- Monsieur Hébert: Your superior will shortly be told in the name of Sister Marie-Suzanne Simonin of a protest against her vows with a request to leave religious life and leave the cloister to live her life as she sees fit.
- Dom Morel: We don't avoid sorrow but we are resigned. Good monks and nuns rejoice in their cross; they anticipate mortifications; they exchange their present happiness for future happiness. And we... Sister Suzanne, we suffer the same sorrows but for what reward? We are damned in penance as surely as others in their worldly pleasures. We deprive ourselves; they have fun. And afterwards, the same Hell awaits us. We are laden with chains, and no hope of breaking them. Dear sister, let us try to drag them
- Suzanne: You like convent life; I hate it. God has given you favours; I have none. You would be lost in the world; your salvation is here. I will be lost here and I hope to be saved in the world.