The Dresser

[as a train is leaving a station]

Sir:
Stop that train!

[the train stops at once]

Madge:
No, I haven't been happy. Yes, it's been worth it.

[repeated line]

Norman:
I had a friend...

Sir:
The critics? No, I have nothing but compassion for them. How can I hate the crippled, the mentally deficient, and the dead?

Madge:
It is a disease.

Her Ladyship:
What is?

Madge:
Hopefulness.

Sir:
Keep your teeth in!

Geoffrey:
It's only when I'm nervous

Sir:
You will be nervous. I guarantee it.

Norman:
My memory is like a policeman. It is never there when you want it.

Frank Carrington:
Now where was I? Oh yes. So Davenport-Scott said to me...

Oxenby:
Do you mind SHUTTING UP?

Frank Carrington:
Well! Really!

Sir:
227 Lears... 227 performances of King Lear and I can't remember the first line.

[after the entire cast memorably puts forth excessive effort in trying to make a loud storm for a performance of King Laer]

Sir:
WHERE... WAS... THE STORM?

Norman:
[to the ambitious young Irene] Never mind the young Cordelia, ducky. He wants a *light* Cordelia!... It's not youth or talent or star quality he's after, ducky, but a moderate eater!

Sir:
There are thousands of children all over this beloved land of ours, scavenging the larders for something sweet. If only they came to me, I could tell them of the one person in England who has an inexhaustible supply of chocolate. It is I who have to carry her on, dead, as Cordelia. It is I who have to lift her up in my arms. Thank Christ, I thought, for rationing. But no, she'd find sugar in a sand dune!

Oxenby:
[after calling for Sir several times to appear on stage] Is he coming or he isn't?

Norman:
[angrily] Yes!

Norman:
I had a friend...

Sir:
Oh by Christ's sake! I'm sick of your friends. A motley crew they are: pathetic, lonely, despairing!

Norman:
That's nice, isn't it?

Sir:
I beg your pardon. Uncalled for! Count myself as your friend!

Norman:
Never despairing!

Sir:
I have apologized!

Norman:
Never, NEVER despairing! Well perhaps, sometimes at night, or at Christmas, when you can't get a job in a pantomime! But not once inside the building! Never! Pathetic maybe, but not ungrateful. Too mindful of one's lot, as the saying goes. No duke is more privy t'is beauty, he is spring and summer! Here pain is bearable. And never lonely, not here. For he today, that sheds his blood with me... Soft no doubt, sensitive, that's my nature; easily hurt, that's a virtue. I'm not here for reasons of my own either. No-one could accuse me of base motive. I got what I want! I don't need anyone to know it. Inadequate? Yes! But never NEVER, despairing!

Norman:
We all have our little sorrows, ducky; you're not the only one.And the littler you are, the larger the sorrow.You think you love him. What about me?