- Helen Jorgenson: [after she has seen Molly Jorgenson and Johnny Hunter kissing] Well, your daughter didn't waste any time. She's let that boy kiss and maul her her very first night here.
- Ken Jorgenson: Where were they?
- Helen Jorgenson: Down below me, in the garden.
- Ken Jorgenson: If they had anything to hide, you think they'd do it right under your window?
- Helen Jorgenson: Are you defending her cheap behavior?
- Ken Jorgenson: Cheap? A girl kissing a boy in the moonlight? You know Molly's as decent as this boy seems to be.
- Helen Jorgenson: [really angry now] No decent girl lets a boy kiss and maul her the very first night they meet! I suppose it's your Swedish blood in her. I've read about how the Swedes bathe together and... and have trial marriages and free love. I've read all about that. Anything goes.
- Ken Jorgenson: [angry and disgusted] So, now you hate the Swedes. How many outlets for your hate do you have, Helen? We haven't been able to find a new house because of your multiplicity of them. We can't buy near a school because you hate kids. They make noise. And there can't be any Jews or Catholics on the block, either. And, oh, yes, it can't be anywhere near the Polish or Italian sections. And, of course, Negroes have to be avoided at all costs. Now, let's see: No Jews, no Catholics, no Italians, no Poles, no children. No Negroes. Do I have the list right, so far? And now, you've added Swedes. And, oh, yes, you won't use a Chinese laundry because you distrust Orientals. And you think the British are snobbish, the Russians fearful, the French immoral, the Germans brutal, and all Latin Americans lazy. What's your plan? To cut humanity out? Are you anti-people and anti-life? Must you suffocate every natural instinct in our daughter, too? Must you label young love-making as cheap and wanton and indecent? Must you persist in making sex, itself, a filthy word?
- [Helen, without a word, leaves the room. Ken slams the door after her]
- Sylvia Hunter: [to Helen Jorgenson] You seem to have an infinite capacity for hurt. First you try to destroy your daughter, and now our son.
- Bart Hunter: As soon as Molly is found - and I'm sure she will be - I suggest you vacate these rooms as swiftly as possible.
- Helen Jorgenson: [incredulously] Don't tell me that you're on their side!
- Bart Hunter: Let's merely say that I'm not on yours.
- Ken Jorgenson: [after hearing that Johnny threatened to kill his wife] I wouldn't blame him if he did.
- Helen Jorgenson: [sneering] Of course you wouldn't. It would make it easier for you to sneak off and sleep with his harlot of a mother!
- Molly Jorgenson: [after finding out her mother read her love letters] Johnny's letters were all I had to live for. And now you've even made them dirty.
- [She throws them into the fireplace]
- Ken Jorgenson: What's it like being stuck out here all winter?
- Sylvia Hunter: Oh... it's quite lovely after the first snow.
- Ken Jorgenson: And after the blizzard starts?
- [uncomfortable pause]
- Ken Jorgenson: You've avoided me ever since I arrived, Sylvia. Why? Can't we talk a moment?
- Sylvia Hunter: What about?
- Ken Jorgenson: You... me... Bart. How are things between you?
- Sylvia Hunter: We, ah, made a life. I guess we all adjust ourselves, don't we?
- Ken Jorgenson: I have never been able to. All through these years when I dreamed to have you wrapped up in them. I tried forgetting them. I even tried to imagine that you had gone fat and ugly and saggy.
- Sylvia Hunter: [laughs] Is that why you came back? To find out? To see?
- Ken Jorgenson: I came back because I had to.
- Sylvia Hunter: I'm perfectly willing to come to you whenever you want.
- Ken Jorgenson: All summer?
- Sylvia Hunter: All summer.
- Ken Jorgenson: What about the winter? All the winters... all our lives?
- Molly Jorgenson: [to the doctor who is about to examine her] Oh, please. I want my father. I want my father. Oh, please, no. Oh, please, no. I want my father. Oh, please. I want my father. I haven't done anything wrong. I've been a good girl. I haven't done anything wrong. Please, I want my father. No! No! No! I've been a good girl! No! No!
- Molly Jorgenson: They came just in time, we better cool off.
- Johnny Hunter: Why?
- Molly Jorgenson: Because I'm afraid...
- Johnny Hunter: Of me?
- Molly Jorgenson: [shakes head no]
- Johnny Hunter: Of yourself?
- Molly Jorgenson: Yes. That and some other new feelings that I can't explain.
- Johnny Hunter: Are you angry because...
- Molly Jorgenson: No. We've gotta be good Johnny.
- Johnny Hunter: Good... Is it that easy to be good?
- Molly Jorgenson: Are you bad Johnny? Have you been bad with girls?
- Bart Hunter: Do you and your husband often swim in the raw, Mrs. Jorgenson?
- Helen Jorgenson: Good heavens, no!
- Bart Hunter: Oh, she hasn't lived, has she, Ken? Why, there's absolutely nothing like galloping bare-bottomed into the sea!
- Helen Jorgenson: This is Dr. Matthias. I sent for him from the mainland. I want you to take off every stitch you've got on and let him examine you.
- Molly Jorgenson: But we haven't done anything wrong, mama. We slept all night...
- Helen Jorgenson: I'm not asking you for the truth because I know you'd lie. So I'm having him examine you completely and make his own report.
- Molly Jorgenson: No!
- Helen Jorgenson: [grabbing Molly's arm] You have disgraced me enough, now do as I say!
- Helen Jorgenson: Get that disinfectant bag and clean this bathroom. Don't forget the toilet seat.
- Molly Jorgenson: I'm... I'm sure everything's clean, mother.
- Helen Jorgenson: You can never be too sure.
- Helen Jorgenson: [to her husband] When we arrive at the inn, I want her to look completely modest.
- Molly Jorgenson: She means like a boy. Flat like a pancake.
- Helen Jorgenson: I don't want her stared at.
- Ken Jorgenson: So you insist on de-sexing her. As though sex was synonymous with dirt.
- Johnny Hunter: Don't you hurt her again. Don't you hurt her. You hurt her and I'll kill you.
- Helen Jorgenson: Don't you dare threaten me.
- Helen Jorgenson: [inspecting her flimsy, silver Christmas tree] The tree should last at least ten years. Solid plastic.
- Molly Jorgenson: [watching Ken and Sylvia, her father and his mother, go to their bedroom] Oh, Johnny... Do you suppose they make love?
- Johnny Hunter: Why shouldn't they do? They're married.
- Sylvia Hunter: He gave me a hope I thought was gone.
- Bart Hunter: [intoxicated] A hope for what?
- Sylvia Hunter: Happiness.
- Helen Jorgenson: What have you got to say for yourself?
- Molly Jorgenson: We capsized and spent the night on the beach.
- Helen Jorgenson: I imagined as much.
- Sylvia Hunter: We've spoiled two lives. And now we're paying for it.
- Ken Jorgenson: For the rest of our lives?
- Molly Jorgenson: [Looking at the island through her binoculars on a boat with her father] There's a boy up there watching me!
- [He runs off]
- Molly Jorgenson: There he goes. Funny feeling being looked at without knowing it. Remember that family that lived next door to us back home?
- Ken Jorgenson: Yeah.
- Molly Jorgenson: Their son used to look at me.
- Ken Jorgenson: Without you knowing it?
- Molly Jorgenson: Well, his bedroom was right across from mine and... one night I felt naughty and went right on undressing so he could see. Then all of a sudden I... I got terribly ashamed and I ran and pulled the curtains down. I'll never forget... I had hot and cold flashes all over me afterwards. Wasn't that awful?
- Ken Jorgenson: Well, I guess every human being on earth has a few things he's ashamed of.
- Helen Jorgenson: [to her daughter] Must you parade before open windows like a... like a stripteaser?
- Bart Hunter: [Intoxicated] This'll be painful for you, but you might as well face the truth... the RAW truth. Take... take a good look at your parents, hmm? We've got no more secrets to hide. All the cats are out of the bag: all the scrawling, mangy, obscene, horrible cats of your inheritance. You're the son of a drunkard... and a harlot.
- Johnny Hunter: You're wrong about mother, dad.
- Bart Hunter: Gone to her side, have ya'?
- Johnny Hunter: I'm not taking sides. I just want to marry Molly.
- Bart Hunter: [pauses, then smirks] Oh, Johnny, stop being a silly sentimentalist. It's stupid! Molly is merely a succulent little wench!
- Johnny Hunter: She's not a wench! She's everything I've ever dreamed of in a girl.
- Bart Hunter: Oh, don't make me laugh! They're all alike in the dark!
- Johnny Hunter: [Taken aback] You can't make her cheap! You can't do it! In spite of your damned supercilious, intelligent mind. And with or without your consent, we're getting married!
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: [Tapping Ken on the shoulder with her cane] Young man, weren't you the lifeguard here a while back?
- Ken Jorgenson: I was, Mrs. Hamble. *Quite* a while back.
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: Jorgenson, aren't you?
- Ken Jorgenson: Yes.
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: Living in the gardener's cottage in the rear?
- Ken Jorgenson: Well, not any more, ma'am. We're here as guests this time.
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: We? Did you marry that pretty thing you were *always* teaching to swim? You didn't fool anyone, you and she - not me, anyway.
- Ken Jorgenson: No, I didn't marry her, ma'am. I met Mrs. Jorgenson in Buffalo.
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: Buffalo... that's out West, isn't it?
- Ken Jorgenson: New York, ma'am.
- Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble: Oh, yes. Niagara Falls place. Are you a lifeguard there, now?
- Ken Jorgenson: [grinning] No, ma'am. I'm a research chemist.
- Bart Hunter: This may sound strange coming from an.. an inebriate... but I have observed that there is a moral law at work in the world.
- Bart Hunter: ... and that sinners pay... in one way or the other.
- Bart Hunter: [addressing Molly and Johnny] Well... I profoundly hope you do not get married. But if you do, well... maybe life's only a dice game after all.
- Bart Hunter: And if it is, our family's certainly due for a winner.