Jerome Lawrence Quotes

“The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool. College examinations notwithstanding, it takes a very smart fella to say ‘I don’t know the answer!‘”

“howard: What’re yuh skeered of? You was a worm once! melinda: (Shocked) I wasn’t neither. howard: You was so! When the whole world was covered with water, there was nothin’ but worms and blobs of jelly. And you and your whole family was worms!”

“The individual human mind. In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘Amens!‘, ‘Holy, Holies!’ and ‘Hosannahs!’ An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of waters!”

“Mr. Drummond. You’ve got to call the whole thing off. It’s not too late. Bert knows he did wrong. He didn’t mean to. And he’s sorry. Now why can’t he just stand up and say to everybody: ‘I did wrong. I broke a law. I admit it. I won’t do it again.’ Then they’d stop all this fuss, and—everything would be like it was.”

“BRADY. The Bible satisfies me, it is enough. DRUMMOND. It frightens me to imagine the state of learning in this world if everyone had your driving curiosity.”

“My friends of Hillsboro, you know why I have come here. I have not come merely to prosecute a lawbreaker, an arrogant youth who has spoken out against the Revealed Word.”

“I’ve seen what you can do to a jury. Twist and tangle them. Nobody’s forgotten the Endicott Publishing case—where you made the jury believe the obscenity was in their own minds, not on the printed page. It was immoral what you did to that jury. Tricking them. Judgment by confusion. Think you can get away with it here?”

“The use of this title prejudices the case of my client: it calls up a picture of the prosecution, astride a white horse, ablaze in the uniform of a militia colonel, with all the forces of right and righteousness marshaled behind him.”

“You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think—so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know. A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born. If it dies inside you, part of you dies too!”

“How quickly they can turn. And how painful it can be when you don’t expect it. (He turns) I wonder how it feels to be Almost-President three times—with a skull full of undelivered inauguration speeches.”

“Did you see his face? He looked terrible…”

“All shine, and no substance! (Turning to Cates) Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie—show it up for what it really is!”

“You smart-aleck! You have no more right to spit on his religion than you have a right to spit on my religion! Or my lack of it!”

“Now what will Drummond do? He’ll try to make us forget the lawbreaker and put the law on trial.”

“Cates, I’ll change your plea and we’ll call off the whole business—on one condition. If you honestly believe you committed a criminal act against the citizens of the state and the minds of their children. If you honestly believe that you’re wrong and the law’s right. Then the hell with it.”

“You make it sound as if Bert is a hero. I’d like to think that, but I can’t. A schoolteacher is a public servant: I think he should do what the law and the school-board want him to. If the superintendent says, ‘Miss Brown, you’re to teach from Whitley’s Second Reader,’ I don’t feel I have to give him an argument.”

“MELINDA. (Calling to HOWARD across the courtroom) Which side won? HOWARD. (Calling back) I ain’t sure. But the whole thing’s over!”

“If the enemy sends its Goliath into battle, it magnifies our cause. Henry Drummond has stalked the courtrooms of this land for forty years. When he fights, headlines follow. (With growing fervor) The whole world will be watching our victory over Drummond. (Dramatically) If St. George had slain a dragonfly, who would remember him.”

“I can’t imagine the world without Matthew Harrison Brady.”

“What a challenge it is, to fit on the old armor again! To test the steel of our Truth against the blasphemies of Science!”