Student Quotes in Starship Troopers (1997)

Jean Rasczak: All right, let's sum up. This year we explored the failure of democracy. How our social scientists brought our world to the brink of chaos. We talked about the veterans, how they took control and established the stability that has lasted for generations since. You know these facts, but have I taught you anything of value this year?

[to a student]

Jean Rasczak: You. Why are only citizens allowed to vote?

Student: It's a reward. Something the federation gives you for doing federal service.

Jean Rasczak: No. Something given has no value. When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force my friends is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

[first lines]

Jack Ryan: Hey, what's going on?

Student: In there. It's on the news.

Wimp Lo: Who is that?

[indicates chosen]

Student: [mouths for a few seconds] I don't know.

Student: [after getting his shirt ripped by Betty] Why, I ought'ta...

Master Tang: No! He would kill you like a small dog. Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!

Student: [the students are hanging upside down] We are both ventriloquists but now we're upside down. I swing a bit more.

Student: I swing a bit less

Capitão Nascimento: [shouting, rubbing the student's face in the blood-soaked body of a dead drug dealer] Put your face here. Put your face here. You see this, you see this hole right here? Who killed this guy here? WHO KILLED THIS GUY HERE?

Student: [stuttering in fear] I didn't see it...

Capitão Nascimento: You didn't see OF COURSE YOU SAW IT. SAY IT! SAY IT!

[he starts slapping the student in the face]

Capitão Nascimento: SAY IT! Who killed this guy here? WHO DID IT?

Student: [crying] I-it was one of you...

Capitão Nascimento: [shouting] THE FUCK "One of you"! THE FUCK "One of you"!

[slaps the student again]

Capitão Nascimento: YOU killed this guy here.

[slaps him again]

Capitão Nascimento: You faggot. It's you who help fund this shit

[slaps him again]

Capitão Nascimento: . You fucking pothead! You shit! All of this shit happens because of you.

Capitão Nascimento: [releasing and kicking the student] We come up here to clean this mess you make, you faggot!

Trainee officer: Men in black what is it that you do?

Student: I do things that scare even Satan himself!

Trainee officer: Men in black what is your mission?

Student: Get into the slam and leave corpses on the ground!

William "Billy" Tepper: What kind of stuff do they have?

Student: What do you mean? What stuff?

William "Billy" Tepper: Guns, grenades, that kind of stuff.

Student: Man, they've got tons of it, all kinds. A big machine gun... Wait a minute. I'm not going to get in trouble for this, am I?

William "Billy" Tepper: Don't be a wuss.

Shale: Who died?

Student: You did.

Shale: Guess I am a little late.

Shale: I'd like to know what area of history you're studying.

Student: The fuck you history!

White Boi: Any more questions?

Student: Why does your hair look like ramen noodles?

[Writing a long, complex formula]

Makoto Kido: ...and thus, acidic plutonium becomes plutonium metal. Any questions?

Student: Yeah... so, making atomic bombs is going to be included on the exam?

Makoto Kido: ...the exam?

Other Student: Well, if it isn't, could we move on to something else, please? We're the only class still on this!

[student stumbles out of trailer]

Student: Dude, don't burn all my Frankincense and Myrrh.

Nash: Can you see him?

Student: Yeah.

Nash: Okay. I am always suspicious of new people. Now that I know you're real, who are you, and what can I do for you?

Martin Luther: [giving a lecture] When I became a monk I believed the monk's cowl would make me holy. Was I an arrogant fool? Now they have made me a doctor of divinity and I am tempted to believe that this scholar's robe will make me wise.

[laughter]

Martin Luther: Well, God once spoke through the mouth of an ass, and...

[laughter]

Martin Luther: Perhaps he is about to do so again. But...

[leaves his rostrum and starts walking around in the classroom. The students follow him very interested with their eyes]

Martin Luther: I will tell you straight what I think. Who here has been to Rome?

[a student raises his hand]

Martin Luther: Did you buy an indulgence?

Student: No.

Martin Luther: I did. For a silver florin, I freed my grandfather from Purgatory. For twice that I could have sprung grandmother and uncle mothers too, but...

[laughter]

Martin Luther: I didn't have the funds, so they had to stay in the hot place. As for myself, the priests assured me that by gazing at sacred relics, I could cut down my time in purgatory. Luckily for me, Rome has enough nails from the holy cross to shoe every horse in Saxony.

[laughter]

Martin Luther: But there are relics elsewhere in Christendom. Eighteen out of twelve apostles are buried in Spain.

[laughter]

Martin Luther: And yet here in Wittenberg we have the pick on the crown. Bread from the last supper, milk from the virgins breast, a thorn that pierced Christ's brow on calvery and nineteen thousand other bits of sacred bone.

[laughter]

Martin Luther: All authentic, ancient, sacred relics. Even Johann Tetzel himself, inquisitor of Poland and Saxony, seller of indulgences extraordinary, connoisseur of relics, envies our collection.

[laughter]

Martin Luther: To posses them for a single night he would willingly surrender five years of his earthly life...

[laughter, returns to his rostrum]

Martin Luther: Or five hundred years in Purgatory.

[laughter]

Student: I just can't see it, Professor. It somehow just seems natural to me to say "I know I'm in pain."

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Oh... natural. Tell me, why does it seem more natural for people to believe that the sun goes round the earth, rather than the other way round?

Student: Well, obviously because it looks that way.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: I see. Then how would it look if the earth went round the sun?

Student: Erm... well, I suppose... Yes, I see what you mean.

Student: Nice wig, Janis. What's it made of?

Janis: Your mom's chest hair!

Jason: Did you see nipple? It only counts if you saw a nipple!

Student: Yeah, that's true dude...

student: [PA announcement] Remember, virtual homework may not be submitted for actual credit.

Student: Did you hear? School's canceled today cause Kurt & Ram killed themselves in a repressed, homosexual, suicide pact.

Heather Duke: No Way!

Professor: Now, is there anyone here that can tell me why... most alligators are abnormally aggressive? Anybody? Anyone? Yes, sir. You, sir.

Bobby Boucher: Mama says that alligators are ornery... 'cause they got all them teeth but no toothbrush.

Professor: [Chuckling] Yo mama said, alligators are ornery 'cause they got all them teeth... and no toothbrush. Wow! Anybody else? Yes, sir. You, sir.

Student: Alligators are aggressive because of an enlarged medulla oblongata. It's the sector of the brain which controls aggressive behavior.

Professor: That is correct! The medulla oblongata...

Bobby Boucher: But Mama said...

Professor: The medulla oblongata... is where anger, jealousy and aggression come from. Now, is there anybody here can tell me where happiness comes from? Anyone? All right, let's hear what Mama has to say on the subject.

Bobby Boucher: Mama say that happiness is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you feelin' blue.

Professor: [Chuckling] Well, folks, Mama's wrong again.

Bobby Boucher: No, Colonel Sanders, you're wrong. Mama's right. You're all wrong. Mama's right. Mama's right!

Professor: Somethin' wrong with his medulla oblongata.

[first lines]

Student: If, and only if, both sides of the numerator is divisible by the inverse of he square root of the two unassigned variable.

School Professor: Good. Except when the value of the "X" coordinate is equal to or less than the value of one. Yes Isaac?

Student: What about *that* problem?

School Professor: Oh, that? Don't worry about that.

Student: Wait. Why?

School Professor: I just put that up as a joke. That's probably the hardest geometry equation in the world.

Student: Well, how much extra credit is it worth?

School Professor: Well, considering I've never seen anyone get it right, including my mentor Dr. Leaky at MIT, I guess if anyone here can solve that problem, I'd see to it that none of you ever have to open another math book again for the rest of your lives.

Miss Davis: Can anyone tell me a common slang term for the male erection?

Student: Boner? Is boner one?

Miss Davis: Yes! Boner is good, boner is very good!

Student: [at the ticket table for the alterna-prom] Can I have one, please?

Fawcett Brooks: No.

Viola: I'm sorry. You're not on our list of approved students.

Tanner Daniels: What?

Fawcett Brooks: This being an indie operation, we've got very limited space, but I'm sure Caprice's old-fashioned loser dance has plenty of tickets available.

Chris: Whoa! Whoa! Wha-what's goin' on?

Inspector: Inspections for drugs and alcohol.

Noah: What?

Adam: Since when?

Student: O'Brien from the eighth floor's in a coma.

Chris: So?

Student: So the board instigated some new policies.

Adam: [overlapping the next two lines] That-that-that-that-that-that-that...

Noah: This is whack!

Chris: Can they even DO this?

Adam: I'm callin' my father's lawyer. Our parents pay a lot of money for us to enjoy our college experience.

Student: All your stories make me want to kill myself.

Hannah Green: I think we need something more constructive, here. He lets you in.

[Giving oral presentations]

Student: I haven't done the moon landing, Miss.

Teacher: Thank God.

Carson Phillips: [voiceover] I wanted to be heard so bad that I never thought about listening, but what I regretted the most was that I lived every day waiting for my life to begin.

Student: What's this?

Malerie Baggs: A magazine.

Student: [to Carson] Dick.

Carson Phillips: [voiceover] The higher your cloud, the further your rain falls.

Suzanne Carter: You got in all five W's; what, where, when, why and especially the who.

Student: As in who gives a shit!

Student: What is the difference between plot and narrative?

Joshua A. Beal: My question is about my Aunt Denise. She's not baptized, so that means she's going to Hell right?

Sister Terry: Uh, no, actually she's not, Joshua.

Joshua A. Beal: And my dad's best friend, he's not baptized either, and that means *he's* going to hell.

[kids beginning to clammer nervously]

Sister Terry: Joshua, I think you misunderstood.

Student: Oh man! Seth Greenburg rides my bus, he's not baptized...

Sister Terry: Okay, wait a sec...

Student #2: Hey, my cousin's going to hell?

Sister Terry: No, I don't think...

Student: The family living next door - their whole house is going to hell!

Sister Terry: No, that's not what it says in the book. If you'll notice, on page four... Ok alright, quiet! No one is going to Hell!

Rita: You're a student, aren't you?

Student: Yes.

Rita: So am I.

Student: [about Mikey's hair] Sir, it's moving!

Teacher: It's not moving; it's just too long.

Michael: It was short this morning.

Teacher: Nonsense! What kind of a dodo do you take me for? Human hair grows only half an inch a month, no more.

Michael: Not my hair, Sir.

Lawrence Wetherhold: [first lines - to his class] Good morning. As it's important that we all get to know one another, I would like you to wear these.

[hands out name tags]

Missy Chin: I've taken two other courses from you this year, and you still don't know what my name is, do you?

Lawrence Wetherhold: I most certainly do.

Missy Chin: What is it?

Lawrence Wetherhold: Look

[peeks at his papers]

Lawrence Wetherhold: Miss Chin...

Student: You just looked.

Student: [in response to Holden saying that people should make out with someone of their own sex as a statement against homophobia] That's gay!

Holden Donovan: That's the point.

Garcia: [in a beginner's English class] I didn't get that far in high school English. So... I was kind of shafted.

Harry Bailey: What was that?

Garcia: I... I was shafted.

Harry Bailey: Very good, Garcia. Very good. First person of the verb "to be." "I was." That's very good, Garcia. Now, who can give me the "you" form of "to be" with the same sentence? Yes, you!

Student: Well... you were shafted.

Student #2: Yeah, when they gave you this course!

Harry Bailey: You, can you give me the third person form?

Student #2: She was shafted.

[the class applauds]

Harry Bailey: Very good. So, as you see, "I was shafted." "You were shafted." "She was shafted." We all get shafted the same.

Student: We never learned from *that* type of sentence in high school!

Harry Bailey: Well, what do high school teachers know about fancy shafting?

Student: Pardon me sir, but haven't you come to the wrong college?

Ollie: This is Oxford isn't it?

Student: Yes but, you're dressed for Eton

Stan: Just as well, we haven't eaten since breakfast

Student: Dirty snitchers.

Lord Paddington: Repeat that remark again.

Student: [with entire student group] Dirty snitchers!

Lord Paddington: [his ears wiggle wildly] Meredith, hold my handkerchief. Now I demand an immediate apology.

[a fight ensues]

Student: We're going to run you out of Oxford; and if you don't go, we'll take of your britches and throw you out!

Lord Paddington: What? Take off my britches? In the presence of Meredith?

Student: [with entire student body, marching] Fe, fi,fo,fum. We want the blood of an American. Be he alive, or be he dead, we'll break his bones to make our bread. We'll beat those Yankees like a drum. We'll send them back where they came from

[pointing at their window]

Student: Fe, fi, fo, fum.

Tony Baker: I'm lookin' to graze on some grass.

Student: What?

Tony Baker: Okay, chick. I guess I dialed the wrong number.

Student: How do people turn to cows?

Emad: Gradually!

Glenn Holland: He couldn't hear. Of all people. Not a thing. And because Beethoven couldn't hear, the thought of him conducting, let alone composing, was pathetic to most people. And so to answer them, he composed and conducted the seventh symphony. Just try to imagine; Beethoven standing on that podium, holding his baton, his hands waving gracefully through the air. The orchestra in his mind is playing perfectly, and the orchestra in front of him, trying desperately just to keep up. There is a story, that in order to write his music, Beethoven literally sawed the legs off of his piano, so that the body would lay flat on the floor. And he would lie down next the piano with his ear pressed to the floor, and he would hit the keys with his fingers in order to hear his music through the vibrations of the floor.

Student: Mister Holland? If he couldn't hear, how would he even know what the notes were? Like, if he never heard a "C", how did he know that's what he wanted to play?

Glenn Holland: [pause] Well... Beethoven wasn't *born* deaf.

Professor Kantorek: Paul! How are you, Paul?

Paul Bäumer: [somber] Glad to see you, Professor.

Professor Kantorek: You've come at the right moment, Baumer! Just at the right moment!

[to students]

Professor Kantorek: And as if to prove all I have said, here is one of the first to go! A lad who sat before me on these very benches, who gave up all to serve in the first year of the war. One of the iron youth who have made Germany invincible in the field! Look at him. Sturdy and bronze and clear-eyed! The kind of soldier every one of you should envy! Paul, lad, you must speak to them. You must tell them what it means to serve your fatherland.

Paul Bäumer: No no, I can't tell them anything.

Paul Bäumer: You must, Paul. Just a word. Just tell them how much they're needed out there. Tell them why you went, and what it meant to you.

Paul Bäumer: I can't say anything.

Professor Kantorek: If you remember some deed of heroism, some touch of humility, tell about it.

[encouraging murmurs from the students]

Paul Bäumer: I can't tell you anything you don't know. We live in the trenches out there, we fight, we try not to be killed; and sometimes we are. That's all.

[students fidget, disappointed]

Professor Kantorek: No, no Paul!

Paul Bäumer: [angry] I've been there! I know what it's like!

Professor Kantorek: That's not what one dwells on, Paul!

Paul Bäumer: [bitterly] I heard you in here, reciting that same old stuff. Making more iron men, more young heroes. You still think it's beautiful and sweet to die for your country, don't you?

[Kantorek nods firmly]

Paul Bäumer: We used to think you knew. The first bombardment taught us better. It's dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country it's better not to die at all! There are millions out there dying for their countries, and what good is it?

[muttering from students]

Professor Kantorek: [shocked] Paul!

Paul Bäumer: [angry] You asked me to tell them how much they're needed out there.

[to students]

Paul Bäumer: He tells you, "Go out and die!" Oh, but if you'll pardon me, it's easier to *say* go out and die than it is to do it!

Student: Coward!

Paul Bäumer: And it's easier to say it, than to watch it happen!

students: Coward! You're a coward! Coward!

Professor Kantorek: No! No, boys, boys! I'm sorry, Baumer, but I must say...

Paul Bäumer: We've no use talking like this. You won't know what I mean. Only, it's been a long while since we enlisted out of this classroom. So long, I thought maybe the whole world had learned by this time. Only now they're sending babies, and they won't last a week! I shouldn't have come on leave. Up at the front you're alive or you're dead and that's all. You can't fool anybody about that very long. And up there we know we're lost and done for whether we're dead or alive. Three years we've had of it, four years! And every day a year, and every night a century! And our bodies are earth, and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death! And we're done for because you *can't* live that way and keep anything inside you! I shouldn't have come on leave. I'll go back tomorrow. I've got four days more, but I can't stand it here! I'll go back tomorrow! I'm sorry.

[exit]

Dan: [after watching Mario Savio's speech about The Machine] What is this machine that he's walking about? It's keeping us down, what is it?

Jamal: Like, robots and stuff, right?

Dan: Umm... it could be robots. It could be robots, but let's say it's a metaphor. He's saying this machine is keeping you down. Now, what is that? What keeps us from being free? Ms. Drey?

Drey: Prisons.

Dan: Absolutely. Absolutely, prisons. OK? Prisons are definitely a part of it. What else?

Terrence: White!

Dan: White is definitely a part of it. The Man.

Student: The school.

Dan: The school, exactly. The whole-the whole education system is part of the machine. What else?

Student: Aren't you the machine then?

Dan: Oh, no, you didn't. What'd you say?

Student: Aren't you the machine?

Dan: You're saying I'm the machine?

Student: Yeah, you're white. You're part of the school.

Dan: Oh, yeah, I guess you've got a point. All right, so I'm part of the machine. But if I'm part of it, then so are you. You are, too. We all are. And this is the thing, remember? Everything is made with opposing force. We may be opposed to the machine, but we're still very much a part of it, right? I work for the government, the school, but I'm also very much opposed to a lot of its policies. You guys hate coming to school, right? Holler back if you heard me! You hate it, but you come anyway. Sometimes. Exactly.

Student: God's not Dead!

[a male student asks Helen if she's doing a page on serial killers]

Student: So, uh, what's the deal? You guys doing a page on serial killers or something?

Helen Lyle: [Helen lights a cigarette] Something like that.

Zeke: Not today. It's too damn hot, and I got zero fucking tolerance.

Miss Burke: Eat me, you asshole! I'm the one with no tolerance, you pathetic little runt!

Student: Ouch! Come back.

Zeke: [sarcastic] What are you going to do? Are you going to call my mother?

Miss Burke: And how am I going to do that, little Zekey boy? Do you even know where she is? Europe? Sri Lanka? Japan? I wonder what remote location she went to this week... to hide from her great, big bastard mistake. I've taken your shit for TOO FUCKING LONG you dickless, drug-induced excuse for a human being!

Zeke: Whoa... woman. What are you on?

Miss Burke: "Woman"? Did you just say "woman"? I'm sick of you, little boy! And if I have to see you peddling your little "Wonder Dust" again, I'm gonna shove my foot so far up your ass, you'll be sucking my toes 'till graduation!

[exits]

Zeke: [to himself] Whoa! She got some bad shit!

[the two kids skipping school and Dr. Margo Green arrive to the museum at the same time]

Josh: Let me get this straight. We finally cut school, and you want to go to the museum. Maybe afterwards, we can go to the library?

Student: They've got Mummies in there. Eyeballs in jars, dead stuff.

Josh: See, man, I don't know about this stuff.

Student: Look, we can go in with them.

[points at a bus of other students arrives to visit the museum]

Student: Check it out, and split. I mean, we can't go to an arcade yet, anyway. We'd be noticed. So, what are you, scared?

Josh: No, I'm not scared.

[the two kids walk up and stare at Margo who's dressing outside the steps into the museum]

Margo Green: Hey, didn't your parents teach you not to stare?

Josh: Didn't yours teach you to not get dressed in the street?

Museum Worker: Good morning, Doctor Green.

Margo Green: Good morning.

Josh: Doctor?

Student: What kind of Doctor are you?

Margo Green: I'm an Evolutionary Biologist.

Student: What's that?

Margo Green: Someone trying to figure out where our tails went.

Detective Joe Carlson: [to the cops] Lock her up.

Student: Fuck you!

Detective Joe Carlson: And fuck you!

Eddie: Well, well, hark ye, friends, roommates, countrymen, lend me your cheers.

[Crowd of frat boys yell "Yeah!"]

Eddie: Oh, such rapturous greetings warms the chilled heart of your noble King!

[Crowd yells "Long Live the King!"]

Student: I'll take the Queen!

Eddie: I thought you would. Now, hark ye, while I give to you the privileges of the season, there shall be no amusement tax on necking!

[Crowd roars!]

Hélène: [Walking through a cavern] You must understand that the instincts, the feelings, and even the intelligence of Cro-Magnon man was definitely human. The only differences to the problem were his needs to survive.

Student: What does "survive" mean?

Hélène: It means to stay alive. He began to draw. Do you know what we call desires when they lose their savage quality? Aspirations. If Cro-Magnon had not survived, the world in which we live wouldn't exist.