- Horace Rumpole: Lawyers and tarts, Miss Trant, the two oldest professions in the world, and we always aim to please!
- Phyllida Trant: We don't *have* to prove cruelty, do we, Mr Rumpole? It's "intolerable conduct" since the Divorce Law Reform Act, 1969.
- Horace Rumpole: [to himself] It's not the frivolity that makes women intolerable. It's the ghastly *enthusiasm* - that mustard keenness to get into the lacrosse team, that relentless drive to learn the Divorce Law Reform Act by heart. That, and the French perfume.
- Hilda Rumpole: You're going to seed. You can't even keep a divorce case going.
- Horace Rumpole: [to Hilda] Do you know *why* my divorce case collapsed under me? The clients were reconciled.
- Horace Rumpole: [to himself] Because how ever awful it is, how ever silent and unendurable it is, how ever much they may hate each others' guts over the three-piece chintz-covered lounge suite, they can't stand to be alone.
- Horace Rumpole: [to Hilda] Isn't that strange, Hilda? They'd rather have war together than a lonely peace.