- Lt. Bernhard Landborg: There's not much you can do alone except die.
- Angela von Pahlen: I don't like riddles.
- Lt. Bernhard Landborg: And I don't like cold reason. *Feel* for God's sake. Feel!
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: These corridors are like prison. The women are let out, but for us it's a life sentence.
- Sam, doctor: Fresh air. Freedom! We're tied to them with a umbilical cord.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: It's not easy to cut it.
- Sam, doctor: You're dependent on women?
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: Good Lord, no! But the cord can be used to feed our vanity and strangle our independence.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: Beware of women, Sam.
- Sam, doctor: They serve one purpose anyway.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: 30 seconds of heaven, 30 years of hell.
- Petra von Pahlen: There's mother love for you. I caper about for days on end to get the brat out. But I expect he's too snug where he is. He needs a smack on the bottom.
- Petra von Pahlen: [singing] Where is my wandering child tonight, The child that I long have sought, Who made me once so glad and bright, whom I still love, I thought...
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: Like a lot of broody hens - and you must be everything to them. Even friend, though that's asking a bit much.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: I'd spank you if it'd do you any good or give me any pleasure.
- Agda Frideborg: Be kind to me.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: I shall march you straight off to bed where you belong.
- Adele Holmström - née Silfverstjerna: I want you to know the truth, but perhaps you don't want to hear it. You're not the first. I knew it. It's the only thing you men care about - being the first.
- Angela von Pahlen: The world's not up to much.
- Petra von Pahlen: It never will be.
- Angela von Pahlen: I see I'll have to change you first. You're so sad.
- Petra von Pahlen: No, I'm quite content in a melancholy kind of way.
- Adele Holmström - née Silfverstjerna: Wait till *you're* married. You can't trust anyone.
- Angela von Pahlen: I'll only trust myself.
- Angela von Pahlen: Women always say love's all that matters. It isn't, is it, Petra? I refuse to talk of love. I refuse to think of love. One can't afford to be unhappy.
- Olaf Landborg: A charming speech, my dear. But it's for me to make it, not you.
- Mrs. Landborg: If I waited till you got going, I'd have dried up like an old fig years ago.
- The fat man: Here's to our common interest.
- Olaf Landborg: With war threatening, the market is good.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: In my line there's never a slump - a popular investment.
- The fat man: It's no joking matter.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: If you can't joke about sex you're in danger of taking women seriously.
- Olaf Landborg: Never do that. Has everyone got champagne?
- Mrs. Sally Lewin: Anything but war!
- The fat man: You want our soldiers to sit at home lapping cream like castrated tomcats.
- Mrs. Landborg: The three things I need most as an artist: my model, my mother and this old hag.
- Angela von Pahlen: Shh!
- Mrs. Landborg: She can't hear. My model gives me inspiration. My mother gives me complexes. And I flirt with the hag for self-torment.
- [kisses his mother, turns back to Angela]
- Mrs. Landborg: She gives me money.
- Angela von Pahlen: You're immoral.
- Mrs. Landborg: You flatter me.
- Angela von Pahlen: Stanny, don't let her treat you that way. One must fight to become a real person.
- Stanny, Bernhard's sister: I'm not strong enough.
- Angela von Pahlen: Everyone is.
- Olaf Landborg: I love all women. Even you little Angela. Though you're not yet a woman yet.
- [looks down at her chest]
- Olaf Landborg: Or are you?
- Angela von Pahlen: No, not yet.
- Petra von Pahlen: [watching Stellan prancing about] He's a bit touched.
- Angela von Pahlen: Perhaps all men are. Men, what are they anyway. I've quite forgotten.
- Stellan von Pahlen: All women want to be goddesses. The minute they're only women they die of boredom.
- Agda Frideborg: Knock before visiting a lady.
- Stellan von Pahlen: A lady?
- [starts spanking Agda]
- Agda Frideborg: Ooo! You treat me like...
- Stellan von Pahlen: Like what? Like what? You can't treat women like humans.
- Agda Frideborg: I'm not a human. I'm a servant.
- Stellan von Pahlen: Tonight I'm a wizard and I've come to turn you into a goddess.
- Agda Frideborg: I want to be myself.
- Thomas Meller: You women can scare the life out of us. You're bent on giving us everything. Sooner or later we must hurt you. Right inside, you know it. Perhaps you even want it.
- Stellan von Pahlen: You, surely, have many other things to make you happy.
- Mrs. Landborg: There's nothing like stimulus - it makes even one's most depraved wishes seem innocent. One forgets convention, one forgets one's age. Would you like to see me intoxicated?
- Stellan von Pahlen: I am already.
- Mrs. Landborg: It's not the champagne, it's youth.
- Mrs. Landborg: You do look solemn. Idealist, no doubt, who still believe in right and wrong. Things are not black or white. Mix them and you get a dismal grey which is more realistic.
- Lt. Bernhard Landborg: Enforced intimacy doesn't improve people.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: Do you know anything that does?
- Lt. Bernhard Landborg: Time is short. One must treasure it and when I see how people waste it, I think of the girl who longed for love but didn't dare.
- Angela von Pahlen: Women are like that.
- Lt. Bernhard Landborg: No, but girls are. Women are braver.
- Petra von Pahlen: How are you, Jacob? You never say unless I ask.
- Dr. Jacob Lewin: Macson ignores my friendship with his wife and borrows money from me. Very civilized. I'm a seducer and he's an upper class pimp.
- Angela von Pahlen: We women mustn't be selfish. We fight to stand on our own feet then a man comes and ruins it all.
- Olaf Landborg: What are you giggling at?
- Agda Frideborg: [removes her thumb from her mouth] I don't know.
- Olaf Landborg: Come. Are you going to be nice to me?
- Agda Frideborg: How?
- Olaf Landborg: Midsummer's only once a year. Must celebrate it.
- Agda Frideborg: Of all the cheek!
- Olaf Landborg: You like it. Take your dress off.
- Stellan von Pahlen: I once went to a fancy-dress ball as a flower girl. I rushed into the shop to buy some flowers and the first thing I saw was Agda's breasts - and you know how I love fruit.
- Mrs. Landborg: I like mixtures. Champagne alone is so boring; but, add a dash of brandy and what do you get?
- Stellan von Pahlen: Me.
- Mrs. Landborg: I must taste first before I can give an opinion.