Dogville quotes

237 total quotes

Chapter EIGHT
Chapter FIVE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter NINE
Chapter ONE

Chapter SEVEN
Chapter SIX
Chapter THREE
Chapter TWO
Prologue
Quotes about Dogville

View Quote No more words were spoken at the town meeting in the mission house. But it had been decided, they all felt, that the fugitive would be given two weeks. And they would all be able to look at themselves in the mirror and know that they had done what they could, indeed, and perhaps more than most people would have done.

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 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 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 She could have kept her vulnerability to herself, but she had elected to give herself up to him at random. As... Yes... a gift. "Generous, very generous", thought Tom.

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.

View Quote The difference between the people she knew back home and the people she'd met in Dogville had proven somewhat slighter than she'd expected.

View Quote The evening before the escape Tom tactically thought it best not to press his desires of the flesh too hard upon Grace, and instead he adopted a more sensitive approach.

View Quote The hours in the orchard were long now, for the harvest was underway. And Grace had long since given up arguing with Chuck's perception that respect for cultivation, harvest, and fruit could be directly measured in provision of carnality.

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 Though reluctant to leave Grace alone Tom wandered around quite often now, lost in thought as he tried to crack the problem of possible escape. And as Grace's wages no longer found their way to her purse he had stepped in, and together they had triumphantly picked up the last of the seven figurines from Ma Ginger's window.

View Quote To call the mood of the audience at Tom's morale lecture in the mission house the next day "enthusiastic" would have been going too far — but they had come. And Tom had launched himself fearlessly into his endeavor to illustrate the human problem: to receive. The subject was obvious, but quite dreadfully ill-considered by this young man. To compensate for his lack of preparation Tom made diligent use of his technique of lashing out somewhat haphazardly in all directions.

View Quote Tom could have spent another half hour or more on the bench, but another unusual noise roused him. It was Moses barking. Oh, that wasn't unusual in itself, but it was the way he barked that was new. His barking was not loud, but more of a snarl, as if the danger was quite close at hand and not merely a passing raccoon or fox. As if the dog were standing face to face with a force to be taken seriously.

View Quote Tom's father had been a doctor and now received a modest pension so it was no great disaster for Tom to drift about not doing anything in particular. Tom was a writer... at any rate by his own lights. Oh, his output as committed to paper was so far limited to the words "great" and "small", followed by a question mark, but nevertheless meticulously archived in one of his many bureau drawers... In order to postpone the time at which he would have to put pen to paper in earnest, Tom had now come up with a series of meetings on moral rearmament with which he felt obliged to benefit the town.

View Quote Whether Grace left Dogville or on the contrary, Dogville had left her (and the world in general) is a question of a more artful nature that few would benefit from by asking and even fewer by providing an answer. And nor indeed will it be answered here.