- Father Collins: Don't nurse your dreams, Rosy. You can't help having them, but don't nurse them. Because if you nurse your dreams, they tend to come true.
- Thomas Ryan: [meeting Doryan for the first time] Now, I can't just say you're welcome - not in your official function. Ah, but in YOURSELF, you're welcome! A brave man is a brave man in any uniform, be it English khaki, Irish green, aye, or German gray.
- Charles Shaughnessy: It's not a hangin' matter to be young... but it maybe should be a hangin' matter for a - man of middle age - to - try and steal the youth from a young girl. Especially, a man like me and a - girl like you. You were meant for the wide world, Rose. Not this place, not this. Me - I was born for it. It wouldn't do, Rose. I just know it wouldn't.
- Rosy Ryan: So, you - you don't want me, then?
- Charles Shaughnessy: [Leans to kiss Rose] Don't want you? Oh...
- [They embrace]
- Rosy Ryan: It will make me a different person, won't it?
- Father Collins: Marriage?
- Rosy Ryan: No, the satisfaction of the flesh.
- Father Collins: Well, that's a gate I've not been through, myself. But, no, it won't make you a different person.
- Rosy Ryan: I want it to.
- Father Collins: Child, what are you expecting?
- [Look up at noisy seagulls flying above]
- Father Collins: Wings, is it?
- Captain: [to Doryan] There's no local crumpet. It's married or virgin here, you know. And that priest down there's got eyes in the back of his head.
- Maureen: Aren't the police a dirty lot, hobnobbing with British soldiers!
- Const. O'Connor: I heard that, Maureen Cassidy!
- Maureen: You were meant to, Constable O'Connor!
- Father Collins: I don't know what's the matter with youngsters in this town. Their talk is filthy, their doings are secret, and cruelty for fun.
- Thomas Ryan: Unemployment is the matter with them, Father Hugh. It's the deliberate policy for the British government that Irish youngsters shall corrupt in idleness.
- Father Collins: It's time you married Rosy. It's time she got a house of her own to clean, floors to scrub.
- Thomas Ryan: My princess isn't interested in fellows, Father.
- Father Collins: Your "princess" has got fellows enough in here
- [taps head]
- Father Collins: And fellas running loose in there will do a girl more damage than a barracks full of drunk dragoons.
- Thomas Ryan: Well, if it's one of that lot that's fit for her, Father, maybe you'll point him out!
- Mrs. McCardle: [as Rosy walks out of the store] The way I see it, Mrs. Kenyan. There's loose women and there's whores... and, then, there's British soldier's whores!
- Captain: Well, if it's all the same to you, sir, I'll be straight off. I've given myself leave.
- Randolph Doryan: Yes?
- Captain: Embarkation leave. France. Second Batallion, Southeast Lanchasires... they're in the front line. Will you tell me something, man to man? What's it like, really - front line?
- [Doryan's face expresses discomfort]
- Captain: Aye. Well, I'll find out soon enough. I'm a coward, you see. No, I always have been - from being a lad. I can't master it. Well, I don't suppose I've tried, really. I'd give my left arm to have a touch of what you've got. I hate it! Just the bloody thought of it gives me the shakes. In fact, that's my nightmare, the shakes. I don't mind dying - not if it's quick. Life's not that much, is it? I wouldn't mind having a gammy leg, like you've got - though I don't suppose it's funny. But the shakes? Shellshock? Just shaking and shambling like a... epileptic baby? Nay, I'd rather be dead! I can see what's coming - I'm going to disgrace myself...
- Randolph Doryan: You don't know what you'll do. No one does - you don't know what you're doing?
- Captain: Really? I read what you did in the newspapers. That weren't no flash in the pan - you'd do the same again, I dare say.
- Randolph Doryan: You'd be wrong.
- Captain: Well, you've done your bit - someone else's turn, eh?
- Father Collins: [Collins has come across the townspeople tormenting Michael] What am I to do with you? What?
- Maureen: Ah, sure it's only a bit of fun, Father.
- Father Collins: Are you brainless, Maureen Cassidy, or what? Fun. Devil take me if the lot of you's not possessed and damned!
- Charles Shaughnessy: [Rose has professed her love to Charles] Rose, you're mistaking a penny mirror for the sun - do you not see that?
- Rosy Ryan: I see you always digging a low pit for yourself - when you should be standing on a heap of pride.
- Charles Shaughnessy: You coming in here and saying what you did just now is the only cause I've ever had for pride.
- Randolph Doryan: [after O'Leary has been arrested] Is there anything you want?
- Tim O'Leary: Cigarette.
- [Corporal gives him a cigarette]
- Randolph Doryan: Anything else?
- Tim O'Leary: Yes...
- [drags on cigarette]
- Tim O'Leary: GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!
- Mrs. McCardle: God bless you, Tim O'Leary!
- Mr. McCardle: [Collins strikes McCardle after the mob strips Rosy] You're taking advantage of your cloth, Father!
- Father Collins: That's what it's for.
- [last lines]
- Father Collins: Charles? I think you have it in your mind that you and Rosy ought to part. Yeh, I thought as much. Well, maybe you're right and maybe you aren't but I doubt it. And that's my parting gift to you. That doubt.
- Father Collins: [closes bus door] God bless.
- [bus drives away]
- Father Collins: I don't know. I don't know at all. Come on, Michael.
- Father Collins: [Explaining why God ordains the sacrament of marriage] And thirdly, for the satisfaction of the flesh. Are you scared of that?
- Rosy Ryan: Yes.
- Father Collins: It should be nothing to be scared of Rosy. A function of the body.
- Rosy Ryan: I suppose all girls is a bit scared before.
- Father Collins: Oh, and fellas too.
- Rosy Ryan: Yes?
- Corporal: Good morning. Blowy day?
- Maureen: Yes, Corporal - it's the wind!
- Corporal: Only want to be friendly, kids.
- Irish Girl: Then go back to London, and write us a letter!
- Corporal: I don't come from London, love.
- Maureen's boyfriend: Go anyway.
- Thomas Ryan: [talking about the Easter Rebellion] If the Germans had an ounce of sense, they'd send us guns to use against the British!
- Charles Shaughnessy: That's treason you're talking.
- Thomas Ryan: And friends that are listening surely to God!
- Father Collins: Good luck to all Irishmen.
- Thomas Ryan: Bad luck to the British. Success to the Germans! And -
- [British soldiers enter the bar]
- Thomas Ryan: And a very good morning to you, Corporal!
- Father Collins: [having encountered Rosy walking alone on the beach] Have you nothin' to do?
- Rosy Ryan: Precisely that!
- Father Collins: Well, Miss Precisely, that's a pity! Doin' nothin's a dangerous occupation!
- Thomas Ryan: [Corporal is reading a newspaper article about fighting in France] It seems the Jerries are giving your brave lads out there a terrible scrimmage, then.
- Corporal: Aye.
- Mr. McCardle: Well, you see Tom, Jerry's a tougher proposition than unarmed Irish children.
- Corporal: As far as I know, Mr. McCardle, no children were killed!
- [laughs of disbelief]
- Corporal: All right, there were. They get you in this uniform, you aim your gun where you're told to point it, and you pull the trigger. And so does Jerry... and so would you!
- Thomas Ryan: [the town has turned out to punish Rosy as an informer] But why must it be Rosy?
- Mr. McCardle: Because she was fornicating with the fellow!
- Tim O'Leary: [to O'Keefe, after the townspeople have turned out to help retrieve the weapons] You know, we made speeches about these people - but, by God!
- Rosy Ryan: [after her affair with Doryan has become public] You're very kind to me today.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Am I?
- Rosy Ryan: Yes. Why?
- Charles Shaughnessy: Am I not usually kind to you?
- Rosy Ryan: You enjoyed yourself in Dublin, then?
- Charles Shaughnessy: Well, I did and I didn't. A conference of village school teachers, you know, is not exactly a...
- Rosy Ryan: Bacchanalia?
- Charles Shaughnessy: Bacchanalia, precisely.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Why don't you see, Rose, I only taught you about Byron and Beethoven and Captain Blood. I'm not one of them fellows, me self.
- Rosy Ryan: I'm not daft, you know.
- Charles Shaughnessy: But, you're terribly young.
- Father Collins: Where have you been?
- Rosy Ryan: Ridin' - with Major Doryan.
- Father Collins: You're bold as brass! You think that's a suitable connection for a decent Irish wife?
- Rosy Ryan: I think that is for my - husband to say, Father.
- Thomas Ryan: Well, wait a minute, I must say goodbye to your husband. You know, Rose... when you married him, I thought you could have done a lot better. Now I'm not so sure they come much better. Would you tell him that? It's not a thing one fellow can easily say to another.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Rose, I have something to say to you. Come in. Sit down, will you? Rose, I thought I could stand by and let you two burn it out, like I said. But I find I can't. I'm not sure I ought to have tried, but anyway, I can't. So I'm going to leave you.
- Father Collins: What more are you wanting now?
- Rosy Ryan: I don't know that, either.
- Father Collins: That's a lie.
- Rosy Ryan: It's not. How can I know? I don't even know what more there is.
- Father Collins: You've got a good man now, haven't you?
- Rosy Ryan: The best.
- Father Collins: Well? And you've got enough money. Not much, but enough.
- Rosy Ryan: Aye.
- Father Collins: And you've got your health. You're not sick?
- Rosy Ryan: No.
- Father Collins: Well, there is nothing more, you graceless girl.
- Rosy Ryan: But, there is.
- Father Collins: There is not.
- Rosy Ryan: I know there is. There must be, Father Hugh.
- Father Collins: Why? Glory be to God, why must there be? Because Rosy Ryan wants it?
- Rosy Ryan: Aye.
- Charles Shaughnessy: What about you? You and him?
- Rosy Ryan: Nothing.
- Charles Shaughnessy: What do you mean, nothing?
- Rosy Ryan: It's over.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Was that because I went and stayed away?
- Rosy Ryan: No. It's over.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Have you told him?
- Rosy Ryan: No.
- Charles Shaughnessy: He doesn't know, then?
- Rosy Ryan: Yes, he knows.
- Charles Shaughnessy: How?
- Rosy Ryan: He must.
- Charles Shaughnessy: You're as close as that, are you?
- Rosy Ryan: We were, yes.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Rose, you must tell me the truth. Do you think you're ever gonna forget him? Of course not. He'd be like a ghost about the place. Rose, am I right?
- Rosy Ryan: Yes, you're right. It's busted, Charles. I busted it.
- Father Collins: Have you nothing to say to me?
- Rosy Ryan: What should I have to say to you?
- Father Collins: You could say: 'Father Hugh, there's nothing between me and Major Doryan.'
- Rosy Ryan: There isn't.
- Father Collins: Say it, then.
- Rosy Ryan: There is nothing between me and Major Doryan.
- Father Collins: Look at me, Rosy. Oh, child, what a face. Rose, tell me now.
- Rosy Ryan: What?
- Father Collins: You'll have to tell it in confessional, you little fool.
- Rosy Ryan: I don't have to come... to the confessional.
- Thomas Ryan: Will you imagine that fellow? A fortnight in Dublin. Does nothing, sees nothing.
- Mr. McCardle: It's working with children, makes a man childish.
- Thomas Ryan: No, it was that wife of his, knocked all the spirit out of him.
- Father Collins: She was a good, pure woman.
- Thomas Ryan: Pure, she was.
- Rosy Ryan: They really thought... I was the one who betrayed that man.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Rose... I don't for one moment suppose that anyone betrayed him. Why should they? They just... They just wanted it so, that's all. And they wanted it to be you, too. For other reasons. Truth was told, they envy you. They always have. They've always had a rare, old contempt for me, too. I tell you, I'm not for letting any of that lot know we've busted up. We'll just keep up a front until I'm well and out of it.
- Father Collins: I have a parting gift for you here, Rose. It's supposed to be a fragment of St. Patrick's staff. I don't suppose it is, though.
- Father Collins: Now, what exactly is the trouble between you and Charles?
- Rosy Ryan: No. No trouble.
- Father Collins: Are you asking me to believe you're happy?
- Rosy Ryan: I'm not asking you anything.
- Father Collins: Are you happy?
- Rosy Ryan: No.
- Father Collins: Why not?
- Rosy Ryan: I don't know.
- Father Collins: Come on, Rosy, now give me a try.
- Rosy Ryan: I don't. All right. Because I am stupid and conceited... and self-centered and ungrateful like you've always told me. For I have everything I wanted, have I not?
- Father Collins: You have!
- Captain: Sent you here for a rest, did they?
- Randolph Doryan: Yes, I think they did.
- Captain: Well, you'll get that, if naught else. There's nothing to do here but walk. Oh, I'm sorry. I expect walking's out.
- Randolph Doryan: No, I'm supposed to walk. Five miles a day.
- Captain: Oh. Well, then. They've sent you to the right place. There's some nice walks here. Our duties are light enough, God knows. Our duties. It's more like police work, isn't it? The publican's a source of information.
- Randolph Doryan: An informer?
- Captain: Aye. Publican, name of Ryan. Well, he's nothing to inform, has he? But the police slip him a fiver now and then, you know. Oh, he's all right. Big mouth, open hand, empty pocket, you know? Typical publican. But he's all right, really.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Do you know that the British government has got a law now... forbidding the playing of German music?
- Rosy Ryan: No.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Can you imagine such foolishness?
- Rosy Ryan: British.
- Charles Shaughnessy: Well, all governments is foolish, more or less. An Irish government would be the same.