- Grover Allen: I don't even need to check my watch any more. I know exactly what he's going to do. At exactly 7.15 he's going to unlock the first door
- [with the sign that says: Positively no Admittance]
- Grover Allen: , at 7.16 he will unlock the cage door. At 7.17 exactly he will unlock the steel door
- [with the sign: Danger! High Explosives! Keep Out!]
- Grover Allen: . And he will spy exactly one hour hoping that somebody will make a mistake.
- Grover Allen: We have to think about the future. Now, Jeff is gonna grow up in his own new world, not the old tired world that I know. We have to help him stand on his own two feet and not be afraid of the future.
- Della: Are you talking about me or Jeff?
- Grover Allen: Both of you maybe. You worry too much about how it might have been if Johnny was here. But Johnny went off to war, and Johnny is never gonna come m arching home again.
- Duke Shannon: Have you forgotten how much I like Abilene cobbler?
- Charlie Wooster: That pie is for Miss Phoebe!
- Duke Shannon: Charlie's getting about as mean as a striped pole cat. And twice as selfish!
- Bill Hawks: That's what happens when old age hits a man with a weak mind. You can never tell, Duke.
- Della: Now is that what you call living? Breaking another spinster's poor heart?
- Grover Allen: Break nothing! I'm just gonna discover a few smiles where never a smile was before!
- Charlie Wooster: [Charlie's wagon has collapsed as his invention faltered] What do you think Mr Chris will say?
- Bill Hawks: You'll find out.
- Bill Hawks: Hey, Charlie. That overpowered eggbeater of yours gonna work?
- Charlie Wooster: I'm as happy as the King of England, sitting in a nice breeze, counting the money my patent's gonna make.
- Bill Hawks: Well, don't go sailing off in a cloud of dollars.
- Charlie Wooster: Well, my next patent's gonna be an overstuffed, adjustable chair with an automatic height lever, just like that.
- Grover Allen: [in the words of Beaver Smith] I got a combination you can't beat. I got gumption and I got a smile.
- Will Stebbins: Della, there are things I'd like to talk about. But I haven't. Nothing's hit me so hard. You, Jeff, Grover.
- Della: We all go together.
- Will Stebbins: Yes, I realise that.
- Della: Will, you're a good man, kind and gentle
- Will Stebbins: No, Della, I'm not. I'm lost. I don't know where to.
- Grover Allen: Murder? It was justice. It was justice for all those people that Duskin had tortured, in misery and pain, and humiliation, all those years.. I saw what he did to the women, I saw what he did to the kids, little kids. And I put up with it myself, 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year for nearly 40 years. Since I was his
- [Jeff's]
- Grover Allen: age. Then he fired me. And he was going to fire the rest of the poor, old men because I wanted a minute or two of his precious time. So, for the sake of all mankind, if I had to do it all over again, I would do it a lot sooner! And exactly the same way!
- Jeff: [after a longwinded adventure story with Beaver Smith as the hero] Grandpa, don't you just miss the gaslights burning at night, or the pedlars working in the street, or maybe the trolleycars ringing?
- Grover Allen: No, sir, atta boy. I say that when you can see the smoke from your neighbour's chimney, it's time to move on.