Dogville quotes

237 total quotes

Chapter EIGHT
Chapter FIVE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter NINE
Chapter ONE

Chapter SEVEN
Chapter SIX
Chapter THREE
Chapter TWO
Prologue
Quotes about Dogville

View Quote Grace looked around at the frightened faces behind the windowpanes that were following her every step, and felt ashamed of being part of inflicting that fear. How could she ever hate them for what was at bottom merely their weakness?

View Quote Grace opened her eyes after an almost unconscious sleep, and was confused... Judging by the light coming through the cracks in the walls, it had to be nearly midday... "The grey hour" as Jack McKay for some reason called noon in Dogville, being a man of many ideas and proclivities, quite a few of which Grace would prefer to remain ignorant of!
But why had nobody roused her? Nobody had hammered furiously at her door. Not a child had thrown mud into her bed or broken her remaining windowpanes. Now she remembered. She recalled the meeting the previous day, and puzzled still more. Why had she not been confronted with the outcome of that meeting? Or even killed? It was quite unlike Dogville to restrain its indignation at any point. Perhaps things had turned out well after all?

View Quote Grace paused. And while she did, the clouds scattered and let the moonlight through and Dogville underwent another of those little changes of light. It was if the light, previously so merciful and faint, finally refused to cover up for the town any longer. Suddenly you could no longer imagine a berry that would appear one day on a gooseberry bush, but only see the thorn that was there right now. The light now penetrated every unevenness and flaw in the buildings... and in... the people! And all of a sudden she knew the answer to her question all to well: If she had acted like them, she could not have defended a single one of her actions and could not have condemned them harshly enough.

View Quote Grace turned into the alley which went by the exotic name, Glunen Street to knock on the door of the blind — but only too vain — man.

View Quote Grace was no expert in exclusive automobiles, yet she recognized with no difficulty the sound of the vehicle that was rounding the corner from Canyon Road at that very moment. Alas, in Grace's memory the legendary purr of the Cadillac series 355 C was inextricably linked with another, rather less sophisticated sound: that of gunfire directed against her person.

View Quote Grace was standing beside Tom, watching them convene, and knew inside herself that this might well be the last time she would see these now so familiar faces. She had at least two of them against her, and even one would have been too many.

View Quote Grace was the same and so was the town. That the gangsters had fixed to have charges made against Grace in their efforts to neutralize her came as no surprise. But everything had changed a little yet again.

View Quote Grace's interview with Jack McKay proved sadly symptomatic of the attitude in Dogville. Reserved but friendly, not without curiosity. Only Jack had expressed his "no" concisely and precisely: Martha needed a monologue almost an hour long to arrive at the same conclusion.

View Quote If forgiveness was close at hand in the mission house, they were all hiding it well. It hadn't been easy for Tom to get them there. Appealing to consciences stowed farther and farther away by their owners every day as if they were as fragile as Henson's glasses after polishing, had proved quite a task. But if one was going, the others might as well come along, too, so nobody could talk behind anybody's back.

View Quote It didn't help Grace that the first theft ever registered in Dogville had taken place the previous evening, when most people were assembled for the town meeting. Old Tom Edison Senior had had a considerable sum of money stolen from his medicine closet and suspicion soon fell on Grace, who had apparently been planning an escape that would surely require funding. Grace chose to remain silent in the face of these new charges.

View Quote It was all quite a blow to the young philosopher! And realistically enough, he thought that if the doubt was already present, it could grow. Perhaps so great that one day it would prove detrimental to his entire moral mission. ... Fortunately Tom was as conscientious as regards his future profession as he was practical. He allowed sincerity, and ideals plenty of room in his life, without getting "sentimental" about it, as he would put it.

View Quote Just as Dogville had done from its open, frail shelf on the mountainside, quite unprotected from any capricious storms, Grace, too, had laid herself open. And there she dangled from her frail stalk like the apple in the Garden of Eden. An apple so swollen that the juices almost ran. And once again the police had come to Dogville.

View Quote Knowing the exact time to harvest is the greatest art of all, Chuck had said, and the time had come. For the apples and for Grace.

View Quote Most of the buildings were pretty wretched; more like shacks; frankly. The house in which Tom lived was the best, though, and in good times might almost have passed for presentable.

View Quote Next day the weather changed. The fog came rolling down from the mountains. And although there were no sunsets to be seen, McKay thought it best that she sat by him anyway. She had sat by Jack McKay so many times now, but Jack had not got better at judging the distance between them. On the contrary, where fingers alone had previously brushed her young flesh, now it was a hand that remained in place throughout the allotted span.