- Mrs. Atwater: Do you know, when I was a girl I used to read quite a bit.
- Brandon: We all do strange things in our childhood.
- Rupert Cadell: Brandon's spoken of you.
- Janet: Did he do me justice?
- Rupert Cadell: Do you deserve justice?
- Brandon: What are you doing?
- Rupert Cadell: It's not what I'm going to do, Brandon. It's what society is going to do. I don't know what that will be, but I can guess, and I can help. You're going to die, Brandon. Both of you. You are going to die.
- [opens a window and fires three shots]
- Brandon: I've always wished for more artistic talent. Well, murder can be an art, too. The power to kill can be just as satisfying as the power to create.
- Rupert Cadell: [Phillip and Brandon have been arguing about strangling chickens] Personally, I think a chicken is as good a reason for murder as a blonde, a mattress full of dollar bills or any of the customary, unimaginative reasons.
- Janet: Well, now, you don't really approve of murder, Rupert? If I may?
- Rupert Cadell: You may... and I do. Think of the problems it would solve: unemployment, poverty, standing in line for theatre tickets... .
- Brandon: An immaculate murder. We've killed for the sake of danger and for the sake of killing. We're alive, truly and wonderfully alive.
- Brandon: Determined to get drunk, aren't you?
- Phillip: I am drunk.
- Brandon: And just as childish as you were before when you called me a liar.
- Phillip: You had no business telling that story.
- Brandon: Why did you lie anyway?
- Phillip: I had to! Have you ever bothered for just one minute to understand how someone else might feel?
- Brandon: I'm not sentimental if that's what you...
- Phillip: No, that's not what I mean; but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters... except that Mr. Brandon liked the party. Mr. Brandon gave the party. Mr. Brandon had a delightful evening. Well, I had a rotten evening!
- Brandon: Keep drinking, and you'll have a worse morning.
- Phillip: At least if I have a hangover, it'll be all mine!
- Rupert Cadell: After all, murder is - or should be - an art. Not one of the 'seven lively', perhaps, but an art nevertheless. And, as such, the privilege of committing it should be reserved for those few who are really superior individuals.
- Brandon: And the victims: inferior beings whose lives are unimportant anyway.
- Rupert Cadell: Obviously. Now, mind you, I don't hold with the extremists who feel that there should be open season for murder all year round. No, personally, I would prefer to have..."Cut a Throat Week"... or, uh, "Strangulation Day"...
- Brandon: That's where we're superior, Phillip. We have courage. Rupert doesn't.
- Mrs. Wilson: [placing a tray of food on the table] Mr. Cadell got a bad leg in the war for his courage. And you've got your sleeve in the celery, Mr. Phillip.
- Brandon: The good Americans usually die young on the battlefield, don't they? Well, the Davids of this world merely occupy space, which is why he was the perfect victim for the perfect murder. Course he, uh, he was a Harvard undergraduate. That might make it justifiable homicide.
- Rupert Cadell: Well, well, well, Kenneth Lawrence, how you've grown.
- Kenneth: Hello, uh, Mr...
- Rupert Cadell: Come on, Ken. School's out, you can say it.
- Kenneth: Rupert, you're the same as ever. It's awfully good to see you again.
- Rupert Cadell: Why?
- Brandon: But why should I want to come back?
- Phillip: Yes, why?
- Brandon: For the pleasure of our company, or another drink?
- Rupert Cadell: That's a very good idea. May I have one for the road?
- Rupert Cadell: Brandon, till this very moment, this world and the people in it have always been dark and incomprehensible to me. I've tried to clear my way with logic and superior intellect. And you've thrown my own words right back in my face, Brandon. You were right, too. If nothing else, a man should stand by his words. But you've given my words a meaning that i never dreamed of ! And you've tried to twist them into a cold, logical excuse for your ugly murder ! Well, they never were that Brandon, and you cant make them that. There must of been something deep inside you from the very start that let you do this thing, but there's always been something deep inside me, that would never let me do it - and would never let me be a party to it now.
- Brandon: What do you mean ?
- Rupert Cadell: I mean that tonight you've made me ashamed of every concept i ever had of superior or inferior beings. But i thank you for that shame, because now i know that we are each of us a separate human being, Brandon. With the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society we live in. By what right do you dare say that there's a superior few to which you belong ? By what right did you dare decide that, that boy in there was inferior and therefore could be killed ? Did you think you were God, Brandon ? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him ? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave ? I dont know what you thought or what you are, but i know what you've done. You've murdered ! You've strangled the life out of another fellow human being who could live and love as you never could - and never will again
- Brandon: What are you doing ?
- Rupert Cadell: It's not what i'm going to do, it's what society's going to do. I don't know what that will be, but i can guess. And i can help. You're going to die, Brandon - both of you ! You're going to die!
- Brandon: Now look, I'm not going to get caught because of you or anyone else. Nobody is going to get in my way now.
- Brandon: What a lovely evening. Pity we couldn't have done it with the curtains open in the bright sunlight.
- Rupert Cadell: I don't know what you thought, but I know what you've done. You've murdered! You've strangled a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could. And never will again.
- Brandon: [referring to his nearly empty glass of champagne] Kenneth, there's too much air in your glass.
- Rupert Cadell: Brandon, exactly what is this?
- Brandon: A cassone I got in Italy.
- Rupert Cadell: No, no, I mean why are we eating off it?
- Brandon: Oh, I've turned the dining room into a library.
- Rupert Cadell: Trust you to find a new use for a chest. One was always turning up in the bedtime stories he told in prep school. 'The Mistletoe Bough', that was always your favorite tale, wasn't it?
- Janet: What was that one about? I don't remember exactly how it started. It was about a lovely young girl...
- Mr. Kentley: She was a bride-to-be. And on her wedding day, she playfully hid herself in a chest.
- Rupert Cadell: Yes, that's right.
- Mr. Kentley: Unfortunately, it had a spring lock. Fifty years later, they found her skeleton.
- Janet: I don't think I'll get that playful.
- Brandon: The few are those men of such intellectual and cultural superiority that they're above the traditional moral concepts. Good and evil, right and wrong, were invented for the ordinary, average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.
- Mr. Kentley: Then obviously you agree with Nietzsche and his theory of the superman.
- Brandon: Yes, I do.
- Mr. Kentley: So did Hitler.
- Brandon: Hitler was a paranoiac savage. His supermen, all fascist supermen, were brainless murderers. I'd hang any who were left. But then, you see, I'd hang them first for being stupid. I'd hang all incompetents and fools anyway. There are far too many in the world.
- Mr. Kentley: Then, perhaps you should hang me, Brandon.
- Rupert Cadell: You were really pushing your point rather hard. You aren't planning to do away with a few inferiors, by any chance?
- Brandon: I'm a creature of whim. Who knows?
- Brandon: Kenneth, why don't you switch on the radio or play some records? A little atmospheric music goes a long way.
- Janet: I might have known you couldn't just give a party for Mr. Kentley. No, you'd have to add something that appealed to your warped sense of humor. Well, I hope you've enjoyed yourself, Brandon.
- Brandon: Another drink?
- Rupert Cadell: Well, that's a very good idea. May I have one for the road?
- Brandon: Of course. A short one?
- Rupert Cadell: No, I'd prefer a long one if you don't mind.
- Rupert Cadell: There must have been something deep inside you from the very start that let you do this thing.
- [first lines]
- Brandon: [David screams, to Phillip] Open it.
- [they put David in the trunk and close it]