- Alicia Hull: Freddie, how about helping an old friend?
- Freddie Slater: You're not my friend!
- Alicia Hull: Freddie!
- Freddie Slater: You're not anybody's friend! They kicked you out! You don't belong here. They found out about you! You want to destroy us! You're like all the rest of them! They found out what you were doing! You don't belong here! You're not the librarian anymore. You're a communist! A communist! A communist! A communist!
- Martha Lockridge: Whatever was the issue? A stubborn woman was fired. Your council blew itself up with civic virtue. The city got something to buzz about. I got a better job. You got a platform.
- Paul Duncan: You make it sound like a grab bag.
- Martha Lockridge: Well, what do you think it was? Patriotism?
- Paul Duncan: We can't take time out to investigate every little wrinkle on every little problem and be kind to stubborn old ladies to boot. Sure, some innocent people are going to get hurt. Well, that's too bad. Right now that's the way it's gotta be unless we all wanna wind up in the soup.
- Stacey Martin: That's exactly right!
- Judge Robert Ellerbee: That's exactly wrong. That's communist talk. That's just the way they do things. Let the innocent cook with the guilty. To hell with whom we hurt on the way as long as we get where we're going. Let me tell you something. I'm not afraid of communism; or of a communist book in the library. But I am afraid of that kind of talk. It scares the living life out of me. It's one thing I forgot, Duncan, for a while. I forgot what country I live in. Where I live, the safety of any one person, any stubborn old lady, is the sacred concern of every decent citizen. And I hope to God I never forget that again. Never again!
- George Slater: Sure she talks sweet as honey. All the time you can bet she was working away back there. She has twenty five years to fill those shelves with poison. She and those books of hers. All they want is one thing: smash and destroy. Smash everything we've ever built up in this country.