- Arnold Boult: None of you knew Edward. Now he's dead, it's too late. Edward was my son. My only son.
- Dr. Larry Woodhope: May I say you're looking very attractive this evening.
- Evelyn Boult: Thank you.
- Dr. Larry Woodhope: Arnold Boult is a very lucky man. Does he know it?
- Evelyn Boult: I'll remind him.
- Arnold Boult: Just because you ride in my motors and eat my biscuits and read my newspapers, doesn't mean that you have to like me. Or, I you, for that matter.
- Arnold Boult: You know, there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken in its flood, leads on to fortune. Do you know who wrote that?
- Harry Simpkin: No.
- Arnold Boult: Neither do I. But it wasn't a little man.
- Harry Simpkin: To me, there is nothing half so wonderful as a sleeping child.
- Evelyn Boult: I know, they look just like little angels and they're not really.
- Evelyn Boult: Is there any reason for this? Is there anything I should have done? Anything I've done wrong?
- Dr. Larry Woodhope: It could happen to any child.
- Evelyn Boult: But to Edward, my son? My only son.
- Mr. Hanray: You win.
- Arnold Boult: Oh, it isn't a question of victory or defeat, Hanray. It's just that we worked out a solution together.
- Mr. Hanray: Your son needs a sharp lesson.
- Arnold Boult: Have you ever tried thrashing him?
- Mr. Hanray: I have flogged your boy once this term already.
- Arnold Boult: How'd he take it?
- Mr. Hanray: Not very well, I'm afraid. He bit me, in the hand.
- Arnold Boult: [laughs] Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. What did you do?
- Mr. Hanray: What would you do, Sir Arnold?
- Arnold Boult: I'd have put on a pair of thick gloves and started all over again.
- Mr. Hanray: Astonishing. I wouldn't have credited big business with such a - whimsical sense of the ridiculous.
- Mr. Hanray: Nothing is safe anymore. No standards, no principles, no law counts any longer. If it's true, we are all of us lost.
- Harry Simpkin: Someone tipped off the bank inspectors.
- Arnold Boult: Why, Harry, I wouldn't believe you had an enemy in the world.
- Harry Simpkin: Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it was one of my friends who did it.
- Arnold Boult: Larry, my boy, you should get married and have children. It's a great incentive. I suppose being bachelor has advantages too, especially if you're a doctor. Beautiful nurses, beautiful temperatures to take.
- Arnold Boult: Oh, I'm not going to dictate anything. I just wanted to talk. What are your interests in life, Miss Perrin?
- Arnold Boult: What do you do in the evenings, Miss Perrin?
- Eileen Perrin: I go home.
- Arnold Boult: Do you really?
- Eileen Perrin: What do you think happens to me? Do you think I'm covered over with a black, oilskin bag like a typewriter?
- Eileen Perrin: Do you know what the time is?
- Arnold Boult: Oh time. Time. I don't think of time when I'm with you. I'd like to think that we're alone in space.
- Eileen Perrin: This champagne is rather warm.
- Arnold Boult: You have to take the rough with the smooth these days. Here's to us.
- Eileen Perrin: it isn't good for you to have your own way always. I know that and I don't do anything about it. Because I am in love with you. In love with you and not what you might be or ought to be. I'm a gangster's moll, Arnold.
- Arnold Boult: Thank you very much. Here's to our next hold-up.
- Arnold Boult: Have you broken the law?
- Bronton: No. Have you?
- Arnold Boult: Who, me? Not any more than usual.
- Walter Prothin: A very nice old-fashioned firm. It handles the cream, if you know what I mean. That's why we appreciate it all the more when things are nice and friendly.
- Evelyn Boult: I shall go up to my room and get drunk. Just quietly. By myself. Very drunk. Isn't it extraordinary what people do?
- Evelyn Boult: Are you still in love with me, Larry Woodhope? Would you like to...? And the trouble with drink is it makes you just a little bit uncouth.
- [last lines]
- Arnold Boult: Look after yourselves. Because the way things are in the world today, if you don't, nobody else will. Good night.
- Evelyn Boult: I want to hear what the commanding officer said. I want to find out about Edward. Twenty years isn't very long to get to know anybody. I never really knew Edward properly. Not like his commanding officer. He summed him up in 30 seconds. Just as long as it takes a sparrow to fall to the ground.
- Evelyn Boult: 'Whenever I die', he says. 'All I want my friends to do for me is to have a jolly good drink'.
- Dr. Larry Woodhope: Edward.
- Evelyn Boult: Edward, my son.
- Evelyn Boult: I can never find that staircase. There you are. Do you know how many steps there are, Larry? I do. I've counted them. You see. Sometimes one can't see quite as clearly as one would wish. And then it's a great help to count. One. Two...
- Evelyn Boult: I often think of that day. It all seemed such a perfect start. And yet, it was only the beginning of the end.
- Arnold Boult: All I asked for Edward was a place in the sun.
- Dr. Larry Woodhope: No. You wanted *the* place in the sun.