The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Jean Brodie:
Sandy, please try to do as I say and not as I do. Remember, you are a child, Sandy, and far from your prime.

Jean Brodie:
Safety does not come first. Goodness, truth, and beauty come first.

Jean Brodie:
For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.

Jean Brodie:
I am a teacher! First, last, always!

Jean Brodie:
[after Miss Mackay has read a supposedly incriminating letter, written by Sandy and Jenny] There's very little for me to say, Miss Mackay in the face of your extraordinary prejudice and hostility.

Miss Mackay:
Miss Brodie, I am not asking you to say anything. I am asking... demanding... that you put your signature, your own signature, on a letter of resignation which I have prepared for you.

Jean Brodie:
I will not resign.

Miss Mackay:
If you will not resign, you will force me to dismiss you.

Jean Brodie:
I will not resign and you will not dismiss me, Miss Mackay. You will not use the excuse of that pathetic, that humorous document to blackmail me! Mr. Lowther, you are a witness to this. Miss Mackay has made totally unsupported accusations against my name and yours. If she has one authentic shred of evidence, just one, let her bring it forth! Otherwise, if one more word of this outrageous calumny reaches my ears, I shall sue! I shall take Miss Mackay to the public courts and I shall sue the trustees of Marcia Blaine, if they support her. I will not stand quietly by and allow myself to be crucified by a woman whose fetid frustration has overcome her judgment! If scandal is to your taste, Miss Mackay, I shall give you a feast!

Miss Mackay:
Miss Brodie!

Jean Brodie:
I am a teacher! I am a teacher, first, last, always! Do you imagine that for one instant I will let that be taken from me without a fight? I have dedicated, sacrificed my life to this profession. And I will not stand by like an inky little slacker and watch you rob me of it and for what? For what reason? For jealousy! Because I have the gift of claiming girls for my own. It is true I am a strong influence on my girls. I am proud of it! I influence them to be aware of all the possibilities of life... of beauty, honor, courage. I do not, Miss Mackay, influence them to look for slime where it does not exist! I am going. When my class convenes, my pupils will find me composed and prepared to reveal to them the succession of the Stuarts. And on Sunday, I will go to Cramond to visit Mr. Lowther. We are accustomed, bachelor and spinster, to spend our Sundays together in sailing and walking the beaches and in the pursuit of music. Mr. Lowther is teaching me to play the mandolin. Good day, Miss Mackay.

Jean Brodie:
I am truly in my prime.

Jean Brodie:
P-E-T-R-I-F-I-C-A-T-I-O-N. Petrification! I do not intend to devote my prime to petrification.

Jean Brodie:
Little girls! I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

Jean Brodie:
Deep in most of us is the potential for greatness or the potential to inspire greatness.

Jean Brodie:
"Dear Miss Brodie, I hope it will be convenient for you to see me in my office this afternoon at 4:15. Emily Mackay." Four fifteen. Not four, not four thirty, but four fifteen. Hm. She thinks to intimidate me by the use of quarter hours?

Jean Brodie:
Ah, chrysanthemums. Such serviceable flowers.

Teddy Lloyd:
A man with a wife and six children plus a schoolgirl for a mistress can be called any number of rude names, but "coward" is not one of them.

Teddy Lloyd:
[to Jean] What do you want me to do... ravish you on the floor for the edification of your girls?

Teddy Lloyd:
[to Sandy] You're a clever little cat, aren't you?

Jean Brodie:
It was *you* who betrayed me!

Sandy:
I didn't *betray* you - I simply put a stop to you!

Teddy Lloyd:
My church understands human imperfection and forgives it. Why can't you?

Jean Brodie:
I am not interested in human imperfection! I am interested in beauty, in art, in truth!

Jean Brodie:
Six inches is perfectly adequate. More is vulgar!

Miss Kerr:
She always looks so... *extreme*.

[first lines]

Gordon Lowther:
Morning girls. Good Morning.

Sandy:
There's Miss Brodie!

Teddy Lloyd:
The truth is that you bounced into bed with an artist, but you were horrified when you woke up with a man!

Jean Brodie:
The French have a genius for food, but I doubt French women will ever get the vote.

Jenny:
Miss Brode never got married like our mothers and fathers.

Sandy:
They don't have primes.

Jenny:
They have sexual intercourse.

Teddy Lloyd:
Ah, the dangerous Miss Brodie!

Jean Brodie:
Now Jenny, do us a cartwheel for comic relief.

Jean Brodie:
Surely you cannot believe that this is the work of nine-year-olds?

Miss Mackay:
I could believe it was the work of your nine-year-olds!

Gordon Lowther:
I do not want to be your lover! I want to be your husband.

Teddy Lloyd:
There's no contradiction in being both ridiculous and magnificent.

Miss Mackay:
[on "La Traviata"] Violetta was a thoroughly silly woman with diseased lungs.

several characters:
Mary MacGregor!

Jean Brodie:
Assassin! Assassin!

Monica:
She makes history seem like the cinema.

Sandy:
No. Not the cinema. More like Shakespeare.

Sandy:
I'm not sure about God, but I am now quite sure about witches.

Mary McGregor:
I saw them kissing - together!

Teddy Lloyd:
You should have married old Lowther, you really should. I'm 43 years old, Jean. Now, how old are you?

Jean Brodie:
I'm... I'm in my prime!

Teddy Lloyd:
Your "prime". LOOK at yourself, Jean! Look at me: a second-rate painter running to seed. You're NOT in your prime, Jean, you're a frustrated spinster taking it out in idiot causes and dangerous ideas. A schoolmarm!

Jean Brodie:
[indignant] I am a teacher!

Teddy Lloyd:
A teacher or a leader? The dangerous Miss Brodie and her troops. Well, where you lead I cannot follow.

Jean Brodie:
Arrividerci. [walks away]

Miss Mackay:
Miss Mackay: Culture is no compensation for lack of hard knowledge.