- Martha: There's always been something wrong. Always, just as long as I can remember. But I never knew what it was until all this happened.
- Karen: Stop it Martha! Stop this crazy talk!
- Martha: You're afraid of hearing it, but I'm more afraid that you.
- Karen: I won't listen to you!
- Martha: No! You've got to know. I've got to tell you. I can't keep it to myself any longer. I'm guilty!
- Karen: You're guilty of nothing!
- Martha: I've been telling myself that since the night I heard the child say it. I lie in bed night after night praying that it isn't true. But I know about it now. It's there. I don't know how, I don't know why. But I did love you! I do love you! I resented your plans to marry. Maybe because I wanted you. Maybe I've wanted you all these years. I couldn't call it by name before, but maybe it's been there since I first knew you.
- Karen: But it's not the truth, not a word of it is true! We've never thought of each other that way.
- Martha: No, of course you didn't. But who's to say I didn't. I'd never felt that way about anybody before you. I've never loved a man. I never knew why before, maybe it's that.
- Karen: You're tired and worn out.
- Martha: It's funny. It's all mixed up. There's something in you, and you don't know anything about it because you don't know it's there. And then suddenly, one night a little girl gets bored and tells a lie, and there, for the first time, you see it. Then you say to yourself, did she see it? Did she sense it?
- Karen: But you know it could have been any lie. She was looking for anything to...
- Martha: But why this lie? She found the lie with the ounce of truth. Don't you see? I can't stand to have you touch me! I can't stand to have you look at me! Oh, it's all my fault. I have ruined your life and I have ruined my own. I swear I didn't know it! I didn't mean it! Oh, I feel so damn sick and dirty I can't stand it anymore!
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: Don't think you're fooling me young lady. Any day that he's in the house is a bad day.
- Martha: Now, look! Let's give it up. I'm tired. I've been working since six o'clock this morning.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: I know what I know. You can't stand them being together and you're taking out on me. Well, God knows what you'll do when they marry. Jealous. Jealous.
- Martha: Aunt Lily.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: You've always had a jealous, possessive nature even as a child. If you had a friend, you'd be upset if she liked anybody else. And that's what's happening now! And it's unnatural. It's just as unnatural as it can be.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: [about Mary] Oh, what happened? Did she fall?
- Karen: No, I was disciplining her.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: And you finally hit her?
- Dr. Joe Cardin: We can't go on like this. Everything I say is made to mean something else!
- Karen: I guess every word has a new meaning. Child, love, friend, woman. There aren't many safe words anymore. Even 'marriage' doesn't have the same meaning anymore.
- Dr. Joe Cardin: It does to me, and it should to you, if
- [he pauses]
- Karen: If what?
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: I don't believe this talk of jealousy between Miss Dobie and Miss Wright.
- Mary Tilford: But I didn't say she was jealous of Miss Wright. I said that Mrs. Mortar said that Miss Dobie was jealous of cousin Joe.
- Martha: Cooking always makes me feel better... Well, I suppose I'll have to feed the duchess, even vultures have to eat. I baked a cake. And you know what, I found a bottle of wine. We'll have a good dinner. Where's Joe?
- Karen: Gone.
- Martha: Patient? Will he be back in time for dinner?
- Karen: No.
- Martha: Then we'll wait dinner for him... What's the matter, Karen?
- Karen: He won't be back anymore.
- Martha: You mean he won't be back anymore, tonight.
- Karen: He won't be back at all.
- Martha: You need clothes.
- Karen: What about you?
- Martha: I'm a skirt-and-blouse character. We're always in style. But you're not. You're Fifth Avenue! Rue de la Paix. You need to be kept up.
- Karen: Yes, like an old battle monument.
- Martha: No, I'm serious. I remember how you used to dress in college. The first time I ever saw you, running across the quadrangle, your hair flying. At the time, I was running from a chemistry professor. I remember thinking, "What a pretty girl."
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: You look nice and healthy.
- Mary Tilford: Healthy? The way they make you slave around here, I'm lucky I don't have gray hair and rickets!
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: It's all for your own good.
- Mary Tilford: Everything I hate always is.
- Dr. Joe Cardin: Go ahead and sing. A woman who sings while she works is a happy woman.
- Martha: Who said that?
- Dr. Joe Cardin: Joseph Cardin, M.D. You ever hear of him?
- Martha: No. Ethical doctors don't advertise.
- Dr. Joe Cardin: Ethical doctors starve.
- Martha: I'll give you what little money we have now.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: You think I'd take your money? Oh, I'd rather scrub floors first.
- Martha: You'll change your mind after the first floor.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: I've worked my fingers to the bone for both of you. Yes, to the bone, to the very bone!
- Mary Tilford: They don't like to have us near them. They've got secrets or something.
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: There's nothing wrong with people having secrets.
- Mary Tilford: But these were funny secrets.
- Mary Tilford: One time, Miss Dobie was in her room late. It's right near ours. And Miss Wright goes in there almost every night - and stays late. That's why they want to get rid of us - of me, I mean. Because we hear things. That's why they're making us move our rooms. I've heard other things too. Plenty of other things. Strange, funny noises. And we've seen things too.
- Mary Tilford: Honestly, Miss Dobie does get mean and cranky every time Cousin Joe comes and yesterday I heard her say to him, "Damn you."
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: You've picked up some very fine words, haven't you, Mary?
- Evelyn: Mortar said that Dobie was jealous and that she was like that when she was a little girl and she never wanted anybody to like Miss Wright and that was unnatural. Boy, did Dobie get sore at that.
- Mary Tilford: What did she mean by unnatural?
- Evelyn: Unnatural. "Un" for not. Not natural.
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: Dismissed after a year of backbreaking work. I sacrificed my youth for her; but, I'm sure you know all about that, and ingratitude, and the sting of the wasp.
- Mrs. Lily Mortar: Now that Karen's getting married, Martha's in a frenzy of bad temper and she's taking it out on me. Friendship between women, yes. Nobody's had more friends than I. But not this insane devotion.
- Martha: It's not true! It's just not true. Not one single word of it! We're standing here defending ourselves against what? Against nothing! Against a lie - a great, awful lie.
- Mrs. Amelia Tilford: It was wrong of you to brazen it out here tonight. It would be criminally foolish for you to brazen it out in public.
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