Chapter EIGHT quotes

View Quote In which there is a meeting where the truth is told and Tom leaves (only to return later)
I'm here to do the thinking for you. If we are to have the slightest chance of getting you out of here, they can never know how close we really are. They can't know I'm trying to help you. If they knew it was me that took the money, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. Tom

View Quote Please don't disappear, Tom. I need you. Grace

View Quote Now that Vera had received proof that it was in fact Chuck who'd forced his attentions on Grace, she was meaner than ever. Had Grace had friends in Dogville they, too, fell like the leaves.

View Quote Everything I tried to do went wrong. I can't come up with the answer I was looking for. Tom

View Quote It all started with a meeting, so it will be logical to end it with one too. You'll talk and they'll listen. They can't refuse to listen. Tom

View Quote It is like a child who doesn't want to take his medicine. They'll be furious at first, but in the end they'll see it is for their own good. Just don't be hateful. Don't be reproving. If anybody can do it, Grace, you can. Tom

View Quote If forgiveness was close at hand in the mission house, they were all hiding it well. It hadn't been easy for Tom to get them there. Appealing to consciences stowed farther and farther away by their owners every day as if they were as fragile as Henson's glasses after polishing, had proved quite a task. But if one was going, the others might as well come along, too, so nobody could talk behind anybody's back.

View Quote Grace had presented her story with clarity. She had not embellished or understated. And just as she finished the snowflakes all at once stopped tumbling down, leaving Dogville clad in the daintiest, whitest blanket of snow imaginable.

View Quote The snow had come early, perhaps too early. A misplaced augury of conciliation. Tom looked around, worried: Vera's teeth were clenched. She was the first to speak.

View Quote Copious lies. Just lies. Vera

View Quote Tom, I got to tell you. Even I have trouble defending that girl. With your help, which I prefer to think was accidental, Tom... She has managed to spread bitterness and troubles throughout this whole town. She has to go. How do we get rid of her, Tom. Jack McKay

View Quote I asked you here to listen. You only came to defend yourselves... I'm sorry it's quite a blow to me to see all of my friends act this way, so uncivilized. Tom

View Quote No, no more plans. I promise. They asked me to chose between you and them. That's not difficult on a day like today. I love you. You may be stronger, it's true, but the ideals, the ideals we share... I've chosen, Grace. I have chosen you. Now it is the time! The time we've been waiting for. We free ourselves of Dogville. Tom

View Quote It'd be so easy to make love right now. They may kill us any minute... It would be the perfect romantic ending... It would be so beautiful. But from the point of view of our love, so completely wrong... We were to meet in freedom. Grace

View Quote You're cold now, Grace. I've just rejected everybody I've ever known in your favor. Wouldn't it be worth compromising, just one of your ideals just a little to ease my pain? Everybody in this town has had your body, but me... We're the ones supposed to be in love. Tom

View Quote My darling Tom. You can have me if you want me. Just do what the others do. Threaten me. Tell me that you'll turn me in to the law, to the gangsters and I promise you, you can take whatever it is you want from me. I trust you, but maybe you don't trust yourself? Perhaps you've been tempted, you've been tempted to join the others and force me. Perhaps that's why you're so upset. Grace

View Quote Let tomorrow bring what it's gonna bring. It's not a crime to doubt yourself, Tom, but it's wonderful that you don't. Grace

View Quote Of course it was all a load of nonsense. If anybody was capable of keeping track of ideals and reality, he was. After all, it was his job. Moral issues were his home ground. To think that he might doubt his own purity was really to think very little of him.

View Quote It was all quite a blow to the young philosopher! And realistically enough, he thought that if the doubt was already present, it could grow. Perhaps so great that one day it would prove detrimental to his entire moral mission. ... Fortunately Tom was as conscientious as regards his future profession as he was practical. He allowed sincerity, and ideals plenty of room in his life, without getting "sentimental" about it, as he would put it.

View Quote Grace opened her eyes after an almost unconscious sleep, and was confused... Judging by the light coming through the cracks in the walls, it had to be nearly midday... "The grey hour" as Jack McKay for some reason called noon in Dogville, being a man of many ideas and proclivities, quite a few of which Grace would prefer to remain ignorant of!
But why had nobody roused her? Nobody had hammered furiously at her door. Not a child had thrown mud into her bed or broken her remaining windowpanes. Now she remembered. She recalled the meeting the previous day, and puzzled still more. Why had she not been confronted with the outcome of that meeting? Or even killed? It was quite unlike Dogville to restrain its indignation at any point. Perhaps things had turned out well after all?

View Quote We thought some time off would be good for you. That was quite a speech you made yesterday. It gave us all something to think about. Mrs. Henson

View Quote I wouldn't say we won exactly, not exactly, but I think something very good can come out of this, something very good. Tom

View Quote Tom: The people of this town they surprise me again and again. I might even have to revise my theories a little bit. You know how much I hate doing that kind of thing. You know, Grace, last night when I came back and I saw you lying there asleep so sweetly, I was suddenly inspired. I wrote the first chapter of a story. A story about a small town. Guess where I got the inspiration? But I haven't come up with a name for the town yet.
Grace: Why not just call it Dogville?
Tom: Wouldn't work. No, it wouldn't work. It's got to be universal. Lot of writers make that mistake, you see. Hey, do you want me to read it to you? If there is any love in it, it comes from you...

View Quote Two people only hurt each other if they doubt the love they have for one another. You can read it some other time. You sit down some place and gaze out at the mountains. It's what the girl in my novel does. Tom

View Quote Sensibly, Grace chose to hope for the best rather than fear the worst, and planned to spend the day calmly washing her clothes and herself, which for some reason or another she was sure none of the characters from Tom's fictitious township would dream of doing.

View Quote After two days off Grace had been put back to work, but the quietness remained... Indeed it intensified ... until on the fifth day it swelled into a strange mood that, all of a sudden, brought all the citizens to the street to listen. They asked each other if the phone was really still down, or if they'd heard about Ben having had to turn his truck around on his way to Georgetown that very morning on account of a large tree blocking the road. They were not worried ... worried was not the right word... and then Tom spotted the cars.

View Quote Grace had just started on the bed, which June had soiled yet again, when an irritating feeling of wasting her time forced itself upon her. And it was without thinking she then said the words: "Nobody gonna sleep here." She didn't say them out loud, but even so she was startled by the utterance that had urged itself upon her. Where had these ominous words come from?

View Quote You couldn't bring yourself to throw it away, could you? The number he gave you that night. You couldn't throw it away. I told you how dangerous that man was. That was stupid. Grace

View Quote Stupid or not, Tom was soon a passionate spokesman for locking Grace in her shed that night. If the vehicles were indeed a sign that the call Tom had placed five days earlier on behalf of the community to the number indicated on the card from his bureau drawer had at last led to action, and Grace was now to be eliminated from their lives, it would surely look good if the town had also locked her up.
Grace was lying on the bed when Jason was sent up with the key. Grace heard it turn in the lock, but she was deeply absorbed by arguments and thoughts on matters she had otherwise avoided for the best part of a year now.