- Lilith Arthur: If you should discover that your god loved others as much as he loved you, would you hate him for it?
- Lilith Arthur: You've killed with these hands. Why?
- Vincent Bruce: That's the business of a soldier.
- Lilith Arthur: You must love your God a lot to kill for him and still go on loving him. I'd never ask that of a lover. I'd only ask his joy.
- Stephen Evshevsky: How wonderful I feel when I'm happy. Do you think that insanity could be so simple a thing as unhappiness?
- Dr. Lavrier: [at a meeting with the assembled staff] So many of these people have such extraordinary minds. Such extraordinary sensibilities - too extraordinary, I think, sometimes. This is not a scientific theory... maybe it's romantic. But I often compare them to fine crystal which has been shattered by the shock of some intolerable revelation. I often have a feeling when I talk with them that they have seen too much with too fine an instrument. That they have been close to some extreme - to something absolute - and been blasted by it. That they have been destroyed, one might say, by their own excellence. Regarded in this way, they are the heroes of the universe. Its finest product, and its noblest casualty.
- Dr. Lavrier: Schizophrenia, however, is far from being an exclusive affliction of the superior mind. As a matter of fact, by using a substance from the blood of humans, schizophrenia has been induced in dogs, spiders, as well as men.
- Dr. Lavrier: [he has an assistant put up some slides of spider webs on a projector] As you will note, the web of most normal spider species is as distinctive and invariable as their coloring. But the mad ones spin out fantastic, asymmetrical - and rather nightmarish designs - a most unsettling fact.
- Vincent Bruce: You see, I don't really think Lilith is unhappy. Most of the patients are. But I don't think she is. She's got some, um, uh, I don't know, she's got a kind of a...
- Dr. Lavrier: Rapture?
- Vincent Bruce: What was the word?
- Dr. Lavrier: Rapture.
- Vincent Bruce: "Rapture"? That's a very good word for it.
- Dr. Lavrier: Yes, it is a very good word. In Shakespeare's time it *meant* madness. As the words "ecstasy" and "innocence" often did. I think all of us here are concerned with rapture in some way. And when a man devotes himself to studying the nature of rapture, he may find himself dispossessed by it. That's one of the risks we take.
- Stephen Evshevsky: You hurt my hand!
- Lilith Arthur: Let me see...
- Lilith Arthur: [she closely examines his hand] You really have exquisite hands.
- Stephen Evshevsky: I bite my nails.
- Stephen Evshevsky: [continues] If I learn to trust my hands... would they really lead me to things I love?
- Lilith Arthur: You know what she wants? You think they can cure this fire? You know what they have to cure? She wants to leave the mark of her desire on every living creature in the world. If she were Caesar, she'd do it with a sword. If she were a poet, she'd do it with words. But she's Lilith; she has to do it with her body.
- Vincent Bruce: [after Stephen's suicide] Have them cover up his hands. He didn't like people looking at his fingers.
- Stephen Evshevsky: I suppose you think it's rather foolish, rather absurd - this attachment of mine... She's so proud, you know. Such a delicate creature. And yet she allowed me to touch her hair, for a moment. You saw that she allowed me?
- Stephen Evshevsky: [Mr. Bruce nods] You see, I really have nothing else to live for.
- Lilith Arthur: [Vincent is in Lilith's room at the asylum] Why did you come here?
- Vincent Bruce: I needed a job.
- Lilith Arthur: [Looking at him rather skeptically] You could get a job in a butcher shop... Grocery store, gas station.
- Vincent Bruce: [Vincent nods in agreement, but remains silent]
- Lilith Arthur: You were in the army... were you a hero?
- Vincent Bruce: [Vincent says nothing, just nods his head, yes, then shakes his head, no]
- Lilith Arthur: I didn't think so.
- Lilith Arthur: [pauses, gives him a long, piercing look] Did you come here for excitement?
- Vincent Bruce: Excitement?
- Lilith Arthur: Adventure?
- Vincent Bruce: I'm not an adventurer.
- Lilith Arthur: I think you are.
- Vincent Bruce: Why?
- Lilith Arthur: You're ill at ease. Adventurous people are always a little ill at ease. They're shy. They're not bold the way people think they are. They go stumbling around, breaking things, being scolded. Always looking for a place where they'll feel they belong. They have that crooked look.
- Vincent Bruce: [a bit puzzled] "Crooked look"?
- Lilith Arthur: Of not really matching anything... I'd like to go for a walk now.
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