Rossetti/Ibsen Quotes

She sucked and sucked and sucked some more.

She sucked until her lips were sore (Goblin Market)

Hug me, kiss me,

suck my juices (Goblin Market)

Nora: Be nice Dr Rank and tomorrow you shall see

how beautifully I shall dance and you can imagine I am doing it all for you

Nora: Your squirrel will run about and

do all her tricks

No John: Here’s friendship for you if

you like; but love? No thank you John

Winter: I cannot ope

to everyone who taps

Louise: Turning my garden plot

to barren mire

Helmer: You have still got the Tarantella

in the blood I see

Rank: Nora do you think he’s

the only one?

Nora: You know how devotedly, how

inexpressibly deeply Torvald loves me

Helmer: I make believe to myself

that we are secretly in love

Years afterward

when both were wives (Goblin Market)

Goblin Market: Cheek to cheek, breast to breast

locked together in one nest

Helmer: But can’t we live

like brother and sister?

Nora: I simply transferred from

Papa’s hands to yours

Maude Clare: I’ll love him till he loves me best

me best of all Maude Clare

Helmer: Has my little spendthrift

been wasting money again?

Helmer: I should not be a man if this womanly

helplessness did not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes

Twice: All that I have I bring,

all that I am I give

Shut Out: The door was shut

a shadowless spirit kept the gate

Helmer: Almost everyone who has gone to the bad

early in life had a deceitful mother

Rank: He suffers from a

diseased moral character

Song: When I am dead my dearest

sing no sad songs for me

Rank: Probably within a month

I shall lie rotting in the churchyard

Krogstad: Down into the cold

coal black water

Nora: Twenty four and seven?

Thirty one hours to live

Remember: Better by far that you should forget and smile

than that you should remember and be sad

Nora: I do not exactly know

what religion is

Shut Out: The spirit was silent but he took

mortar and stone to build a wall

Nora: These malicious creatures wrote in the paper

about Papa and how horribly they slandered him

Krogstad: My one false step,

lost me all my reputation

Uphill: Yea, beds

for all who come

Mrs Linde: The worst of a position like mine

is that it makes one so bitter

Krogstad: I am prepared to fight for my small post

in the bank as if I were fighting for my life

Krogstad: I want to rehabilitate

myself, Mrs Helmer

Round Tower: The swarming, howling

wretches below

No John: I daresay Meg or Moll

would take pity on you if you asked

Helmer: No man would sacrifice his honour

for the one he loves

Helmer: I shall not allow you

to bring up the children

Helmer: What a horrible awakening!

A hypocrite! A liar!

Antique: I wish and wish

I were a man

Antique: Doubly blank in

a woman’s lot

Nora: You and Papa have committed

a great sin against me

Nora: It is your fault I

have made nothing of my life

Nora: I must try

to educate myself

Nora: It was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and

earning money…it was like being a man

Maude Clare: The day we waded ankle-deep

for lilies in the beck

Winter: I tell my secret?

No indeed, not I

Goblin Market: She thought of Jeanie in her grave

who should have been a bride

Louise: I have desired

and I have been desired

Helmer: You do not love

me anymore?

Antique: Were nothing at all in all the world,

not a body and not a soul

\
\
Antique: Still the world would wag on the same

…none would miss me in all the world

\
\
Echo: Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

whose wakening should have been in paradise

Echo: Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

\
pulse for pulse, breath for breath

Round Tower: I wish I could bear the pang

for both

Twice: A woman’s words are weak,

you should speak, not I

Twice: I took my heart in my hand

(O my love, O my love)

Helmer: there can be no freedom or beauty about a home life

that depends on borrowing and debt

Mrs Linde: I had to turn my hand

to anything I could find

Mrs Linde: I only feel my life

unspeakably empty

Mrs Linde: I have no father to give me

money for a journey, Nora

Mrs Linde: You know so little of the

burdens and troubles of life

Nora: They all think that I am incapable

of anything really serious

Nora: How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald

and his manly independence, to know that he owed anything

Nora: When Torvald is no longer as devoted to me as he is now…

then it may be a good thing to have something in reserve

Krogstad: Every way seemed to be closed to me…

I must try and win back as much respect as I can in the town

Nora: To think of his learning my secret,

which has been my joy and my pride in such an ugly, clumsy way

Rank: And what other nice things

am I to be allowed to see

Krogstad: Obvious to all the world, a heartless woman

jilts a man when a more lucrative chance turns up?

Mrs Linde: Nils, how would it be if we two

shipwrecked people could join forces?

Mrs Linde: I want to be a mother to someone, and your two need a mother.

We two need each other

Mrs Linde: Helmer must know…

this unhappy secret must be disclosed

Helmer: I watched the seductive figures of the Tarantella

my blood was on fire

Helmer: Someone has been at the lock

Here is a broken hairpin, Nora. It is one of yours

Helmer: Something ugly has come between us…

the thought of the horrors of death

Helmer: No religion, no morality

no sense of duty

Helmer: Now you have destroyed

all my happiness

Helmer: I must sink to such miserable

depths because of a thoughtless woman

Helmer: You have loved me as a wife

ought to love her husband

Helmer: I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness

did not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes

Helmer: Here I will protect you like a hunted dove

that I have saved from a hawk’s claws

Helmer: So indescribably sweet and satisfying to a man in the knowledge

he has forgiven his wife…forgiven her freely and with all his heart

Nora: You don’t understand me and I

have never understood you either

Nora: You mustn’t interrupt me…

Torvald this is a settling of accounts

Nora: Papa…told me his opinion about everything…

and if I differed from him I concealed the fact

Nora: I have been living here

like a poor woman

Nora: You and Papa have committed

a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life

Helmer: This is how you would neglect

your most sacred duties

Helmer: Before all else you are

a wife and mother

Nora: I do not exactly know

what religion is

Nora: He told us that religion

was this and that…I will see…if it is true for me

Helmer: No man would sacrifice

his honour for the one he loves