- Jackson: Go ahead. Say something, say something fresh.
- Traver: It's easy to insult a man when you got him hog-tied.
- Jackson: You intimatin' I'm a coward 'cause I got you tied up here? Well that ain't it. Believe it, don't believe it, makes no difference. I seen my death half dozen times. And I never yet been scared and that's the truth. You see it's... just like you got a alligator, you tie him up. A lot of soft-hearted people try to-- try to make out a nigger's a man. I just don't believe it. I don't believe you are; God left somethin' out of you, a soul or somethin'. Trying to prove he's a man is what gets a nigger into trouble. Was you a man, I'd be mad at you, but I ain't really. Hell, I'm sorry for you, and that's the truth.
- Traver: I'm just kinda jumpy, you know this Miller guy might not go for my being here and eating his food and smoking his cigarettes, but you're real cool. I mean like, I don't even frighten ya. How come?
- Evalyn: You're just like old Jem. He owned the house before Miller came. He made me slingshots!
- Traver: Slingshots? Well, I don't dig that kinda jazz, but I'd like to tell ya this, you gotta whole lot of soul to be so young.
- Miller: Alright, I admit it. So what? Hell, she's a wild thing. You can't keep a man cooped up on this stinkin' island! It had to happen.
- Rev. Fleetwood: I cannot make myself a party to your crime.
- Miller: Look,
- [pause]
- Miller: I brought myself up from nothin'! You report this it'll mean my job. Isn't a preacher supposed to have some charity, some mercy?
- Rev. Fleetwood: Towards the helpless, the weak, yes. There are always excuses, always extenuating circumstances, Mr. Miller. And I'm tired of them. He's sick, he's poor. His parents beat him when he was young: his parents didn't beat him when he was young. I've heard that kind of cant used to excuse the most scabrous of crimes, well I won't accept it. It's an old-fashioned belief, I know, but I believe in sin. Yes, in expiation! There must be guilt and expiation or the sin will be readily committed again.