- Noah Claypole: Workhouse, what's your mother?
- Oliver Twist: She's dead.
- Noah Claypole: What - she die of workhouse?
- Oliver Twist: They said she died of a broken heart.
- Mr. Bumble: Cry your hardest now, it opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes and softens down the temper. So cry away.
- Mr. Brownlow: The law assumes that your wife acts under your direction.
- Mr. Bumble: If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot! If that's the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor. And the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience.
- Mr. Bumble: You'll make your fortune, Mr Sowerberry.
- Mr. Sowerberry: The prices allowed by the board are very small.
- Mr. Bumble: So are the coffins.
- Mrs Sowerberry: There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear, which is *very* interesting.
- Mrs Sowerberry: Well?
- Mr. Sowerberry: He'd make a delightful mute, my love.
- Mr. Brownlow: It only remains for me to tell you that neither of you will ever be employed in a position of trust again.
- Fagin: That's the worst of having to deal with women, my dears. But they're clever and we can't get on without them.
- Oliver Twist: Please, sir. I want some more.
- Workhouse Master: What?
- Mrs. Corney: What?
- Mr. Bumble: What?
- Chairman of the Board: Ask for more?
- Chairman of the Board: Gentlemen, it is my considered opinion that our charity is being presumed upon.
- Workhouse Board Member: Here, here...
- Chairman of the Board: This Workhouse has become a regular place of *entertainment* for the poorer classes.
- Mr. Sowerberry: I've just taken the measure of the two women that died last night.
- Mr. Bumble: Coffins are looking up, Mr. Sowerberry.
- Mr. Bumble: You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry.
- Mr. Sowerberry: The prices allowed by the Board are very small, Mr. Bumble.
- Mr. Bumble: So are the coffins.
- Mr. Sowerberry: Well, well, Mr. Bumble, there's no denying that. But we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble.
- Mrs Sowerberry: Your bed's under the counter. You don't mind, I suppose?
- Oliver Twist: No, ma'am.
- Mrs Sowerberry: Doesn't much matter whether you do or you don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else.
- Mr. Bumble: I name all our foundlings in alphabetical order. The last was an "S." "Swabble" I named him. This was a "T." "Twist" I named him.
- Mrs. Corney: Why, you're quite a literary character, sir.
- Mr. Bumble: Well, well, perhaps I may be, Mrs. Corney. Perhaps I may be.
- Mr. Brownlow: He'll be back in 20 minutes.
- Mr. Grimwig: Are you sure he will return ? That boy has a new set of clothes, a pack of valuable books, and a £5 note in his pocket. If he returns back to this house I will eat my hat.
- Nancy: [about Oliver] I thieved for you when I was a child not half his age, and I've thieved for you ever since, don't you know it!
- Fagin: And if you have, it is your living!
- Nancy: Aye, it is. It is my living. And you're the wretch that drove me to them long ago, and that'll keep me there, day and night, day and night, DAY AND NIGHT!
- Noah Claypole: Do you know who I am?
- Oliver Twist: No, sir.
- Noah Claypole: I'm Mr Noah Claypole and you're under me so don't you forget it!
- Fagin: You'd like to make pocket handkerchiefs as easily as the Artful Dodger, wouldn't you my dear?
- Oliver Twist: Yes, if you teach me sir.
- Fagin: We will, my dear, we will.
- Mr. Brownlow: How would you like to grow up a clever man and write books?
- Oliver Twist: I think I'd rather read them sir.
- Mr. Brownlow: What, don't you want to be a book writer?
- Oliver Twist: I think I'd rather be a bookseller sir.
- Bill Sikes: There's light enough for what I've got to do.
- Nancy: Why are you looking at me like that? Oh, no! No! No! Bill! Bill! Bill!
- Town Crier: Murder! Brutal Murder!
- Noah Claypole: Workhouse, don't be impudent. You know, Workhouse, your mother must have been a regular, right-down bad 'un.
- Oliver Twist: What did you say?
- Noah Claypole: A regular, right-down bad 'un, Workhouse. And it's a great deal better, Workhouse, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been doing hard labor in Bridewell. Or transported or hung, which is more likely than either.
- Mrs. Corney: Are you gonna sit there snoring all day?
- Mr. Bumble: I shall sit here as long as I think proper, ma'am. And though I was not snoring, I shall snore, gape, sneeze, laugh or cry - as the humor strikes me, such being my prerogative.
- Mrs. Corney: Your prerogative.
- Mr. Bumble: I said the word, ma'am. The prerogative of a man is to command.
- Mrs. Corney: And what's the prerogative of a woman, in the name of goodness?
- Mr. Bumble: To obey, ma'am.
- Mrs. Corney: Huh!
- Mr. Bumble: As your late, unfortunate husband should have taught you. And then, perhaps, he might have been alive now. I wish he were a poor man.
- Mrs. Corney: You brute!
- [begins to crying out]
- Mr. Bumble: [stands up] Cry your hardest, ma'am. It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper. So, cry away.
- [He begins to leave, takes the hat. She begins to throws things at him. He turns around shocked, she charges angrily and slaps him]
- Mrs. Corney: Brute!
- [beating him up with a parasol]
- Mrs. Corney: You blasphemer!
- [slaps him in the face]
- Mrs. Corney: Talk about your prerogative again if you dare! Get up. Get away from here, or I might do something desperate!
- Mr. Bumble: Certainly, my dear. Certainly.
- [begins to leave]
- Landlord Of 'Three Cripples': Now, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you, a charming young singer who has never appeared in public before. Miss Lucy Willow.
- Singer At 'Three Cripples': [singing] This morning early, My malady was such, I in my tea took brandy, And I took a drop too much...
- Dodger: Stayin' in London?
- Oliver Twist: Yes.
- Dodger: Got any lodgings?
- Oliver Twist: No.
- Dodger: Money?
- Oliver Twist: No.
- Dodger: Hungry?
- Oliver Twist: Yes.
- Dodger: Follow me.
- Bill Sikes: No one around here knows anything about you.
- Nancy: And as I don't want 'em to neither, it's rather more no than yes with me, Bill.