Inspector Calls Quotes

Mr Birling - description

“heavy looking, rather portentous man”

Mr Birling - capitalism

"a hard-headed practical man of business"
“my duty to keep labour costs down”
"for lower costs and higher prices"

Mr Birling - dramatic irony

"Titanic...absolutely unsinkable"
“The Germans don’t want war”

Mr Birling - hubris

"so long as we behave ourselves, don't get into the police court or start a scandal"
“so I refused of course”

Mr Birling - individualism

"a man has to make his own way - has to look after himself - and his family"
“a man has to make his own money”

Mr Birling - anti-socialism

"like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense"
"probably a socialist or some sort of crank"
“not only something to make em’ look prettier - but - well - a sort of sign or token about their self respect”

Mr Birling - arrogance/responsibility

"I can't accept any responsibility"
"the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can't even take a joke"
"[angrily to Eric] you're the one I blame for this"
"There's every excuse for what both your mother and I did"

Mr Birling - reputation

"when this comes out at the inquest, it isn't going to do us much good"
"Look, Inspector – I'd give thousands – yes, thousands – if it would stop you from saying anything."
"Most of this is bound to come out. There'll be a public scandal"

Mrs Birling - description

"cold woman"
"husband's social superior"

Mrs Birling - reputation/societal place

"[reproachfully] Arthur, you're not supposed to say such things"
"I used my influence"
"your father can decide what we ought to do"
“You’re a member of the Brumley Women’s Society, aren’t you?”
"I think Sheila and I had better go into the drawing-room and leave you men"

Mrs Birling - classism

"Girls of that class-"
"one of the things that prejudiced me against her case"
"As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!"
"simply absurd in a girl in her position"

Mrs Birling - arrogance/responsibility

"You're quite wrong to suppose I shall regret what I did"
"I accept no blame for it at all"
"Go and look for the father of the child. It's his responsibility"
“I’m very sorry, but I think she only had herself to blame.”

Mrs Birling - hubris

"he certainly didn't make me confess - I had done no more than my duty"

Eric Birling - description

"not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive"
“squiffy”

Eric Birling - being squiffy/drunk

"Suddenly I felt I just had to laugh"
"I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty - and I threatened to make a row"

Eric Birling - classist based discrimination (lack of + other classist behaviours)

"Why shouldn't they try for higher wages? We try for the highest possible prices"
"he could have kept her on instead of throwing her out"
"I wasn't in love with her or anything"

Eric Birling - anger/defiance

"You're not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble"
"You killed her...my child - your grandchild...damn you, damn you"

Eric Birling - responsibility

"we all helped to kill her"
“I do take some interest in it, I take too much, that’s my problem”
“it’s what happened to that girl and what we all did to her that matters”

Gerald Croft - description

"easy well-bred young man-about-town"

Gerald Croft - classism

"I think my father would agree to this"
"Everything’s alright now Sheila. What about this ring?" - still only cares about the ring and the title, can be used in multiple places
"I should say so!" - in response to Mr Birling’s capitalist views

Gerald Croft - reputation

"we're respectable citizens and not criminals"
"I was awfully busy at the works"

Gerald Croft - in relation to eva

"I became at once the most important person in her life-" - bold assumption much
"I suppose it was inevitable"
"I didn't feel about her as she'd felt about me"
"I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women"

Gerald Croft - in relation to The Inspector

"inspector" becomes "man" and "fellow" in act 3
"That man wasn't a police officer" when he loses respect for him
"we've no proof it was the same photograph" - logical

Sheila Birling - description

"pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited"

Sheila Birling - development of character

act 1 - "I'm sorry, Daddy"
act 2 - "I know I'm to blame - and I'm desperately sorry" + "I'm not a child, don't forget. I've a right to know"
act 3 - “you two don’t seem to have learnt anything” + "[flaring up] It's you two who are being childish - trying not to face the facts" + "[tensely] I want to get out of this. It frightens me the way you talk"

childish behaviour turns to introspection of herself and self blame, and then blame on her parents for not learning the same as her

Sheila Birling - prejudice (lack of, kinda)

“oh - how horrible!”
"I'll never, never do it again to anybody"
"If she'd been some miserable plain little creature, I don't suppose I'd have done it"

Sheila Birling - classism

"[slowly, carefully now] you mustn't try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl"
"But these girls aren't cheap labour - they're people"

The Inspector (Goole) - description

"creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness”
"speaks carefully, weightily"
"has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking"

The Inspector (Goole) - factual

"Two hours ago a young woman died in the infirmary...she'd swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out"
"Her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab"
"use her for the end of a stupid drunken evening, as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person"

The Inspector (Goole) - outside the class system

"[dryly] I don't play golf"
"Public men, Mr Birling, have their responsibilities as well as their privileges"

The Inspector (Goole) - socialist representation

“We don’t live alone”
“We are members of one body” - also said in bible
“We are all responsible for eachother”
"It's better to ask for the Earth than to take it"
"if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish" - reference to hell

The Inspector (Goole) - responsibility/accountability

"Each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it. [He looks from one to the other of them carefully.] But then again I don't think you ever will"
"there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives"
"And you used the power you had...to punish the girl" - act 2, towards Sheila

The Inspector (Goole) - omniscient to audience

“Yes, end of September, nineteen-ten”
how the lights change colour when he enters from the “pink and intimate” to “brighter and harder” when he enters