- Helena Ekdahl: Yes, Oscar, that's how it is. One is old and a child at the same time. What became of those long years in between that seemed so important at the time? I sit here growing melancholy, thinking time was all too short.
- Emilie Ekdahl: How could I be so blind? How could I feel compassion for that man? I'm an actress. I should have seen through his pretense.
- Alexander Ekdahl: The lightning struck.
- Fanny Ekdahl: It was nearby.
- Alexander Ekdahl: I hope the damn cathedral went to hell.
- Fanny Ekdahl: What if God punishes you for saying that?
- Alexander Ekdahl: If a big know-it-all like him punishes a runt like me for so little, then he's just the dirty bastard I suspect he is.
- Helena Ekdahl: May I take your hand? I remember your hand as a child. It was small and firm and dry. And your wrist was so awfully slender. I enjoyed being a mother. I enjoyed being an actress, too, but I preferred being a mother. I liked having a big belly and I didn't give two shakes about the theater then. It's all acting anyway. Some roles are nice, others not so nice. I played a mother. I played Juliet and Margareta. Then suddenly I played a widow or a grandmother. One role follows the other. The thing is not to shrink from them. But what became of it all? Can you tell me that, my boy? You're a good boy to listen to your old mother's soliloquies. Yes, you're a good boy, Oscar. And I grieved terribly when you past away. That was a a strange role to play. My feelings came from deep in my body. Even though I could control them, they shattered reality, if you know what I mean. Reality has remained broken ever since, and, oddly enough, it feels more real that way. So I don't bother to mend it. I just don't care anymore if nothing makes sense.
- Helena Ekdahl: Your father used to say I was sentimental. He wasn't known as a particularly sensitive man. He was both angry and indignant when he died. He never thought life was cruel or beautiful. He just lived and didn't care to comment. And when I went on about life, he laughed and called me sentimental. But I was an artist. As an artist, I had a right to be emotional.
- Emilie Ekdahl: I saw nothing, understood nothing. He spoke to me of another life. A life of demands, of purity, of joy in the performance of duty. I'd never heard such words. There seemed to be a light around him when he spoke to me. At the same time, I could tell he was lonely, unhappy, haunted by fear and bad dreams. He assured me I would save him. He said together with the children we'd live in nearness of God. In the truth. The truth - that was the most important part. I was so thirsty. I know it sounds dramatic and overstrung, Helena, but I thirsted for truth and felt I'd been living a lie.
- Gustav Adolf Ekdahl: [looking at a photograph] This woman with the low neckline was one of Papa's lady friends.
- Helena Ekdahl: You're mistaken. We were at school together. The married a Count, had 12 children and became as big as a house.
- Gustav Adolf Ekdahl: I always admired your skillful way of handling Papa's little adventures.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: You've won a great victory. A victory over yourself. Which punishment do you choose? Cane, castor oil, or the dark cubbyhole?
- Alexander Ekdahl: How many strokes of the cane?
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: Ten.
- Alexander Ekdahl: Then I choose the cane.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: Take two cushions and put them on the table. Pull your pants down. Bend over.
- Emilie Ekdahl: I am shut in and can no longer breathe. I'm dying, Helena! I hate that man so violently.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: By being irresponsible, you've forced me to take responsibility, not only for your children but also for you. It's a heavy burden.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: Punishment given out of love can never be humiliating in the deeper sense. Love and respect have nothing in common, and the language of love can be rather harsh.
- Emilie Ekdahl: [with disdain] You're one to speak of love.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: I'm an ordinary man with great faults, but I exercise a powerful office that always overshadows the person holding it. A man becomes a slave to such an office.
- Emilie Ekdahl: You don't frighten me.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: I must frighten you, Emilie. But I do so with a heavy heart, since I love you in spite of everything. You're not strong, Emilie.
- Emilie Ekdahl: I could kill you.
- Bishop Edvard Vergérus: Emilie. You'll harm the baby with thoughts like that.
- Emilie Ekdahl: Our baby will never be born.