The Best Dr. Arthur Arden Quotes

Shelley: Come on, Doc. Bend me over a bread rack and pound me into shape.
Dr. Arthur Arden: You're a dirty little slut with a poisonous tongue.
Shelley: I just want to go outside for 15 minutes in the sun. Please. I just want to feel the sun on my skin. I'll do anything.
Dr. Arthur Arden: No. Whores get nothing.
Shelley: Men like sex, no one calls *them* whores. I hate that word, it's so ugly! I'm into pleasure. Ever since I was five years old, and I slipped my fingers inside for the very first time. I could do it all day. My mother made me wear mittens to bed.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Because you're a little slut.
Shelley: No. Because she didn't understand me. So I ran away from home, met some jazz musicians, real freethinkers. I fell in love with the bass player. Big mistake. As soon as he put a ring on my finger, I was his property. He could screw every Betty in town and I had to stay home and scrub his dirty drawers. So come fleet week... he gets home and finds me in bed with two navy guys. And I told him, "It's not for self, but for country." He decked me flat out, threw me in the car and locked me in a nuthouse. And the sickest part is, they let him. Because I like sex. That's my crime.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Am I supposed to be moved by that pathetic tale of woe?
Shelley: Please. I'm just asking for five minutes in the sun. A little fresh air.
Dr. Arthur Arden: You make me sick. Whore.

Sister: Rubies are the most glamorous of all. You couldn't have found them in this dreary town. Are they family heirlooms?
Dr. Arthur Arden: They belonged to a Jewess in the camp. She was always reminding people that she was a woman of considerable means, and that her husband was an influential and wealthy doctor in Berlin. She was constantly complaining to me about her stomach problems, and as a doctor, I thought I ought to do something about it. So I followed her, one day, to the latrine, thinking I might diagnose her condition if I had a stool sample. She was in there, on her hands and knees, picking through her own feces to retrieve those earrings. She confessed to me that she swallowed them every day, day after day, carrying them around inside of her, as if, someday, she might return to her former grandeur. Poor, ridiculous woman, she died from internal bleeding. The earrings were very hard on her intestines. Obviously, I retrieved them. I knew someday I'd meet someone who was worthy of their exceptional beauty.
Sister: You were very clever to retrieve them, Arthur. Look how beautiful they are on me. They bring out the rose in my cheeks. Oh, you're such a sap!
Dr. Arthur Arden: Not exactly for the reasons you may think, but a sap nonetheless. I so dearly hoped you'd throw them back in my face, that you couldn't bring yourself to touch those shit-stained earrings. I was hoping there'd be a glimmer of horror, a glimmer of that precious girl who was too afraid even to take a bite of my candy apple.

Sister: I've dealt with bigger monsters than you, Dr Arden. Let me give you fair warning: I'll always win against the patriarchal male.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Bully for you.

Sister: You're being pitiful, Arthur.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Then have pity on me!

Dr. Arthur Arden: How did you get in here?
Pepper: I go where Grace goes. I've been charged to protect her.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Have you? You can't even protect yourself. They may have given you speech, Pepper. Even a parrot can be taught to mimic. But did they give you the capacity to think? I sincerely doubt it. Tell me, Polly- What did they put inside her?
Pepper: I won't tell you anything.
Dr. Arthur Arden: If you're not going to tell me then I'll just have to find out for myself, won't I?
Pepper: X-rays will harm the life growing inside of her.
Dr. Arthur Arden: That's a chance I'm willing to take.
Pepper: Stupid man. You think they'd allow you to continue your barbaric practice? She's protected. Your X-rays won't penetrate her body. You'll see nothing. Oh, but they've been watching you. You think you're like them, with your clumsy experiments. But they laugh at you, Dr. Arden. They make jokes. Here's a good one. Knock, knock. Who's there? Arden. Arden who? Arden you the quack who'd make a better duck?
[laughs]
Dr. Arthur Arden: Huh. Well, if taking X-rays won't work... perhaps more invasive observation will. I think her condition calls for an emergency C-section, don't you?
Pepper: You can't do that.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Watch me.
[Scalpel flies out of his hand and clatters on the floor]
Pepper: Dr. Arden, you still see me as microcephalic. No one takes a pinhead seriously. When my sister's husband drowned her baby and sliced his ears off, he told everyone I did it. They tied me up and paraded me in front of the judge. He took one look at the shape of my head, and I was locked up for good. That's how it works with us freaks. We get blamed for everything. But if something happens to Grace in here, and she's harmed in *any* way, there won't be anyone else to blame. They'll take you, open up your head... and stir your brain with a fork. Then, when you return, you'll experience firsthand how people treat us freaks. I'll take care of Grace. Why don't you go to your whore nun, have her soothe your deflated ego.

Monsignor: Jude was right about you. You're a monster.
Dr. Arthur Arden: Why do you look for the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own?

Dr. Arthur Arden: Ah. You must be the new girl.
Anne: You were there.
Dr. Arthur Arden: What?
Anne: In Auschwitz. Nazi! Murderer! You Nazi swine!
Dr. Arthur Arden: Orderly. Sedate this woman.
Anne: Don't you remember me, Doctor? I am Anne. Anne Frank!

Dr. Arthur Arden: Go to hell.
Anne: I've been there.

Dr. Arthur Arden: Hello, Mr. Walker. I'm Dr. Arthur Arden. I run this institution.
Kit: I thought Sister Jude ran this place.
Dr. Arthur Arden: So does she.

Dr. Arthur Arden: I don't believe in God. But I do believe in evil. I've seen it up-close and personal.

Dr. Arthur Arden: It's a farce. Finita la commedia.

Dr. Arthur Arden: [about Sister Mary Eunice] I admired her purity. Her innocence. I never had any, even as a boy. Now it's gone. It's been taken from her.

Dr. Arthur Arden: You have no idea what it means to have lost you.