| Abigail | Let you tell them I confessed it – and I’ll be whipped if I must be. But they’re speaking of witchcraft. Betty’s not witched. |
| Parris | Your name in the town – it is entirely white, is it not? |
| Mrs. Putnam | Why that’s strange. Ours is open. |
| Rebecca Nurse | I have laid seven unbaptized babies in the earth. |
| Betty | You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor! |
| Abigail | I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine. |
| John Proctor | Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y’! You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty. |
| Rebecca Nurse | A child’s spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back. |
| Giles Corey | He nearly willed away my north pasture but he knew I’d break his fingers before he’s set his name to it. |
| Hale | Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. |
| Giles Corey | Last night – mark this – I tried and tried and could not say my prayers. And then she close her book and walks out of the house, and suddenly – mark this – I could pray again! |
| Parris | You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death. |
| John Proctor | It’s winter in here yet. |
| Mary Warren | We must all love each other now, Goody Proctor. |
| Danforth | Come now. You say your only purpose is to save your wife. Look now, she is saved at least this year, and a year is long What say you, sir? |
| Francis Nurse | Mr. Danforth, I gave them all my word no harm would come to them for signing this. |
| Giles Corey | If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property – that’s law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land. |
| Danforth | There, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now, we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims – and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. |
| Abigail | Let you beware, Mr. Danforth. Think you to be so mighty that the power of Hell may not turn your wits? |
| John Proctor | You are pulling down heaven and raising up a *****. |
| Parris | Thirty-one pound is gone. I am penniless. |
| Giles Corey | More weight. |
| Elizabeth | I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery. |
| John Proctor | I have confessed myself! I there no good penitence but it be public? God does not need my name nailed upon the church |
| John Proctor | I have given you my sould, leave me my name. |
| John Proctor | Give them no tear. Tears pleasure them. Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it. |
| Danforth | Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption! |
| Elizabeth | He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him! |
‘The Crucible” – Quotes
March 4, 2020