Dürrenmatt's *The Visit*: Key Quotes on Morality and Revenge

Dürrenmatt's *The Visit*: Essential Quotes on Justice and Corruption

Act I: The Price of Revenge

• Schoolmaster: “Like one of the Fates; she made me think of an avenging Greek goddess. Her name shouldn’t be Claire; it should be Clotho. I could suspect her of spinning destiny’s webs herself.”

• Claire Zachanassian: “I’m giving you a million, and I’m buying myself justice.” (Deathly Silence)

• Mayor’s Speech: “You forget, we are not savages. In the name of all citizens of Guellen, I reject your offer; and I reject it in the name of humanity. We would rather have poverty than blood on our hands.” (Huge Applause)

• Claire Zachanassian: “I’ll wait.”

Act II: Temptation and Condemnation

• Policeman: “That screwy millionaire has lost her little lapdog. The black panther. Now I have to hunt it down.”
  Alfred Ill: “It’s me you’re hunting down, me.”

• Alfred Ill: “They’ve already begun adorning my coffin, Mister Mayor. For me, silence is too dangerous. […] You’ve already condemned me to death.”

• The Priest: “Flee! We are all weak believers and unbelievers. Flee! The Guellen bells are tolling, tolling for treachery. Flee! Lead us not into temptation with your presence.”

Act III: Morality and the New World Order

• Claire Zachanassian: “Feeling for humanity is cut for the purse of an ordinary millionaire; with financial resources like mine, you can afford a new world order.”

• Claire Zachanassian: “The world turned me into a whore. I shall turn the world into a brothel.”

• Schoolmaster: “Like an archangel I’m telling them, in forceful ringing tones. (Wavers) Because I’m a humanist.” (Followed by Ill telling him to hold his peace.)

• Alfred Ill: “I’ve realized I haven’t the least right on my side.”
  Schoolmaster: “No right? No right compared to that damned old woman, that brazen arch-whore!”

• Alfred Ill: “I shall accept your judgement, whatever it may be. For me, it will be justice; what it will be for you, I do not know.”

• Schoolmaster’s Speech: “We are not moved by the money (Huge Applause); we are not moved by ambitious thoughts of prosperity and good living, and luxury: we are moved by this matter of justice.”

• Mayor and Citizens (Akin to a Greek Chorus):

  Mayor: “Not for the sake of money,”
  Citizens: “But for justice,”
  Citizens: “And for conscience’s sake.”

• The Priest: “I’ll pray for you.”
  Alfred Ill: “Pray for Guellen.”