- Ada: Most o' my boys just want company... a bit o' cheerin' up. I'm like a mother to 'em! Only they can't fuck their mothers so they come 'ere.
- [On her husband's dying]
- Lady Fermleigh: It was really a breach of manners. He's never done it before.
- Reverend Fortescue: Deborah, do you know what is meant by "fallen women"?
- Deborah Fitzbanks: Women who have hurt their knees.
- Reverend Fortescue: Vicki...
- Violet: Violet.
- Reverend Fortescue: Er, Violet. Would you and Ruby...
- Rosie: Rosie.
- Reverend Fortescue: Rosie. Go and clean upstairs, and get some help from the three girls in my bed.
- Reverend Fortescue: Isabel?
- Lady Isabel Ames: Charles! What are you doing here?
- Reverend Fortescue: I've come to stop you.
- Lady Isabel Ames: How dare you? How dare you interfere with my plans?
- Reverend Fortescue: You mustn't kill him.
- Lady Isabel Ames: Why not? What business is it of yours, interfering priest?
- Reverend Fortescue: You could hang for it.
- Lady Isabel Ames: No one's going to hang. It's a simple shooting accident.
- Reverend Fortescue: Isabel, this is England in 1906. People don't go around killing each other just because they don't get on!
- Lady Isabel Ames: No, they just endure don't they? Stiff upper lip, that's the British way. I'm sure it wasn't like that in Africa.
- Reverend Fortescue: Africa's primitive!
- Lady Isabel Ames: Oh, yes. God save us from being primitive.
- Reverend Fortescue: There's not so much wrong with the British way, for your class especially.
- Lady Isabel Ames: My class? This is not my class, Charles.
- Reverend Fortescue: You know what I mean.
- Lady Isabel Ames: You don't know what *I* mean.
- [Adopts a changed accent and demeanor]
- Lady Isabel Ames: You alone, sir? Want some company? Clean and cheap?
- [She returns to normal, Fortescue is speechless]
- Lady Isabel Ames: Yes. I've disguised it well, haven't I? I had to. The honest tart never gets anywhere. No, they're not my bloody class, thank God!
- [Attempting to talk her out of a dangerous plan]
- Reverend Fortescue: Isabel, I...
- Lady Isabel Ames: Please, don't. I don't want to be understood.
- [pauses]
- Lady Isabel Ames: Not now.
- Reverend Fortescue: What are you going to do? What are you going to gain from this?
- [Isabel begins to say something, tearfully sighs, and walks out the door]
- [Isabel has been injured]
- Reverend Fortescue: I'm sorry. Dear, God, I'm so sorry.
- Lady Isabel Ames: You were only trying to do the decent thing.
- [Fortescue begins to drape his coat around her]
- Lady Isabel Ames: No, don't Charles.
- [He continues anyway]
- Lady Isabel Ames: That's the trouble with you. You're far too decent.
- Lady Isabel Ames: I got it all wrong, didn't I?
- Reverend Fortescue: What do you mean?
- Lady Isabel Ames: I tried to convert the missionary.
- The Bishop: I tried to teach the rudiments of rugby football. But it wasn't really their sort of thing. They hang on to the ball for too long. Weeks, sometimes.
- Lord Ames: I once had a chap before me who'd been caught stealing from the mess. I ordered every alternate fingernail to be removed, and you know, I still get a card from him every Christmas.
- Lord Ames: You see, what I think is wrong with the country today is that there aren't enough people chained up.
- Deborah Fitzbanks: Everyone was asking after you. They're all terribly excited about the wedding.
- Reverend Fortescue: Wedding?
- Deborah Fitzbanks: OUR wedding!
- Reverend Fortescue: Oh, yes... Yes.
- Reverend Fortescue: I shall be looking after women... Women who are in... moral trouble.
- Deborah Fitzbanks: Liars?
- Reverend Fortescue: I'm going to remain a missionary.
- Deborah Fitzbanks: But I thought...
- Reverend Fortescue: A missionary IN ENGLAND!
- Deborah Fitzbanks: But everyone's ENGLISH in England.
- Reverend Fortescue: The locals had never seen a bicycle before. They used to call me "The Man on the Starving Horse."
- [about Slatterthwaite]
- Lord Ames: He really is the most disastrous butler. Can't we get rid of him?
- Lady Isabel Ames: Of course we can't. He's been here for 25 years.
- Lord Ames: I don't know why we ever got rid of Marcheson.
- Lady Isabel Ames: You know perfectly well why we got rid of Marcheson.
- Lord Ames: That was only a bit of harmless fun.
- Lady Isabel Ames: Not for the parents.
- Lady Isabel Ames: Fetch the coaches, will you?
- Corbett: Oh, I love it when you give me orders.
- Lady Isabel Ames: [annoyed] NOW!