Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti

Some Quotes from Brecht's Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti



Puntila:  What d'you mean human beings?  You're a human being?  Moments ago you said you were a driver.  Caught you contradicting yourself, haven't I?

Puntila:  I've got a kind heart and I'm not ashamed of it.  Once I picked up a stag beetle in the road and put it in the bushes so it wouldn't get run over, that's how far I'd go.  I let it clamber up a twig.

Puntila:  Matti, look at me.  What do you see?
Matti:  I'd say a fat slob, pissed as arseholes.
Puntila:  That shows the deceptiveness of appearances.  I'm not like that at all.  Matti, I'm a sick man.

Puntila: I get attacks.
Matti:  You don't say.
Puntila:  It's no laughing matter, my friend.  It comes over me every three months or so.  I wake up, and all of a sudden I'm stone cold sober.

Puntila:  Worse still, when I get these attacks of total senseless sobriety I sink to the level of beasts...I become fully responsible for my actions.  D'you realize what that means, brother, fully responsible for one's actions?

Puntila:  "Dear child, why sue me when you said
We always felt so close in bed."

Puntila:  Is a a forest simply ten thousand cords of wood? Or is it a verdant delight for all mankind?

Puntila:  ...that's a problem to looked at without flinching--cool, calm, and drunk.

The Judge:  I tried a divorce case once where the wife complained that her husband never belted her when she threw the lamp at him.  She felt neglected.

Matti:  I knew a gentleman wasn't at all amusing, but it didn't stop him making a million in margarine and fats.

Eva:  I just wanted to point out that the Attache is an intelligent and kindhearted person who ought not to be judged by appearances or by what he says or what he does.

Eva:  Are you feeling sleepy?
Matti:  Just go on talking.  I'm only shutting my eyes so's to concentrate better.

Puntila:  Sooner die than fail to respect our law and order.  I would.  Because everything I do is according to the law.  If I want to clobber a man to death I do it within the law or not at all.

Puntila:  ...I'm not lying to you.  If I said they'd got glanders that'd be a lie, but when I tell you they've got scarlet fever that's a delicate hint from one gentleman to another.

Puntila:  I don't like fixing a deal after drinking just one glass...

Puntila:  And I admire your integrity, and how you always have my best interests at heart.  But it is Puntila's privilege to have his own worst interests at heart, and that's something you haven't learnt yet.

Puntila: I'm not selling any forest.  My daughter's got her dowry between her legs, right?

Matti:  It's a very human habit, discussing.  It's one great advantage we have over the animals.  If cows could discuss for instance, there'd be soon be no more slaughterhouses.

Eva:  He's not all that easily offended, he's got too much debt for that. 

Puntila:  What kind of terms are you on with Eva?
The Attache:  Good terms.  She is a little chilly to me, but then that is her nature.  It is not unlike our position with regard to Russia.  In diplomatic parlance we'd say relations are correct.

Eva:  When I was at my convent in Brussels I never heard anything but decent talk. 

Puntila:  You should look up to your employer's daughter as to a higher being that has graciously condescended to come down amongst us.

Fina:  Miss Eva'd like to a word with you.
Matti:  All right.  I'll just finish my coffee.
Fina:  No need to impress me by drinking it in such a languid way. 

The Judge:  Half the time they're making babies 'cause the summer's so short, and the other half  'cause the winter's so long.

Puntila:  I didn't give you that posh education in Brussels so you could chuck yourself at the chauffeur... Ten paces distances and no familiarities, or chaos sets in, that's my inflexible rule.

Puntila:  The engagement party's all fixed.  I've had a pig killed, that can't be undone now, he's not going to trot quietly back to his trough again just to oblige me and go on eating merely because you've changed your mind.

Matti:  I propose a confederation of Mr. Puntila's fiancees.

Matti:  ...hopes were aroused and expenses incurred...

The Parson:  ...I am left preaching to empty pews;  as though they lacked transport...why, every milkmaid's got a bicycle...

The Parson:  It's no picnic trying to bash a little culture into these bumpkins.

The Judge:  We live in a commercial age.  Everything gets flattened out and the good old institutions disappear. 

The Lawyer:  It's all very well for Puntila, his fields grow of their own accord, but a lawsuit's a terribly sensitive plan and by the time it's fully mature your hair will have gone grey. 

The Attache:  You see the point:  It's not that she has a lover, which is normal, nor that she beats him, which is understandable, but that she does it with an umbrella, which is vulgar.  A question of nuance.

The Attache:  Lady Oxford that I laughed at jokes or bon mots before they're made, meaning that I'm very quick-witted.

Puntila:  Matti, can you fuck decently? 
Matti:  I'm told so.
Puntila:  That's nothing.  Can you do it indecently?  That's what counts.