Richard Burton credited as playing...
Jimmy Porter
- Jimmy Porter: Anyone who doesn't like jazz has no real feeling for music, or people.
- Helena Charles: Rubbish.
- Alison Porter: I suppose none of this could ever really have worked. I do love you, Jimmy, I shall never love anyone as I love you. But I can't go on. I can't take part in all this suffering, I can't.
- Jimmy Porter: It's no good fooling about with love, you know. You can't fall into it like a soft job without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. If you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice tidy soul, you better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint, because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world... or the next.
- Jimmy Porter: Ladies and gentlemen, a little recitation entitled "She was only a gravediggers daughter but she loved lying under the sod."
- Jimmy Porter: I'm sorry.
- Alison Porter: Get out.
- Jimmy Porter: You think I did it on purpose?
- Alison Porter: Clear out of my sight!
- Cliff Lewis: 14lbs of jelly babies, what do you want to get all them for?
- Jimmy Porter: Kids have got a craze on.
- Cliff Lewis: They better have.
- Jimmy Porter: You know, Mummy and I took a quick look at each other and from then on the age of chivalry was dead.
- Cliff Lewis: Don't brawl, boyo, it won't do any good.
- Jimmy Porter: Why not? It's the only thing I'm good at.
- Cliff Lewis: Don't think I'll stay much longer.
- Jimmy Porter: Why not?
- Cliff Lewis: I don't know, sweet store's alright but I'd like to try something else. You're highly educated, it suits you, but I need something a bit better.
- Jimmy Porter: What made you come to this bloody country anyway?
- Kapoor: I came because in India I was an outcast, an untouchable.
- Jimmy Porter: I didn't know about the baby. I don't exactly relish the idea of pain and suffering but it wasn't my first loss you know.
- Alison Porter: It was mine.
- Jimmy Porter: Hardly a moment when I'm not watching, wanting you. Nearly 2 years in the same room as you and I still can't stop my sweat breaking out when I see you do something as ordinary as cooking or leaning over the ironing board. Trouble is... you get used to people, even their trivialities become indispensable to you.
- Helena Charles: I think you're a very tiresome young man.
- Jimmy Porter: Oh dear, oh dear, my wife's friends. Pass Lady Bracknell the cucumber sandwiches.
- Jimmy Porter: I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American age, apart from if you're an American of course.
- Jimmy Porter: Shall I tell you the truth about her? She is a cow. I wouldn't mind that so much only she's in great danger of becoming a sacred cow as well.
- Jimmy Porter: Well, what's the matter with you?
- Helena Charles: I just feel quite sick, that's all. Sick with contempt and loathing.
- Jimmy Porter: You just sit there and do nothing.
- Cliff Lewis: That's right, I just sit here.
- Jimmy Porter: What sort of a man are you?
- Cliff Lewis: I'm not the District Commissioner, you know.
- Helena Charles: If you'd stop thinking about yourself for just one moment, I'll tell you something I think you ought to know. You wife is going to have a baby!
- [pause]
- Helena Charles: Well? Doesn't that mean anything? Even to you?
- Jimmy Porter: [pause] If you'd permit me to interrupt your... female wisdom, there's something perhaps you ought to know. I don't care! I don't care if she's going to have a baby. I don't care if it has 2 heads!
- [pause]
- Jimmy Porter: Well, do I disgust you? Go on, slap my face! I just came back from seeing somebody I love very much go through the sordid process of dying. And you expect me to be overcome with awe because some stupid, cruel girl is going to have a BABY?
- [pause]
- Jimmy Porter: Now the performance is over. Now leave me alone - and get out, you evil-minded little virgin!
- [Helena slaps Jimmy]
- Helena Charles: How was it?
- Jimmy Porter: It was a funeral. No flowers, no word, no sign...
- Helena Charles: What do you mean?
- Jimmy Porter: I mean Alison... The injustice of it is about perfect: the wrong people going hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying.
- Jimmy Porter: [singing] Don't be afraid to sleep with your sweetheart, just because she's better than you.
- Cliff Lewis: It's not the same, is it?
- Jimmy Porter: Of course not, it's never the same you idiot. Today's meal is always different from yesterday's, the last woman is always different from the one before.