[first lines] Ada: The voice you hear is not my speaking voice - -but my mind's voice. I have not spoken since I was six years old. No one knows why - -not even me. My father says it is a dark talent, and the day I take it into my head to stop breath...
Ada: At night! I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine.
[last lines] Ada: There is a silence where hath been no sound / There is a silence where no sound may be / In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea. -Thomas Hood...
George Baines: Ada, I'm unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I've suffered. I am sick with longing. I don't eat, I don't sleep. So, if you have come with no feeling for me, then go. G...
Ada: George has fashioned me a metal finger tip, I am quite the town freak which satisfies!
Flora: One day when my mother and father were singing together in the forest, a great storm blew up out of nowhere. But so passionate was their singing that they did not notice, nor did they stop as the rain began to fall, and when their voices rose ...
Ada: I have told you the story of your father many many times. Flora: Oh, tell me again! Was he a teacher? Ada: Yes. Flora: How did you speak to him? Ada: I didn't need to speak. I could lay thoughts out in his mind like they were a sheet. Flora: Why...
Ada: What a death! What a chance! What a surprise! My will has chosen life! Still it has had me spooked and many others besides!
Flora: [speaking to Aunt Morag] My mother met my father when she was an opera singer in Luxembourg. Ada: [signing] That's enough. Flora: Why? [pos]
George Baines: I want to lie together without clothes on.
George Baines: I have given the piano back to you. I've had enough. The arrangement is making you a whore, and me, wretched. I want you to care for me. But you can't. It's yours, leave. Go on, go.
Stewart: Where's your mother? Where's she off to? Flora: TO HELL!
Flora: She says no. She says she'd rather be boiled alive by natives than get back on your stinkin' tub. Head Seaman: You be damn fortuned I don't smack your puppy gob, young missy. Damn lucky!
Flora: [to Ada] I'm not going to call him Papa. I'm not going to call him anything. I'm not even gonna look at him.
Stewart: [to Ada] Can you hear me?
Stewart: What do you think? George Baines: She looks tired. Stewart: She's stunted, thats one thing.
George Baines: I'd like to make a swap. Stewart: What for? George Baines: The piano.
Flora: She says its her piano and she won't have him touch it. He's an oaf. He can't read. He's ignorant. Stewart: He wants to improve himself. And you'll be able to play it. Teach him how to look after it. You can't go on like this. We're a family n...
