.

Her face lighting up.

Life with a blessing! that is what I want.

Now I know the real reason why I couldn’t marry Mr. Mangan: there would be no blessing on our marriage. There is a blessing on my broken heart. There is a blessing on your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your father’s spirit.

Isn’t he a fool, pettikins?

Fiercely. Do not scorn the man. We are all fools.

Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, comes from the house, on Lady Utterword’s side.

Musically.

Yes: this silly house, this strangely happy house, this agonizing house, this house without foundations. I shall call it Heartbreak House.

Stop, Ellie; or I shall howl like an animal.

I like him best when he is howling.

Silence! Mangan subsides into silence. I say, let the heart break in silence.

Do you accept that name for your house?

Do you accept that name for your house?

It is not my house: it is only my kennel.

We have been too long here. We do not live in this house: we haunt it.

We have been too long here.

We do not live in this house: we haunt it.

Heart torn. It is dreadful to think how you have been here all these years while I have gone round the world. I escaped young; but it has drawn me back. It wants to break my heart too. But it shan’t.