- Rev. Martin Gregory: Why do you think I became a parson in the first place? Because I saw what life is like. Not because I didn't.
- Rev. Martin Gregory: There's the church. A great little country church standing up there in the middle of the town. It's the center of the place architecturally. It should be the center of the place spiritually too. But it's not. No. That little tin-pot shack of a cinema they're going to tonight has more influence on the lives of people here than the church.
- Aunt Lydia: This is right. Absolutely right. You're cut out for each other. I can always tell.
- David Paterson: Are you psychic or what?
- Aunt Lydia: Oh, what a delicious Scottish voice.
- Aunt Lydia: And what do you do?
- David Paterson: I'm an engineer.
- Aunt Lydia: Oh, I'm afraid that means nothing to me. I always think that engineering's a little inhuman somehow. It's people that count. After all, it isn't petro and oil that make the world go round, is it?
- Rev. Martin Gregory: A fine caricature I've made of religion if that's how it seems to me own children. Should be because of religion I have more sympathy and understanding for people. But I have, Margaret, I have. Do I seem the type of man that'd turn away from the sorrows of his own children?
- Aunt Lydia: I always think Christmas is the loveliest of the festivals.
- Rev. Martin Gregory: Do you know I hate it?
- Aunt Lydia: But Martin, *why*?
- Rev. Martin Gregory: Ah, the brewers and the retail traders have got hold of it. It's all eating and drinking and giving each other knickknacks. Nobody remembers the birth of Christ.
- Jenny Gregory: I suppose people who fall asleep in the snow feel like this. They know they've got to keep awake but just for a moment they give up the struggle because the snow's so warm and cozy.
- Rev. Martin Gregory: [addressing Margaret] You know, that's the trouble with your generation. You must see and touch before you can believe. Well, can you touch the wind? St. Augustine said that. Now, you're clever. You're intelligent. But you frighten yourself with words. Ah! People don't know what they want half the time. More money, they think, or more power. Or just another drink, perhaps. Or another wife, or another lover... Ah, but it's none of these things, because even when they have them, there's still something they want, and they don't know what it is. And they go on wanting something and not knowing what it is. And that is the root of all the religions in the world.
- Aunt Bridget: What type do you consider yourself?
- Margaret Gregory: One regards oneself as an individual, Aunt Bridget. Types are the people.