Joe Orton - What the Butler Saw

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Prentice: What this young woman claims is a tissue of lies.
Match: This is a boy, sir. Not a girl. If you're baffled by the difference it might be as well to approach both with caution.

Joe Orton
Rance: Were your relations with your secretary normal?
Prentice: Yes.
Rance: Well, Prentice, your private life is your own affair. I find it shocking none the less.

Joe Orton
Mrs Prentice: Have you taken up transvestism? I'd no idea our marriage teetered on the edge of fashion.

Joe Orton
Nick: I've also found someone to take an option on the photographs.
Mrs Prentice: What photographs?
Nick: I had a camera concealed in the room.
Mrs Prentice: When I gave myself to you the contract didn't include cinematic rights.
Nick: I'd like a hundred quid for the negatives. You've got until lunchtime.
Mrs Prentice: I shall complain to the manager.
Nick: It will do you no good. He took the photographs.
Mrs. Prentice: Oh, this is scandalous! I'm a married woman.
Nick: You didn't behave like a married woman last night.

Joe Orton
Prentice: I'm not mad. It only looks that way.
Rance: Your actions today would get the Archbishop of Canterbury declared non-compos.
Prentice: I'm not the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rance: That will come at a later stage of your illness.

Joe Orton
Prentice: This appalling situation is the result of my lax moral code. It's clean living and Teach Yourself Woodwork for me from now on!

Joe Orton
Geraldine: We must tell the truth!
Prentice: That's a thoroughly defeatist attitude.

Joe Orton
Mrs Prentice: Are you ashamed of the fact that you write to strange men?
Prentice: There's nothing furtive in my relationship with the editor of The Guardian.

Joe Orton
Prentice: It's a fascinating theory, sir, and cleverly put together. Does it tie in with known facts?
Rance: That need not cause us undue anxiety. Civilizations have been founded and maintained on theories which refused to obey facts.

Joe Orton
Mrs Prentice: My uterine contractions have been bogus for some time!
Prentice: What a discovery! Married to the mistress of the fraudulent climax.

Joe Orton
Rance: A search party must be organized. What have you in the way of dogs?
Prentice: A spaniel and a miniature poodle.
Rance: Let them be unleashed!

Joe Orton
Rance: You may speak freely in front of me. I represent Her Majesty's Government. Your immediate superiors in madness. I'm from the Commissioners.
Prentice: Which branch?
Rance: The mental branch.
Prentice: Do you cover asylums proper? Or just houses of tentative madness?
Rance: My brief is infinite. I'd have sway over a rabbit hutch if the inmates were mentally disturbed.

Joe Orton
Geraldine: I've no idea who my father was.
Prentice: I'd better be frank, Miss Barclay. I can't employ you if you're in any way miraculous. It would be contrary to established practice. You did have a father?
Geraldine: Oh, I'm sure I did. My mother was frugal in her habits, but she'd never economize unwisely.

Joe Orton
Mrs. Prentice: Are you Geraldine Barclay?
Nick: Yes.
Mrs. Prentice: Where have you been?
Nick: I've been attending to the thousand and one duties that occupy the average secretary during her working hours.
Mrs Prentice: It doesn't take the whole morning to file your nails, surely?
Nick: I had to lie down. I was sick.
Mrs. Prentice: Are you pregnant?
Nick: I can't discuss my employer's business with you.

Joe Orton
Two young people—one mad and one sexually insatiable—both naked—are roaming this house. At all costs we must prevent a collision.

Joe Orton
Mrs Prentice: You put me in an impossible position.
Nick: No position is impossible when you're young and healthy.

Joe Orton
Prentice: It's ridiculous. I'm a married man.
Match: Marriage excuses no one the freaks' roll-call.

Joe Orton
Geraldine: At least give me back my clothes. I feel naked without them.

Joe Orton
Geraldine: I'm quite a fuckwit!
Rance: Pull yourself together. Why have you been certified if you're sane? Even for a madwoman you're unusually dense.

Joe Orton
You were born with your legs apart. They'll send you to the grave in a Y-shaped coffin.

Joe Orton
Prentice: My nerves are on edge.
Rance: You should consult a qualified psychiatrist.
Prentice: I am a qualified psychiatrist.
Rance: You're a fool. That isn't quite the same thing. Though, in your case, the two may have much in common.

Joe Orton
Nick: I'm sorry if my behaviour last night caused your wife anxiety, but I've a burning desire to sleep with every woman I meet.
Prentice: That's a filthy habit and, in my opinion, very injurious to the health.
Nick: It is, sir. My health's never been the same since I went off stamp-collecting.
Prentice: We have an overall moral policy in this clinic from which even I am not exempt. Whilst you're with us I shall expect you to show an interest in no one's sexual organs but your own.
Nick: I would miss a lot of fun that way.
Prentice: That is the object of the exercise.

Joe Orton
Prentice: Unnatural vice can ruin a man.
Rance: Ruin follows the accusation not the vice.

Joe Orton
Rance: How shocking! His abnormal condition has driven him to seek refuge in religion. Always the last ditch stand of a man on the brink of disaster.

Joe Orton