Catherine Holly: [being sedated] Who was it that said we were all a bunch of kindergarteners trying to spell God's name with the wrong alphabet blocks?

Catherine Holly: Cut the truth out of my brain... is that what you want Aunt Vi ? Well you can't. Not even God can change the truth that we were nothing but a pair of-"
Mrs. Venable: Doctor!
Catherine Holly: It's the truth!
Mrs. Venable: See how she destroys us with her tongue for a hatchet? You've got to cut this hideous story out of her brain.
Catherine Holly: How much are you willing to pay for that Aunt Vi?

Catherine Holly: Is that what love is? Using people? And maybe that's what hate is - not being able to use people.

Catherine Holly: Truth is the one thing I've never resisted.

Dr. Cukrowicz: Insane is such a meaningless term.
Catherine Holly: But lobotomy has only one meaning to it, doesn't it?

Dr. Cukrowicz: May I sit here?
Mrs. Venable: Sebastian's seat.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Oh! Well...
Mrs. Venable: Oh, no no please, please. It's a court jester's chair, a rare one, five-hundred years old. Please, sit on it. Say something funny; make me stop wanting to cry.

Dr. Cukrowicz: Mrs. Venable, loving your neice as you do, you must know there's great risk in this operation. Whenever you enter the brain with a foreign object...
Mrs. Venable: Yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Even a needle thin knife.
Mrs. Venable: Yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: In the hands of the most skilled surgeon...
Mrs. Venable: Yes, yes.
Dr. Cukrowicz: There is a great deal of risk.
Mrs. Venable: But it does pacify them, I've read that, it quiets them down. It suddenly makes them peaceful.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Yes that that it does do, but...
Dr. Cukrowicz: But what?
Dr. Cukrowicz: Well it will be years before we know if the immediate benefits of the operation are lasting or maybe just passing or perhaps... there's a strong possibility that the patient will always be limited. Relieved of acute anxiety yes, but limited.
Mrs. Venable: But what a blessing Dr. to be just peaceful. To be just suddenly peaceful. After all that horror. After those nightmares. Just to be able to lift up their eyes to a sky not black with savage devouring birds.

Dr. Cukrowicz: Nature is not made in the image of man's compassion.

Dr. Lawrence J. Hockstader: [after Catherine reveals what happened to Sebastian last summer] There's every possibility that the girl's story is true!

Dr. Lawrence J. Hockstader: She burnt a nun with a cigarette.
Dr. Cukrowicz: Yes she did, I was there, I saw it, she was provoked!
Dr. Lawrence J. Hockstader: Provoked? Whover would provoke a mentally disturbed person?
Dr. Cukrowicz: You'd be surprised.