Joe Orton

I was approached to do a film script for the Beatles. I said it would have to be an absolutely original script. Paul McCartney said do whatever you like. I said that means you'll never be able to do it.

— Joe Orton

Fay: You've been a widower for three days. Have you considered remarrying yet?McLeavy: I've been so busy with the funeral.

— Joe Orton

Fay: Have you known him long?Hal: We were too young then to practice and economics still defeat us.

— Joe Orton

Fay: What will you do when you're old?Fay: I see you're determined to run the gamut of all experience.

— Joe Orton

Fay: The Ten Commandments. She was a great believer in some of them.

— Joe Orton

Dennis: She's turned me down. She's broken my heart.Dennis: But she does! That's what's so humiliating.

— Joe Orton

Fay: Your explanation had the ring of truth about it.. Naturally I disbelieved every word.

— Joe Orton

Truscott: Why aren't you both at the funeral? I thought you were mourners.Truscott: That's a selfish attitude to take. The dead can't bury themselves, you know.

— Joe Orton

Truscott (shouting, knocking Hal to the floor): Under any other political system I'd have you on the floor in tears!Hal (crying): You've got me on the floor in tears!

— Joe Orton

Truscott: Do you realize what I'm doing here?Truscott: That is as it should be. The process by which the police arrive at the solution to a mystery is, in itself, a mystery.

— Joe Orton

Hal: God is a gentleman. He prefers blondes.

— Joe Orton

McLeavy: Where did I go wrong? His upbringing was faultless. Did you lead him astray?Hal: You met me when you were three days old.

— Joe Orton

Truscott: How dare you involve me in a situation for which no memo has been issued.

— Joe Orton

Fay: Have you given a thought to the priest?Truscott: I arrested the man. He's doing twelve years.

— Joe Orton

McLeavy: I'm innocent. (A little unsure of himself, the beginnings of panic) Doesn't that mean anything to you?

— Joe Orton

Geraldine: I've no idea who my father was.Geraldine: Oh, I'm sure I did. My mother was frugal in her habits, but she'd never economize unwisely.

— Joe Orton

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

— 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

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

— 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.Rance: My brief is infinite. I'd have sway over a rabbit hutch if the inmates were mentally disturbed.

— Joe Orton

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

— Joe Orton

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

— 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

Rance: A search party must be organized. What have you in the way of dogs?Rance: Let them be unleashed!

— 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

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: 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

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

Prentice: My nerves are on edge.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

Usual messages from the heads of the establishment. The Queen from Windsor, the Pope from Rome: Pilate and Caiaphas celebrating the birth of Christ.

— Joe Orton

On our way home we were waiting for the bus when a very fat, pompous-looking woman reeled out of a pub shouting, "Melancholia? Ad nauseam."

— Joe Orton

With insanity, as with vomit, it is the passerby who receives the inconvenience.

— Joe Orton