A Doll's House quotes

‘Is that my skylark twittering out there?’…

…‘Is that my squirrel rustling’ - Torvald

‘No debts! Never borrow! A home that is founded on debts and borrowing…

…can never be a place of freedom and beauty’ - Torvald

‘You’ll spend it all on…

…useless things for the house’ - Torvald

‘The squanderbird’s a pretty little creature but she gets through an awful lot of money…

…It’s incredible what an expensive pet she is for a man to keep’ - Torvald

‘If only you knew how many expenses…

…we larks and squirrels have, Torvald’ - Nora

‘You’ve got a little paler though Christine…

… And perhaps a bit thinner’ - Nora

‘Well I mean it’s lovely to have heaps of money…

… and not to have to worry about anything. Don’t you think’ - Nora

Yes. Well, we had the money, you see…

…and the doctors said we mustn’t delay. So we went the month after papa died’ - Nora

‘No Nora. Just unspeakably empty…

…No one to live for anymore’ - Christine

‘You’re a…

… child Nora’ - Christine

‘Well a wife can’t borrow money…

…without her husband’s consent’ - Christine

‘He’s so proud of being a man…it’d completely wreck our relationship…

… This life we have built together would no longer exist’ - Nora

‘It was almost like…

…being a man’ - Nora

‘I can play all day with the children, I can fill the house with pretty things…

…just the way Torvald likes’ - Nora

‘He’s crippled all right;…

…morally twisted’ - Dr Rank

‘(hiding the bag of macaroons)…

…Ssh! Ssh! - Nora

‘We’re so…

… cramped here’ - Nora

‘The children answer her inaudibly…

… as she talks to them’ - stage directions

‘This secret that…

… is my pride and joy’ - Nora

‘It was I who wrote…

… Pappa’s name there’ - Nora

‘Hasn’t a daughter the right to shield her father…

… from worry and anxiety when he’s old and dying’ - Nora

‘Do as you please but i will tell you this, if i get thrown into the gutter for a second time…

… I shall take you with me’ - Krogstad

‘I’ll do everything that you like Torvald…

…I’ll sing for you, dance for you’ - Nora

‘Because an atmosphere of lies contaminates and poisons every corner of the home. Every breath that the children draw in such a house…

… contains the germs of evil’ ‘Nearly all young criminals are the children of mothers who are constitutional liars’ - Torvald

‘Morally speaking he is dead’ ‘I literally feel physically ill…

… in the presence of a man like that’ - Torvald

‘It’s nonsense. It must be…

…It’s impossible. It must be impossible’ - Nora

‘Oh I wish I could tear them…

… into a million pieces’ - Nora

‘His father was a frightful creature who kept mistresses and so on…

… As a result Dr Rank has been sickly ever since he was a child’ - Nora

‘I’ve got to get out of this other business…

…I’ve got to get out of it’ - Nora

‘Squirrel would do lots of pretty tricks for you if you granted her wish’

‘I’d turn myself into a fairy and dance for you in the moonlight Torvald’ - Nora

‘Your father was not a man of unassailable reputation…

…But I am’ - Torvald

‘If the rumour got about that the new vice-president had allowed…

…his wife to persuade him to change his mind’ - Torvald

‘I hear he’s quite efficient at his job…we’re on Christian name terms…

…And that tactless idiot makes no attempt to conceal it when other people are present… I find it damned annoying’ - Torvald

‘All this to atone for someone else’s sin?…

…Is there justice in that’ - Dr Rank

‘That was really…

…horrid of you’ - Nora

‘You can’t do anything for me now. Anyway…

…I don’t need any help. It was only my imagination’ - Nora

‘She walks across and…

…bolts the door of Helmer’s study’ - stage directions

‘It’ll be Nils Krogstad who’ll be running that bank…

…not Torvald Helmer’ - Krogstad

‘A pampered…

… little pretty’ - Krogstad

‘And remember it’s your husband who has forced me to act like this…

…And for that I’ll never forgive him’ - Krogstad

‘If I should go out of my mind -…

…and it might easily happen’ - Nora

‘You must testify that it isn’t true…

…I did it entirely on my own. Remember that’ - Nora

‘Nora dances more and more wildly. Helmer has stationed himself by the stove and tries repeatedly to correct her…

…but she seems not to hear him. Her hair works loose and falls over her shoulders’ - stage directions

‘Rank, stop it. This is sheer lunacy. Stop it, I say!’

‘You’ve forgotten everything I taught you’ - Torvald

‘My child shall…

… have her way’ - Torvald

‘Put out some macaroons…

…Lots of macaroons’ - Nora

‘Twenty-four and seven?..

…Thirty one hours to live.’ - Nora

‘We couldn’t meet at my place;…

…my room has no separate entrance’ - Christine

‘I had a helpless mother to take care of, and two little brothers'…

…We couldn’t wait for you Nils. It would’ve been so long before you’d have had enough to support us.’ - Christine

‘I’ve learned to look at things practically…

…Life and poverty have taught me that’ - Christine

‘I feel so dreadfully lost and empty. There’s no joy in working for oneself…

…Oh Nils, give me something - someone - to work for’ - Christine

‘I took my beautiful little Capri signorina -…

…my precious little Capricienne’ - Torvald

‘Now my little songbird’s talking just like a real big human being’

‘My most treasured possession’ - Torvald

‘I pretend to myself that you’re my secret mistress…

…my clandestine sweetheart’ - Torvald

‘Leave me Torvald! Get away from me!…

…I don’t want all this’ - Nora

Scientific experiment! Those are big words for my little Nora to use!’ - Torvald

Revealing his true colours & patronising her out of frustration over her dropping her own facade & trying to free herself from his control.

‘His suffering and loneliness seemed to provide a kind of…

…dark background to the happy sunlight of our marriage’ - Torvald

‘Often I wish some terrible danger might threaten you…

…so that I could offer my life & blood, everything, for your sake’- Torvald

‘Wretched woman! What have you done?’

‘A hypocrite, a liar…a criminal!…

…Oh the hideousness of it! Shame on you, shame!’ - Torvald

‘You have destroyed my happiness…ruined my whole future…I am condemned to humiliation and ruin simply for the weakness of a woman’

‘You whom I have carried on my hands throughout all the years of our marriage!’ - Torvald

‘This thing must be…

…hushed up at any price’ - Torvald

‘I am saved! Nora I am saved!’

‘I shall merely regard the whole business as a dream’ - Torvald

‘I would not be stir man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes’

‘I have forgiven you Nora’ - Torvald

‘My frightened little songbird…I have broad wings to shield you’

‘I shall watch over you like a hunted dove which I have snatched unharmed from the claws of the falcon’

‘My poor, helpless, bewildered little creature’ - Torvald

‘You don’t understand what goes on in a husband’s heart. There is something so indescribably wonderful & satisfying for a husband in knowing he has forgiven his wife…

…she has become his property in a double sense…she is now not only his wife but also his child’ - Torvald

‘Yes Torvald…

…I’ve changed’ - Nora

‘No, don’t…

…interrupt me’ - Nora

‘You have never loved me. You just though it was fun to be in love with me’

‘He called me his little doll, and he played with me just the way I played with my dolls’

‘Our home has never been anything but a playroom. I’ve been your doll wife, just as I used to be papa’s doll child’ - Nora

‘That’s why…

…I’m leaving you’ - Nora

‘Can you neglect your most sacred duties’

‘First and foremost you are a wife and mother’ - Torvald

‘My duty…

…towards myself’ - Nora

‘You’re talking like a child. You don’t understand how society works’

‘Nora, you’re ill. You’re feverish. I almost believe you’re out of your mind’ - Torvald

‘But no man can be expected…

…to sacrifice his honour’ - Torvald

‘You weren’t frightened of what might threaten me, but only of what threatened you…your doll whom henceforth you would take particular care to protect from the world…

… because she was so weak and fragile…I realised that for 8 years I had been living with a complete stranger’ - Nora

‘The street door is…

… slammed shut downstairs’ - stage directions