An Inspector Calls - Essential Quotations (Acts 1 & 2)

mummy and daddy

At the start of the play, Sheila speaks 'gaily, possessively' , 'half serious and half playful' and 'with mock aggressiveness'. She addresses her parents as _________ _____ _________.

nasty temper

Eric (on Sheila): She's got a _________ __________ sometimes - but she's not bad really.

tough luck

Eric: He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out. I call it ________ ________.

gallant

Gerald (on the break-up with Daisy): She was very ________ about it... ...She told me she'd been happier than she'd ever been before - but that she knew it couldn't last.

respectable citizens

Gerald: Getting a bit heavy-handed, aren't you, Inspector? After all, y'know, we're _________ __________ and not criminals.

soft brown hair and big dark eyes

Gerald: I hate those hard-eyed dough-faced women. But then I noticed a girl who looked quite different. She was very pretty - _______ ________ _______ and ____ ______ _______.

Buckingham Palace

Gerald: I met her first in the stalls bar at the Palace. I mean the Palace music hall here in Brumley - Sheila: Well, we didn't think you meant _______________ ___________.

most important

Gerald: I suppose it was inevitable. She was young and pretty and warm-hearted - and intensely grateful. I became at once the _______ ____________ person in her life.

women of the town

Gerald: I went down into the bar for a drink. It's a favourite haunt of ________ ______ ______ ________.

suicide business

Gerald: I'm sorry, Sheila. But it was all over and done with last summer. I don't come into this __________ ________.

long, exciting and tiring

Gerald: Inspector, I think Miss Birling ought to be excused any more of this questioning. She's nothing more to tell you. She's had a _______, ___________ ____ _________ day...

young and fresh and charming

Gerald: She was ________ ____ _________ ____ __________ and altogether out of place down there.

Old Joe Meggarty

Gerald: _____ ______ ___________, half-drunk and goggle-eyed, had wedged her into a corner with that obscene fat carcass of his...

living on the moon

Inspector (sharply, to Birling): Your daughter isn't _________ ____ _____ _______. She's here in Brumley too.

unpleasant and disturbing things

Inspector (to Gerald): You think young women ought to be protected against __________ ______ __________ ________?

stammer and yammer

Inspector (to Mr Birling) Don't ______________ ______ ____________ at me again man!

confession of responsibility

Inspector (to Mrs Birling): Make an example of the young man, eh? Public ____________ ______ __________ - um?

chain of events

Inspector: ... what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A _________ ____ _________.

dingy little back bedrooms

Inspector: ...it would do us all a bit of good if sometimes we tried to put ourselves in the place of these young women counting their pennies in their ________ _________ ______ ___________.

burnt-out inside on a slab

Inspector: Her position now is that she lies with a ________-_____ ________ ___ __ ______.

guilt

Inspector: If there's nothing else, we'll have to share our ________.

ask for the earth

Inspector: It's better to ______ ______ ______ ________ than to take it.

ask questions

Inspector: It's my duty to ______ ______________.

line of enquiry

Inspector: It's the way I like to go to work. One person and one ________ ___ ________ at a time...

Daisy Renton

Inspector: Now she had to try something else. So first she changed her name to ____________ ______________.

responsibilities

Inspector: Public men, Mr Birling, have ________________ as well as privileges.

slammed the door in her face

Inspector: She was here alone, friendless, almost penniless, desperate. She needed not only money but advice, sympathy, friendliness. You've had children. You must have known what she was feeling. And you __________ _____ _______ ____ _____ _______.

strong disinfectant

Inspector: She'd swallowed a lot of ________ ___________. Burnt her insides out, of course.

nasty mess

Inspector: That's more or less what I was thinking tonight when I was in the Infirmary looking at what was left of Eva Smith. A nice little promising life there, I thought, and a ________ _______ somebody's made of it.

son-in-law

Mr Birling (to Gerald): You're just the kind of ______-____-_____ I always wanted.

Horrid business

Mr Birling (to the Inspector): Yes, yes. __________ _____________.

lower costs and higher prices

Mr Birling: ...perhaps we may look forward to a time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together - for _________ _________ _____ __________ ________.

unsinkable

Mr Birling: ...the Titanic - she sails next week.... New York in five days - and every luxury - and ______________, absolutely _____________.

bees in a hive

Mr Birling: ...you'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like ________ ______ ______ ________. Community and all that nonsense.

himself

Mr Birling: A man has to make his own way - has to look after ____________...

responsibility

Mr Birling: I can't accept any ________________.

Honours List

Mr Birling: I might find my way on to the next __________ ______________. Just a knighthood, of course.

hard-headed

Mr Birling: I'm talking as a ______-___________, practical man of business.

wretched girl

Mr Birling: Obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the _________ ________'s suicide. Eh, Inspector?

had to go

Mr Birling: She'd had a lot to say - far too much - so she _______ ___ ________.

defending

Mr Birling: Sheila, I'm not ____________ him, but you must understand that a lot of young men...

war

Mr Birling: The Germans don't want ______. Nobody wants ______.... The world's developing so fast that it'll make ______ impossible.

rapid progress

Mr Birling: There'll be peace and prosperity and ________ ___________ everywhere...

keep changing

Mr Birling: Well, we've several hundred young women there, y'know, and they _______ ___________.

fiddlesticks

Mr Birling: You'll hear some people say that war's inevitable. And to that, I say ___________.

drink far too much

Mrs Birling (talking about Eric): He's only a boy. Inspector: No, he's a young man - and some young men ________ ______ ________ ________.

hysterical child

Mrs Birling (to Sheila, severely): You're behaving like an _______ _____ tonight.

girl of that sort

Mrs Birling: As if a ________ ______ ________ ________ would ever refuse money.

ashamed

Mrs Birling: I did nothing I'm ______________ of or that won't bear investigation.

class

Mrs Birling: I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that ________...

father

Mrs Birling: I'll tell you what I told her. Go and look for the ____________ of the child. It's his responsibility.

elaborate fine feelings and scruples

Mrs Birling: She was giving herself ridiculous airs. She was claiming ___________ ______ ___________ ____ ___________ that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.

silly word

Sheila (after 'a short, hysterical laugh'): I don't know. Perhaps it's because impertinent is such a _______ _______.

hang ourselves

Sheila (rather wildly, with a laugh) He's giving us the rope - so that we'll ______ __________.

selfish vindictive creature

Sheila (to Gerald): You've made your mind up I must obviously be a ______ ________ __________.

kind of wall

Sheila (to her mother): You mustn't try to build up a ______ ___ _______ between us and that girl. If you do, the Inspector will just break it down.

fairy prince

Sheila (with sharp sarcasm): You were the wonderful _________ __________. You must have adored it, Gerald.

cheap labour

Sheila: But these girls aren't ________ ________ - they're people.

hysterical

Sheila: He means that I'm getting ______________ now.

impertinent

Sheila: I was absolutely furious. I went to the manager and told him that this girl had been very ____________.

miserable plain little creature

Sheila: If she'd been some _________ __________ ______ ______, I don't suppose I'd have done it. But she was very pretty and looked as if she could take care of herself. I couldn't be sorry for her.

the same people

Sheila: In fact, in some odd way, I rather respect you more than I've ever done before... but this has made a difference. You and I aren't _____ ________ _________ who sat down to dinner here.

Mother

Sheila: Of course, __________. It was obvious from the start. Go on, Gerald. Don't mind ___________.

brighter and harder

The lighting on the stage starts off 'pink and intimate' but, when the Inspector arrives, it becomes ____________ _____ ___________.