Plays (with Trifles) quotes

HALE:

Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.

(The two women move a little closer together.)

MRS HALE:

Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in.

Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?

MRS HALE: Yes—good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—(shivers)

Like a raw wind that gets to the bone

, (pauses, her eye falling on the cage) I should think she would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?

MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters.

We live close together and we live far apart.

We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing, (brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain't.

I got up and drove her from my kitchen—and from that time till this I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (she has become almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper)

The ice that caught Jim—caught me.

(a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To MRS PATRICK simply) It's not the way. (a sudden change) You're not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

ALLIE MAYO: (slowly) When you keep still for twenty years you know—things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that. (she looks up at her, startled)

Don't bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow.

(The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet.)

ALLIE MAYO:

And life grows over buried life!

(lifted into that; then, as one who states a simple truth with feeling) It will. And Springs will come when you will want to know that it is Spring.

CLAIRE:

Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth?

(as HARRY returns) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you the truth—about doors being locked?

CLAIRE:

Humility's a real thing—not just a fine name for laziness.

HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy.

CLAIRE: (mildly)

You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. That's why you keep so busy.

ADELAIDE: Well—Claire's nerves are in a worse state than I had realized.

GRANDMOTHER:

Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio.

SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have wiped you out.

Fejevary came back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home everything he took—and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now they set more store by each other 'an ever.

Seems nothing draws men together like killing other men.

(a boy's voice teasingly imitating a cat) Madeline, make Ira let that cat be. (a whoop from the girl—a boy's whoop) (looking) There they go, off for the creek.

GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself.

Pity if a woman can't get out her own cookies.

SILAS: (seeing how hard it is for her) I wish mother would let us do things for her.

GRANDMOTHER:

Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is.

SILAS: (to FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to school—

FEJEVARY:

Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million years.

(After a moment's pause SILAS gets up, opens the closet door.)

MADELINE: (her smile flashing)

Wouldn't you hate to be the granddaughter of a phrase?

FEJEVARY: (trying to laugh it off) Madeline! How absurd.

SENATOR:

Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a world they ran.

FEJEVARY: (with a laugh) I'll just take a look up here, then we can go down the shorter way.

HOLDEN:

The only man who knows just what he thinks at the present moment is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the past ten years.

FEJEVARY: (with a soothing gesture) You and I needn't quarrel about it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to interpret you to a man like Lewis.

MADELINE: (she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out)

I'm twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that money Grandfather Morton left me?

FEJEVARY: What are you driving at?

MADELINE:

They're people from the other side of the world who came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say about ourselves.

Well, I'm going to pretend—just for fun—that the things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll—arrange so I can get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.

MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say about ourselves. Well,

I'm going to pretend—just for fun—that the things we say about ourselves are true.

So if you'll—arrange so I can get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.

MADELINE:

Well, is that any reason for not having it?

FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about the war—about America—when you consider where your brother is.

You're not what this place is for! (her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window—she holds it out) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College—a place where anybody—from any land—can come and say what he believes to be true!

Why, you poor simp—this is America!

Beat it from here! Atna! Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to—Oh, let me down there!

MADELINE:

Once in a while you have to say what you think—or hate yourself.

EMIL: (with a grin) Then hate yourself.

MADELINE:

I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have something to say about America.

EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.

MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe

I'd rather be a locked-up American than a free American.

EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much tennis played there. Jesus—what's Hindus?

MADELINE: (sadly, after a silence)

Father's like something touched by an early frost.

HOLDEN: Yes. (seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it) But do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening—'touched by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know—people of fine and daring mind.

HOLDEN:

You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait.

MADELINE: (unable to look at him, as if feeling shame) You have had a talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside for me to pass.

You must let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it would bring you to. I see that now. (as he passes her in the doorway his hand rests an instant on her bent head)

You're worth too much to break.

IRA: (turning away) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of talking? (In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold of it.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not—what your mother died for.

Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's college—then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (a little laugh) under the sod is my idea of no place to be.

I want to be a long time—where the wind blows.

AUNT ISABEL: (who is trying not to cry) I'm afraid it won't blow in prison, dear.

Aunt Isabel—her beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd—throw it to the winds. (moving nearer HOLDEN, hands out to him) Why do—(seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that great beauty lost)

Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up to this place—only to turn them against mind and heart?

HOLDEN: (unable to bear more) I think we—must go. (going to MADELINE, holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to her fullness of life) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck.