Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches Justice and Judgment Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line)

Quote #7

Prior: Criminal.
Louis: There oughta be a law.
Prior: There is a law. You'll see. (2.9.20-22)

Prior accuses Louis of being a criminal for deserting him while he's in the hospital. Louis doesn't seem to disagree that he's done a terrible thing. Here Prior seems to imply that there is some universal system of justice that will punish Louis for what he's doing.

Quote #8

Belize: I've thought about it for a very long time, and I still don't understand what love is. Justice is simple. Democracy is simple. Those things are unambivalent. But love is very hard. And it goes bad for you if you violate the hard law of love. (3.2.122)

Unlike Louis, Belize doesn't think justice is complicated – there's right and there's wrong. Love, on the other hand, is completely unknowable to him. It's a little ironic, then, that he thinks something so indefinable can have very definite rules.

Quote #9

Roy: If it wasn't for me, Joe, Ethel Rosenberg would be alive today [...] I was on the phone every day, talking with the judge [...] Was it legal? F*** legal. (3.5.19)

Roy is proud that he broke the law to make sure Ethel Rosenberg, an alleged Soviet spy, was put to death. Roy sees his breaking the law as justified, as long as justice prevailed.