The Trouble with Angels

Mary Clancy:
I've got the most scathingly brilliant idea!

Mother Superior:
Rachel? Well, Rachel has a home and parents who love her. She's a follower, not a leader. She can be guided. But, Mary... oh, Mary has a will of iron. To bend but not to break... to yield but not capitulate... to have pride but also humility. This has always been my struggle, Sister. Can I be less tolerant of Mary than the Church has been of me?

Rachel Devery:
Couldn't we have uniforms, too, Reverend Mother?

Mother Superior:
Most certainly not. The band will perform in their gym suits.

Rachel Devery:
Our gym suits?

Mother Superior:
Yes.

Mary Clancy:
But, they're awful! I mean, it's not as if they were like Sacred Heart's. At Sacred Heart they wear short-shorts for gym.

Mother Superior:
They're French.

Mother Superior:
This is a Catholic school Mr. Gottschalk!

Mr. Gottschalk:
Band uniforms are non-sectarian.

Mother Superior:
As for the social graces, I'm convinced that your school encourages barbarism and concerns itself only with free thinking, free wheeling and finger-painting.

Mr. Petrie:
The finest educational minds in the country happen to be on our side!

Mother Superior:
God is on ours!

Mary Clancy:
Hi, Marvel-Ann!

Marvel-Ann Clancy:
Drop dead!

Rachel Devery:
Who's that?

Mary Clancy:
Marvel-Ann. My uncle George is her father. He's been sending her to the nuns since she was six. I told her she was illegitimate, so she hates me.

Rachel Devery:
Is she?

Mary Clancy:
Lord, no! Uncle George is very careful about that kind of thing.

[last lines]

Mary Clancy:
Who knows, Reverend Mother, Maybe someday Rachel will come back and join the order.

Mother Superior:
If she does, I quit!

Rachel Devery:
[to Mary during their final punishment] I wonder if my father realizes that he's paying good money to have me educated to be a janitor.

Mary Clancy:
Rache! I need something to stuff in the window. The snow's coming in. [Rachel gives Mary a magazine] I can't stuff His Holiness in the window!

Rachel Devery:
Well, I'm not going to give you Burt Lancaster!

[upon their first arrival at St. Francis]

Mary Clancy:
Ohhh! It's positively medieval!

Rachel Devery:
All that's missing is the dragon!

Rachel Devery:
You know, that nutty swan looks just like Sister Elizabeth.

Rachel Devery:
[while washing pots for punishment] Reverend Mother says that the detergent might help wash away my sins.

Exasperated Lady on Train:
Really! A child your age smoking!

Mary Clancy:
I'm not a child, madam; I'm a midget with bad habits.

Sister Rose Marie:
Take off her binder. Take off her binder.

Mother Superior:
Evidently, Sister Ursula's German accent amuses you.

Mary Clancy:
I didn't know she was German, Reverend Mother.

Mother Superior:
Then surely you didn't know that during the war, Sister Ursula kept 34 Jewish children hidden for more than two years in the cellar of a destroyed convent outside of Munich. And that when this was finally discovered she was imprisoned. She suffered untold indignities, and she... she...

[choking up, then turning away]

Mary Clancy:
Are we dismissed, Reverend Mother?

Mother Superior:
[quietly] Yes.

Mother Superior:
[to Mary] One of us may have to go. But I guarantee you, it won't be me!

Rachel Devery:
You going to St. Francis, too?

Mary Clancy:
[indicating her school uniform] Would I be caught dead in this Dior creation otherwise?

Rachel Devery:
That's a fact.

Mary Clancy:
What's your name?

Rachel Devery:
Rachel Devery.

Mary Clancy:
No it's not!

Rachel Devery:
Huh?

Mary Clancy:
It's Fleur de Lis. You're half French.

Rachel Devery:
How about that! What's your name?

Mary Clancy:
Kim Novak?

Rachel Devery:
I like it.

Mary Clancy:
So do I. But I'm stuck with "Mary Clancy"!

Sister Constance:
[Talking to Mary Clancy] Now, what are you so solemn about? God's in his Heaven, all's well with the world... Now cheer up.

Mother Superior:
Well, it is the point, not the vernacular, that is important.

Mary Clancy:
[looking at the dress] Oh! It looks beautiful!

Mother Superior:
[as she is taking the dress off of the dummy] It is nice, isn't it? I used to do a great deal a great deal of sowing when I was a girl. I'd always blessed my mother for insisting that I learn to how to handle a needle. When my parents died, I was sixteen then. My uncle, who'd lived in Paris...

Mary Clancy:
Paris?

Mother Superior:
Paris was my mother's home before she'd immigrated to Quebec and married my father. I'd lost my parents within three months of each other. The flu epidemic. Well, I went to live in Paris. My uncle arranged for my apprenticeship with a well known couterier. Of course, I was only a seamstress, but I had visions of creating my own designs and the house of Madeline Rousch challenging the great Channel. That was my name, Madeline Rousch. I remember standing behind the curtains with the fitters when the collections were shown. The buyers came from all over the world. Many times as I watched the models display the gowns, I'd think "Now I would have done that one differently. Used a different fabric. Something that had more movement, more mystery." Awe, I know it is vanity, of course but I think I could have made a success of it.

Mary Clancy:
But how could you give it up?

Mother Superior:
I found something better.

Mary:
I hope I die young, and very wealthy!

“ What do you expect for a quarter, hairshirts“