- Mayor of Hamelin: You have an invention?
- Pied Piper: I attract attention/ Chiefly with a secret charm/ On creatures that do people harm;/ The mole, the toad, the newt and viper./
- [Chuckles]
- Pied Piper: Who doesn't know of the Pied Piper?
- Pied Piper: [speaking of the plague of rats] Leaders of virtue; character builders, / To rid your town of this verminous pox, / My fee is fifty thousand guilders.
- First Counselor: Fifty thousand guilders?
- Second Counselor: You've lost your mind!
- Pied Piper: As a rule / I refrain from calling any man a fool. Heed me now. / I'll wait until yon clock strikes the hour. / Don't let me go away / Without my pay.
- Pied Piper: Maneuvers and manipulations!
- Mayor of Hamelin: How dare you, sir! In all your dealings / To prevent your feelings / We require a legal form. / 'Tis no departure from the norm.
- Paul: [left behind outside when the portal in the mountain closes] Don't leave me, Piper, let me in! Take me with you... please take me too!
- [he falls against the mountainside, sobbing]
- John's Mother: [addressing an empty counci chamber] Your honor... I know you and your councillors are busy with important affairs, and I'll only take up a moment of your time. It's about Johnny. Who's Johhny? He's my son. You remember the boy with curly red hair... the boy who opened your carriage door for you once. He's gone... looked everywhere and I can't seem to find him... and I know such men as wise as you can surely help me find a small boy.
- [he looks at the empty table, waiting for a reply]
- John's Mother: Why don't you answer me? Your decisions have always been so quick and so clever... like the way you handled the Piper.
- Pied Piper: A man can strive for riches, a natural desire; but he mustn't overlook a greater goal. Or what will he profit by something he'll acquire, if in finding what he gains he lose his soul?
- Mayor of Hamelin: Stop squealing and squeaking as though you were rats. Remember that you're bureaucrats.