The Crucible - Quotations

Characters:

Abigail Williams

Stage directions: an endless capacity for dissembling

•  “…and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.”

• “I’d almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor!”

• Stage directions: Winningly she comes a little closer, with a confidential, wicked air.

• “I want to open myself! I want the light of God… I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”

Stage directions: in an open threat. “Let you beware, Mr Danforth.”

Stage directions: They all watch, as Abigail, out of her infinite charity, reaches out and draws the sobbing Mary to her, and then looks up to Danforth.

John Proctor

• “Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y’!”

•  “It’s well seasoned.”

•  “It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. Aye, naked! And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!”

• “But it is a whore’s vengeance…”

• “I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint.”

• “Is there no good penitence but it be public?”

•  “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

Elizabeth Proctor

Stage directions: She receives it.

• “She thinks to take my place, John.”

• “Adultery, John.”

• “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!”

Rebecca Nurse

• “I have seen them all through their silly seasons…”

• “Let us rather blame ourselves…”

Reverend Hale

• “We cannot look to superstition in this.  The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are as definite as stone…”

• “But it does not follow that everyone accused is part of it.”

• “I may shut my conscience to it no more – private vengeance is working through this testimony!”

•  “I denounce these proceedings!”

• “I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves. There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!”

Thomas Putnam

• “There is a murdering witch among us, bound to keep herself in the dark.”

•  “Sarah Good? Did you ever see Sarah Good with him? Or Osburn?”

Giles Corey

• “This man is killing his neighbours for their land!”
  

Deputy Governor Danforth

• “But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore 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…”

• “Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt upon the guilt of them that died till now. While I speak God’s law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering.”

• “Look you, sir. I think you mistake your duty here. It matters nothing what she thought…”

•  “Is that document a lie? If it is a lie I will not accept it! What say you? I will not deal in lies, Mister!”

•  “Who weeps for them, weeps for corruption!”