Mr Birling Key Quotes

• [ Arthur Birling is a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech ]
• [ explosively ]
• [ angrily ]
• [ sharply ]
• [ very sharply ]
• [ furious ]
• "It's one of the happiest nights of my life ... your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me"
• "We may look forward to a time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing, but are working together - for lower costs and higher prices"
• "Just because the miners came out on strike, there's a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble in the future. Don't worry"
• "We employers are coming together to see that our interests - and the interests of the Capital - are properly protected"
• "You'll hear some people say that war is inevitable. And to that I say - fiddlesticks!"
• "There's a fair chance that I may find myself into the next honours list"
• "By the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense"
• "A man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own - and - [We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell. Birling stops to listen]"
• "As it happened more than eighteen months ago - nearly two years ago - obviously it has nothing to do with the wretched girl's suicide"
• "I can't accept any responsibility"
• "If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody... It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?"
• "It's my duty to keep labour costs down"
• "If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth"
• "Perhaps I ought to warn you that the Chief Constable is an old friend of mine. We play golf together"
• "I don't like your tone nor the way you're handling this enquiry"
• "I've got to cover this up as soon as I can"
• "Why you hysterical young fool - get back - or I'll - "
• "I care. I was almost certain for a Knighthood in the next honours list"
• "There's every excuse for what both your mother and I did"
• "There'll be public scandal ... and who here will suffer for that more than I will?"
• "[jovially] But the whole thing's different now"