"Tell me, has the crime rate really gone up in this country, as we are lead to believe? Maybe people just regard things as criminal, because they envy their success? What's your opinion on the subject? Maybe you have none. I'll get the door...sorry."

"From the moment when they'd finally heard the sound of vehicles starting one after the other from the direction of the edge of the woods, things had moved rapidly. Tom had arranged a delegation to provide a proper reception. Dogville might be off the beaten track, but it was hospitable, nevertheless."

"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."

"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 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?"

"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."

"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."

"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: 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..."

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

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"This year I didn't bring any notes with me. Because I'm not gonna pretend, I can read them. Which brings me to a point. A point I wanna make. And that point is you Grace. Yes. You have made Dogville a wonderful place to live in. As a matter of fact, somebody tells me they ran into grumpy old Chuck down the street and he was actually smiling. Well, I've never seen your smile, Grace, but I will bet you I could describe it. Because it obviously has every color that's refracted from the shiniest prism in the world. You probably have a face to match that. Does she have a face to match that, Tom?"

"Grace: Are you trying to say that you're in love with me? Tom: No I wouldn't... love is...It's not... It's a big word... yeah. Yeah. Grace: That's good, because I think that I am in love with you, too."

"I think I've done a pretty good analysis of the folks in this town and I think I understand them in a meaningful way. But when I come to decipher you, I get absolutely nowhere. You know Liz. Liz is easy to read. And there was some attraction between us, but as I can see right through her, intellectually I mean, I can see right through her, my desire is purely of a physical nature. But with you, it's more... it's more complicated."

"Today was a day for celebration. Nobody was to worry about the hard times. And Grace could stop at Ma Gingers window quite content: to ascertain that only two of the little china figurines remained, and were thus the only two she had not yet been able to save up enough to purchase."

"It was such a relief when you turned up and you were the one all the men had eyes for. You know, Tom and them. I've had to put up with it for so long... Frankly, I just didn't have the energy for it anymore."

"And now, since the town had agreed that everyone was to give according to his abilities she received wages, not much, but enough to save up for the first of the tiny china figurines from the row of seven that had stood for so long gathering dust in the window of the store. And she dreamed that in time she would be able to acquire them all. Slowly those alabaster hands turned into a pair of hands that could have belonged to anyone in any little rural community."

"I think they like you here."

"Grace had friends in Dogville. That was for sure. Whether they were few or many did not matter a jot. Grace had bared her throat to the town and it had responded with a great gift: with friends. No gangster could deprive her of this meeting with the township no matter how many guns in the world. And should the strokes of the bell not reach 15, she knew now that she meant something to the town and that her stay had been of significance. Not much, perhaps, but nevertheless, a trace she had left. And the first in her young life in which she took pride."

"Nobody should be prevented from speaking their mind out of politeness. I'll wait at the mine. And if the vote says that I should leave, then I'll take the path across the mountains, while it's still light."

"Grace was standing beside Tom, watching them convene, and knew inside herself that this might well be the last time she would see these now so familiar faces. She had at least two of them against her, and even one would have been too many."

"You're no fool, Miss Grace. No fool. You probably see that those curtains are hard to open... and obviously concluded that it's because they're not used very often. But the view's good — entrancing even. So, ask me, why a man who loves the light hang these heavy curtains? Yes, I'm blind. Not weak sighted, not myopic: Blind. So please go and let me be that on my own... In Switzerland they call it the Alpenglünen. That's the light that reflects from the highest peaks after the sun goes down behind the mountains. But now it's gone."

"There is not much to see around here. Wretched town."

"That's why you wanted to get rid of me...because you can't stand that I remind you of what it was you came here to find."

"I found out that people are the same all over. Greedy as animals. In a small town they're just a bit less successful. Feed 'em enough they'll eat till their bellies burst."

"This town is rotten from the inside out and I wouldn't miss it, if it fell into the gorge tomorrow. I see no charm here, but you seem to. Admit it you've fallen for Dogville. The trees, the mountains, the simple folk. And if all that ain't got you fooled yet, I bet the cinnamon has. That damned cinnamon in those gooseberry pies. Dogville has everything that you ever dreamed of in the big city."

"I wasn't trying to fool anyone."

"If you want my Ma to like you, and let you stay. You'll just have to be nice to me."

"Oh, don’t be ashamed, Ben. We all have the right to make the most of our lives. I’m sure that those ladies in those houses they bring a lot of joy to a lot of men."

"They are good kids. And I love them. Please don’t say such nice things about the kids. I cry too easily. Both in sorrow and in joy."

"I'll happily mind Achilles if Vera will let me. But if he doesn't like me he doesn't like me."

"Something...something that you would like done, but that you don't think is necessary."

"Perhaps there's something you don't need done?"

"I went to Mr. McKay. I went to Martha and to Chuck and Vera's, and nobody seems to need any help. They all think everyone else needs something, and not themselves."

"Nobody want's me to work for them. I would really like to offer something in return. You're all running a terrible risk having me here. I mean, I am willing to learn."

"Grace had ended up next to Ma Ginger's gooseberry bushes, in a mood that was not particularly good."

"Grace's interview with Jack McKay proved sadly symptomatic of the attitude in Dogville. Reserved but friendly, not without curiosity. Only Jack had expressed his "no" concisely and precisely: Martha needed a monologue almost an hour long to arrive at the same conclusion."

"Grace turned into the alley which went by the exotic name, Glunen Street to knock on the door of the blind — but only too vain — man."

"A cleanin' lady for a cleanin' lady? You be talkin' nonsense, Mister Ben!"

"This first day of spring had also been picked to be Grace's first ever day of work. The day in which she was to set off around Dogville and offer herself one hour per household per day."

"Calling Dogville beautiful was original at least. Grace was just casting one more look at the figurines she herself would have dismissed as tasteless a few days earlier, when she suddenly sensed what would best have been described as a tiny change of light over Dogville."

"If this is the town you that love, then you really have a strange way of showing it. All I see, is a beautiful little town in the midst of magnificent mountains. A place where people have hopes and dreams even under the hardest conditions. And seven figurines that are not awful at all."