Headmaster Quotes in Toy Soldiers (1991)

Headmaster: Try not to laugh.

Dean Parker: I'm trying.

Headmaster: Now this object I'm holding here is call... well some of you may have seen one before, it's called a book. You may have seen one on television.

Headmaster: You boys can no doubt guess why I have sent for you. This girl has brought a charge - a most serious charge.

Headmaster: [grilling young Alan about note-passing] You and your friend solve maths problems during maths class because the maths class is too dull?

Headmaster: [while having sex with his wife, notices Carter is playing with something] Carter?

Carter: Yes sir?

Headmaster: What is it Carter?

Carter: An ocarina, sir...

Headmaster: [Bible reading] Yay, and placed they the bits in little pots. Now two boys have been found rubbing linseed oil into the school cormorant. Now some of you may feel that the cormorant does not play an important part in the life of the school, but I would remind you that it was presented to us by the corporation of the Town of Sudbury to commemorate Empire Day, when we try to remember the names of all those from the Sudbury area who so gallantly gave their lives to keep China British. So from now on, the cormorant is strictly OUT OF BOUNDS. Oh, and Jenkins? Apparently your mother died this morning. Chaplain.

Headmaster: There's a vacancy in history.

Tom Irwin: [Thoughtfully] That's very true.

Headmaster: In the school.

Tom Irwin: Ah.

[talking about Tom Irwin]

Headmaster: He comes highly-recommended.

Mrs. Lintott: So did Anne of Cleves.

Headmaster: Who? He's up-to-the-minute, more "now".

Mrs. Lintott: [dryly] Now? I thought history was "then".

Headmaster: I was a geographer. I went to Hull.

[about Hector]

Headmaster: On enquiry I find his pupils know all the words of "When I'm Cleaning Windows".

Headmaster: So the upshot is I am glad he handled his pupils' balls because at least that I can categorise.

Headmaster: Fuck the Ren-ai-ssance! And fuck literature, and Plato, and Michaelangelo, and Oscar Wilde, and all the other shrunken violets you people line up. This is a school, and it isn't normal!

[talking about the school]

Headmaster: We're low in the league. I want to see us up there with Manchester Grammar, Haberdasher Askes, Leighton Park... or is that an open prison?

Headmaster: Ah, Irwin! Splendid news!

[pops the cork of a bottle of champagne]

Headmaster: Splendid news! Posner a scholarship! Dakin an exhibition! And places for everybody else!

[cops a feel of Fiona's bum]

Headmaster: It's... it's more then one could have ever hoped for! Irwin you are to be congratulated! A remarkable achievement! Oh and, you too, you too Dorothy of course, you, ah, laid the foundation.

Mrs. Lintott: Not Rudge headmaster.

Headmaster: Not Rudge. Oh, dear.

Tom Irwin: He said nothing, the others have all had letters.

Headmaster: There's always an outside chance. It's a pity, it would have been good to have a clean swoop.

[Rudge appears at the door, but only seen by Mrs. Lintott]

Headmaster: Still as I've said all along, you can't polish a turd.

Mrs. Lintott: [Rudge leaves and Mrs. Lintott takes after him down the hallway] Rudge!

[Rudge stops and turns around]

Mrs. Lintott: You haven't heard from Oxford?

[Rudge shakes his head]

Mrs. Lintott: Perhaps you'll hear tomorrow.

Rudge: Why should I? They told me when I was there.

Mrs. Lintott: I'm sorry.

Rudge: What for? I got in.

Mrs. Lintott: How come?

Rudge: How come they told me, or how come they took a thick sod like me?... I had family connections.

Mrs. Lintott: [incredulously] Somebody in your family went to Christ Church?

Rudge: In a manner of speaking, my Dad, before he got married he was a college servant there. This old, parson, who just been sitting there most of the interview, suddenly said was I related to Bill Rudge who was a scout in staircase seven in the ninety-fifties. So, said he was my Dad, and they said I was the kind of candidate they were looking for. Mind you I did do the other stuff, like Stalin was a sweetie and Wilfred Owen was a wuss. They said I was plainly someone who thought for himself, and exactly what the college rugger team needed.

Mrs. Lintott: Are you not pleased?

Rudge: It's not like winning a match.

Headmaster: We will not tolerate racial slurs at Roxberry. You can use them at any other time - at home, at the mall, at rock and roll concerts.

Headmaster: One problem area, the showers. What'll happen with the showers?

Phil Menzies: Oh, she'll bring her own soap.

Headmaster: Off you go, you small boys.

Headmaster: If you're gallivanting off somewhere you can't be at school. If you can't be at school we can't teach you. And if we can't teach you, you'll end up a bunch of raving imbeciles like the generation above you.

Headmaster: I don't think the f-word has any place in Shakespeare.

Vivienne Mae: Well, it's actually very old, the f-word.

Headmaster: It's also very offensive.

Vivienne Mae: Well, so is Caliban.

Headmaster: Um, issues of discipline came up and a concern about language.

Vivienne Mae: Lanuage? What...?

[phone rings]

Headmaster: Excuse me.

[turns to answer phone]

Vivienne Mae: [walking away] What fucking language?

Vivienne Mae: Ah, the goddess on whom the music attends.

Stella: Sorry I'm late, miss.

Vivienne Mae: Don't worry, I did your bit for you. You're not indispensable, Stella Joes. Just remember that. Nobody is.

Headmaster: It won't happen again, Miss Mae. The both of us will be punctual next time. Won't we, *Stella*?

Miss Valentine: Headmaster, I have made a list of all the...

Vivienne Mae: Oh, don't tell me. Of all the nasty little troublemakers in the school. Do you hate kids? I mean, is it all kids or is it just the poor ones?

Headmaster: Miss Mae, Vivienne...

Miss Valentine: And I've underlined in red all those who have a history of delinquency.

Miss Valentine: Someone has burnt half the fucking school down!

Headmaster: Language, please.

Miss Valentine: So let us stop this petty, liberal procrastination and take control of the situation. We are fiddling while Rome burns!

Vivienne Mae: What about Miss Valentine? Is she the future?

Headmaster: "O brave new world that has such people in't."

Headmaster: Those who are given most also have most to give.

Headmaster: Education in Britain is a nubile Cinderella: sparsely clad and much interfered with.

Headmaster: There is only one word for people like you, and that is "evil"

Headmaster: An ancient ruin did you say, my dear?

Sutterwick: [upon seeing Katie] This isn't a joke, is it?

Headmaster's Wife: Chippings lost all sense of proportion.

Headmaster: Some people might think he'd found it.

Katie: No, the allusion was to the stage which used to be my profession.

Headmaster: Indeed.

Headmaster's Wife: You're an actress, Mrs. Chipping?

Katie: Well, not even my best friends would call me that.

Headmaster's Wife: [snidely] Aw, and what would they call you?

Katie: A soubrette. That's the girl in musical comedy who sings the big number and, in the end, loses the man.

[Chuckles]

Katie: In real life, they nearly always end up the wives of earls. I nearly did. But luckily... I met Chips.

Headmaster: Chippings' waiting for his wife, I think.

Headmaster's Wife: [skeptical] His wife?

Sutterwick: Flabbergasting. Who on earth?

Wife: Who on earth indeed?

[hoots]

Wife: It's what we've all been asking ourselves ever since we heard the news.

Headmaster: It's apparently someone he met on one of his excursions to the ancient ruins of Pompeii.

Wife: Somewhat of an ancient ruin herself, no doubt.

[chuckles]

Katie: I'm so terribly sorry about being late. Chips says it's almost as bad as being off your number.

Headmaster: I'm afraid I don't quite understand that allusion, Mrs. Chippings.

Katie: Oh, Mrs. Chippings! I just love when I'm called that.

Headmaster: And you are that, yes?

Katie: Oh, yes! Well and truly! Well, unless Chips is a bigamist which I rather suspect. How else could he have escaped... until now?

Headmaster: There have been complaints. Quite a few. Too many, and believe me, one is too many in our game. 27 phone calls. When was the last time you had 27 phone calls before your dinner? 12 e-mails. Letters. Look. All hand-delivered. God knows how many are still in the post. Holy pictures. Two so far. Padre Pio and the Blessed Virgin. Three death threats. Two for you and one for me. I told them all to feck off.

Brendan: To be honest, I did it to impress a woman.

Headmaster: That's what they're there for.