Because They're Young (1960)

Dick Clark: Neil Hendry

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Quotes 

• Joan Dietrich : I am not jealous of your friendship with the students. I'm afraid of it... for you and for me. You're gonna get hurt. I can't stop you. But if I let myself love you...

  Neil Hendry : Let yourself? You can't play that by the rules.

  Joan Dietrich : Oh, can't I? I've had stars in my eyes too. I lost them the hard way. I don't intend to go through that again.

  Neil Hendry : Again?

  Joan Dietrich : You know why I left teaching?

  Neil Hendry : No. I wish I did.

  Joan Dietrich : I knew a teacher very much like you once. Jerry loved his students, fought for them, and refused to believe that there was anyone who couldn't be helped if he tried hard enough. He was always so happy when one of them seemed to be responding. One day a 14 year old girl was attacked in the school corridor. One of his successess. The next morning they found Jerry in the courtyard. He had fallen. It was a four-story building.

  Neil Hendry : So, you came out here?

  Joan Dietrich : Have shell, will travel.

  Neil Hendry : But you can't live inside of it forever. If you do, you wind up shutting everybody out.

  Joan Dietrich : If I have to. It's safer, isn't it?

  Neil Hendry : And lonelier.

• Patcher : [Confronts Neil]  What's the matter, teacher? Don't you want your little boy gettin' hurt?

  Griff Rimer : [Enters]  Hey, Patcher. You know how these guys fight.

  Neil Hendry : I'm not interested in finding out.

  Griff Rimer : Don't worry. We've tangled before, haven't we, Patcher?

  Patcher : Big change, Rimer. Taking their side now?

  Griff Rimer : Yeah.

  Patcher : Pretty brave with your muscle men backin' you up.

  Neil Hendry : Ok, fellas, let's get back to the dance. I don't think they'll be any trouble.

• Buddy McCalla : Look, there's nothing I can say. I did it and I don't care.

  Neil Hendry : I saw you. You were sick to your stomach the minute you came to your senses.

  Buddy McCalla : It was like it wasn't me. Like somebody else inside my body. Not me.

  Neil Hendry : Yes, it was, Buddy. Look, it's always a shock to find out that there's another side to the people that we know or we love. The closer we are the greater the shock. What you did was wrong. Nothing's going to change that. But there's reasons. There's always reasons. It doesn't change the part that you have known. Buddy, look, we don't love people because they're perfect. If we did, you'd soon find out there'd be nobody to love at all.

• Principal Donlan : I'm not going back on my decision to take you on, Hendry. I just want to make it clear on how we operate. Harrison is a superior school. It always has been.

  Neil Hendry : I know its ratings, sir.

  Principal Donlan : And I am fighting to keep it that way and it isn't easy. Some of our transfer students are coming from schools that are practically vestibules of a juvenile detention home.

  Neil Hendry : It seems to me that to me those are the ones you can help the most.

  Principal Donlan : 99 percent of our student body is decent and hard-working. It's my job to protect them.

  Neil Hendry : What about the other one percent?

  Principal Donlan : They're troublemakers. I don't waste much time in getting rid of them.

  Neil Hendry : You just bounce them back to the vestibules.