- Grandfather George: You want to know why they're called Faith, Hope, Grace and Charity?
- Bill Rowen: Why?
- Grandfather George: Your Grandmother. She named them after the virtues I lack. That's marriage for you!
- [last lines]
- Bill Rowen: In all my life nothing ever quite matched the perfect joy of that moment. My school lay in ruins, the river beckoned with the promise of stolen days.
- Roger: [upon seeing his school blown up by a German rocket earlier in the morning of the first day of the new school year] It was a stray bomb. Thank you, Adolf!
- Teacher: [jabbing at a map of the world, with the British Empire lands in pink] Pink. Pink. Pink. Pink. What are all the pink bits? Rowan.
- Bill Rowen: They're ours, Miss.
- Teacher: Yes. The British Empire. Arthur... what fraction of the earth's surface is British?
- Arthur in Roger's Gang: Don't know, Miss.
- Teacher: Anyone? Jennifer Baker?
- Jennifer Baker: Two-fifths, Miss.
- Teacher: Yes, two-fifths! Ours. That's what this war is all about. Men are fighting and dying to save all the pink bits for you ungrateful little twerps.
- Grandfather George: All hens and no cocks. Too many women in our family. They're a different species from us, Bill.
- Bill Rowen: Don't you love them?
- Grandfather George: Oh, yes, love them. But don't try to understand them. That road leads to ruin.
- Clive Rowen: [Billy bowls] That was a googly!
- Mac: A googly?
- Grandfather George: You didn't spot it, Clive.
- Clive Rowen: I taught him how. And now he turns it against me.
- Grandfather George: The law of life. Cruel, isn't it?
- Bill Rowen: [after Grandfather shoots at a mouse and misses] I think you hit him, Grandfather! He was limping when he ran off!
- Grandfather George: [pointing to an electrical transformer tower at the edge of his property] Look! They're coming this way: the Future on the march. I curse you, Volt, Watt and Amp!
- Winston Churchhill: [on a radio broadcast] Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
- Grace Rowan: Mac, did you ever find out who Molly went off with.
- Mac: Ran off with a Polish pilot. Sounds like one of those bad jokes on the wireless!
- Grace Rowan: You miss her. And I know I do.
- Mac: She said, "I know you love me, babe. But you never love me enough."
- Grace Rowan: Not loving enough. What a terrible thing to do to someone. I suppose I did it to Clive. I, always held something back.
- Mac: All better left unsaid, Grace.
- Grace Rowan: You were never apart, you and Clive. He kept asking and asking. I kept waiting and waiting for you to say something. But you never did.
- Mac: Clive had a job. I didn't. I couldn't. You did the decent thing, Grace.
- Grace Rowan: This war, has put an end to decent things.
- Mac: We can't change what's past. Not even the war can do that.
- Grace Rowan: Oh we did the proper thing. But we lost love. And that's sad, Mac.
- Sue Rowan: [to her mother as she's boarding a train to safety] I'm going to miss the whole war, and it's all your fault!
- Grandfather George: Betty Browning. Betty. Let me tell you something. I'm 73 years old. I've seen half the wonders of the world. And I've never laid eyes on a finer sight than the curve of Betty Browning's breasts.
- Clive Rowen: Billy, before I go there's something I want to tell you. You're not quite old enough, but, well...
- [he produces a cricket ball]
- Clive Rowen: ...it's the googly. Your hand is too small to master it, but you can make a start.
- Grandfather George: You look frustrated, Faithy. That husband of yours still can't rise to the occasion?
- Faith: He's a menace. He should be locked up.
- Roger: Do you wanna join our gang?
- Bill Rowen: Don't mind.
- Roger: Do you know any swear words?
- Bill Rowen: Yes.
- Roger: Say them. Go on. Say them. You can't join if you can't swear.
- Bill Rowen: I only know one.
- Roger: Well, say that one, then. Go on.
- Bill Rowen: [softly] Fuck.
- [Roger's gang is taken aback]
- Roger: That word is special. That word is only used for something really important. Now, repeat after me: Bugger off.
- Bill Rowen: Bugger off.
- Roger: Sod.
- Bill Rowen: Sod.
- Roger: Bloody.
- Bill Rowen: Bloody.
- Roger: Now put them all together: Bugger off, you bloody sod.
- Bill Rowen: Bugger off, you bloody sod.
- Roger: Okay, you're in.
- Grandfather George: "What can you do with four daughters," I asked myself. Four daughters. A string quartet was all I could come up with. And they hated me for making them learn.
- Grace Rowan, Charity, Faith, Hope: And now we're glad you did.
- Old Bill (Narrator): Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1939. Everyone who is old enough and was there remembers exactly what they were doing at that moment. I had just gunned down a couple of rustlers. And then I slipped back a few centuries and I was riding through an enchanted forest. The magician Merlin suddenly appeared before me and my horse reared up in terror. Then something even more extraordinary happened. All the Sunday-morning lawnmowers suddenly - stopped.
- Headmaster: O God, bring destruction to our enemies. Make these young ones true soldiers of the Lord. Guide Mr. Churchill's hand in the cunning of war. Let our righteous shells smite down the Messerschmitts and the Fokkers. Lord, send troublesome dreams to Herr Hitler. Let him not sleep the sleep of the innocent. And comfort our warriors at the fronts. Brighten their swords and burnish their bullets with your fire. We beseech thee, O Lord, to have mercy on these, thy children. We dedicate our studies this day to the war effort. Amen.
- Dawn: The next one's ours. Either it hits us or it goes past. Oh, please, God, not on us. Drop it on Mrs. Evans. She's a cow!
- Clive Rowen: I made a mess of it all. I'm such a bloody fool.
- Mac: You always were, Smiler. Steady the Buffs.
- Clive Rowen: Bugger the Buffs.
- Clive Rowen: It's German jam. Well, it's all right. It came from a German ship. Got sunk, this stuff washed ashore. Crates of it. Jam. Our boys found it on the beach by the rifle range.
- Grace Rowan: We don't know anything about it.
- Clive Rowen: Well, it's off ration. We know that.
- Grace Rowan: Well, how do we know they didn't plant it there? They know we are mad on jam. They could poison half the country!
- Sue Rowan: [spying on Dawn and Bruce through the keyhole] I suppose they're still learning. That's why they keep moving about.
- Bill Rowen: It's easy. I've done it.
- Sue Rowan: Who with?
- Bill Rowen: Pauline.
- Sue Rowan: Liar. Mummy keeps still and Daddy moves on top of her. That's what they do when they know how.
- Grace Rowan: Clive, fetch the doctor.
- Clive Rowen: Are you ill?
- Grace Rowan: Not me. Dawn. She's in labor!
- Clive Rowen: Hot water! Lots of hot water.
- Mac: What for?
- Clive Rowen: I don't know. They always say that in the pictures.
- Roger's gang: [Looking down Pauline's pants] I've seen better than that.
- [Pauline slaps his ear]
- Grandfather George: Ohhh, it's only a house...a ghastly one at that. They should all be burned and bombed and the builder hanged.
- Dawn: Where are my stockings? I can't find my stockings.
- Grace Rowan: Dawn, pet, they've started a war.
- Dawn: Have they? That's not my fault. I still need my stockings, don't I?
- Clive Rowen: I don't want to hear about your stockings!
- Old Bill (Narrator): A few lawnmowers started up again, but they didn't ring true somehow. Nothing would ever be the same again.
- Old Bill (Narrator): It was all they talked about, getting ready for war, but nothing ever happened. It was all words and no action. Hopalong Cassidy, on the other hand, now that was the real thing.
- Bill Rowen: It's an air raid!
- Clive Rowen: Good God. They've started already. Air raid! Get up! Stay down!
- Molly: Well, a few bombs might wake up this country.
- Grace Rowan: Take more than a few bombs to wake up Dawn on a Sunday morning.
- Dawn: This phoney war gets on my nerves.
- Grace Rowan: Morning.
- Dawn: If we're going to have a war, I wish they'd start.
- Molly: Bloody gin. Always makes me cry!
- [cries]
- Mac: Couple of crossed wires. She only weeps when she's happy.
- Grace Rowan: Oh, stop it, Molly. You'll start me off now.
- [weeps]
- Clive Rowen: Now... You know the leg break, right? And the off break. Now, the googly looks like a leg break but it's really an off break. Got it? Like this.
- Bill Rowen: That's like telling fibs.
- Clive Rowen: That's it. When you tell a lie, you want to get away with it. But when someone else does, you want to find them out. A good batsman will spot a googly. A good bowler will hide it. Always remember that, son.
- Bill Rowen: Don't worry, Sue. We're not gonna be like them when we grow up. We're not even like them now.
- Grace Rowan: Has Sue got it right?
- Clive Rowen: What's that?
- Grace Rowan: You joined up.
- Clive Rowen: Oh, that.
- Grace Rowan: I wish you could have told me yourself.
- Clive Rowen: Oh, Grace, it's not for long. They say it'll be over by Christmas.
- Grace Rowan: Susie, wakey-wakey. Quick. Quick as lightning, now. There we go. Billy. Billy. Come on, Billy. Wakey-wakey. Quick, quick. Quick, march. Dawn. Dawn. Air raid. Dawn, what have you been up to? Come on.
- Dawn: I'm not going to that shelter. I'd sooner die!
- Dawn: I want him! I want him so much! I'll kill myself if I don't have him.
- Grace Rowan: There, there. Oh, my baby. Go, if you want. What does it matter? We may all be dead tomorrow.
- Mrs. Evans: Do you know what they're doing now?
- Dawn: Still not been hit, Mrs. Evans?
- Mrs. Evans: Touch wood.
- Dawn: We had a near miss the other night.
- Mrs. Evans: Dropping diseased rats on the bomb sites.
- Dawn: Billy found this tiny little parachute. So that's what it was for.
- Mrs. Evans: Didn't I see you with a soldier, Dawn?
- Dawn: Just doing my bit for the war effort.
- Grace Rowan: I won't have this vulgar talk in my house.
- Dawn: It's only a joke, Mummy.