Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)

Peter O'Toole: Arthur Chipping

Photos 

Quotes 

• Katie : [looking at a carving]  What does that mean?

  Chips : Gnothe seauthon. Know yourself. The watchword of Apollo.

  Katie : The god of prophecy.

  Chips : Amongst other things...

  [Later at the close of the scene] 

  Katie : [contemplating the temple she has visited]  Know yourself. That's quite a watchword. Gnothe seauthon.

  Chips : You're most retentive.

  Katie : Give me a good line and I can remember it.

• Katie : Sorry, am I going too fast for you?

  Chips : My dear young lady, I could easily go just as fast as you if I cared to risk a broken ankle and be carried back on a stretcher. It's extremely foolish to leap around in a ruined circus like a mountain goat. Especially in those shoes. These stones are very treacherous.

• Katie : Yes, well, you're very active for your age!

  Chips : Since you cannot conceivably know what my age is, your most flattering conviction, dear Miss Bridges, must be based on a somewhat conjectural premise.

  Katie : [laughs]  You've done it again. Now that's three times you've made me laugh. And only this morning I really did think I'd never laugh again. I suppose it's your being a schoolmaster.

  Chips : [insulted]  I fail to see what's so laughable about that.

  Katie : Well, no, it's not laughable. One doesn't laugh at people only because they're funny. Not some people, anyway.

• Chips : Did you not hear Miss Bridges ask you to go?

  Calbury : Who are you?

  Chips : It doesn't matter who I am. It only matters that Miss Bridges wishes you to leave her house, and you are, therefore, leaving it.

• Chips : We must go in, dear. The headmaster always goes in last, and the boys always receive him standing and in silence.

  Katie : Sounds like a dream entrance.

• Katie : The headmaster's a darling. His wife's a bitch.

  Chips : That's not a word we use at Brookfield.

  Katie : You should I think.

• Chips : [after Miss Honeybun interrupts them]  Oh, I'm extremely sorry, I was kissing my wife.

  Miss Honeybun : Why?

  Chips : I don't know, really. It somehow seemed a good idea at the time.

• Chips : Is my wife here?

  Ursula : Wife? Which wife, darling?

  Chips : She was called Katherine Bridges.

  Ursula : Katie? Of course she's here! Did you say 'wife,' darling?

  Chips : Yes.

  Ursula : Well, that would make you her husband, wouldn't it?

  Chips : Yes, it would.

  Ursula : Then she's not here, darling. She's nowhere near the place.

  [Chips starts to leave. Ursula stops him] 

  Ursula : That's what I was told to say, if you came in. She's in the kitchen, darling, making scrambled eggs.

• Calbury : I've met you somewhere before. I certainly remember that voice.

  Chips : Now here are your stick and hat, and that, as you plainly know, is the front door.

  Calbury : Katie, you...?

  Chips : Straight ahead, please.

  Calbury : That voice. There's something about it. I don't know who you are, but I can guess what you are. You're a school teacher, aren't you?

  Chips : Correct.

  Calbury : I bet you give your boys hell.

  Chips : Only the bad ones.

• Chips : [to his students]  The Lex Canuleia is not, as Cawley Minor seems to think, a law regulating canals, but a law that permitted Roman patricians to marry plebeians. An easy way to remember it is to imagine a Miss Plebeian wishing to marry a Mr. Patrician, and Mr. Patrician saying he can't. She could then reply "Oh yes, you can, you liar."

• Chips : I refuse utterly to become the secret lover of a well-known actress.

  Katie : Who said lover?

  Chips : Well, friend, I would like to be.

  Katie : Who said friend?

  Chips : What is there between lover and friend?

  Katie : Husband?

• Ursula : Of course, you two are married or something, aren't you?

  Chips : Married, madam, and quite definitely not something.

  Ursula : I adore this man. When you're finished with him, Katie, lend him to me.

• Chips : I don't think I do know you.

  Ursula : You must be mad. What's your name?

  Chips : Arthur Chipping.

  Ursula : That's right. You take to drink.

  Chips : I do not take to drink, madam. Excuse me.

  Ursula : Madam, I like. Madam, I adore.

• [Chips and Staefel are discussing Katie, Chips's new wife] 

  Max Staefel : Oh, dear fellow, dear fellow, I hope you've been wise.

  Chips : Of course, I've been wise you old idiot.

  Max Staefel : A pretty face is not everything, you know, dear fellow. There's so many questions of temperament and suitability.

  Chips : "Suitability?" That's a horrible word, Max. It isn't even in the dictionary.

  Max Staefel : It's in Webster.

  Chips : Oh, Webster. Are you implying she's unsuitable to me?

  Max Staefel : I'm simply wondering is she's suitable... as your wife.

• [after Katie flees to London, afraid she will cause a scandal for Chips] 

  Chips : That's a bloody silly word! "Suitability."

  Max Staefel : I didn't invent it.

  Chips : How do *I* know?

  Max Staefel : It's in Webster!

  Chips : Well, I'm not going to let it happen, Max!

  [Chips runs down the street and jumps onto a passing bus, headed for London. Clinging to the side of the bus, he shouts back] 

  Chips : Apollo has willed it!

• Katie : I'm going to ask Apollo a question.

  Chips : You mustn't ask a personal question, well, not a specific one like uh...

  Katie : Like "Will Bill Calbury come back to me?" No (sighs), I won't bore Apollo with that, I promise you.

• Chips : [to his students]  There was a boy who, when asked to translate into Latin Tennyson's beautiful lines "Break, break, break on Thy cold grey stones, O Sea," came up with "O fluctus, fluctus, rumpety-rumpety jam!" (laughter from the class) He's now a bishop. (More laughter)

• Chips : You are William C. Belfridge's ward. Miss Katherine Bridges.

  Katie : Now that's wrong, too. It's not my real name. My real name is... now you won't laugh, will you? It's Brisket.

  Chips : Charmingly Anglo-Saxon.

• Chips : The milk is spilt. Don't lets cry. Go and change.

• Chips : He plainly thinks I'm a bloody sadist.

  Max Staefel : My dear fellow, that's the first time I ever heard you swear.

  Chips : There has to be a first time for everything.

• Max Staefel : What do they call you?

  Chips : "Ditchie."

  Max Staefel : Ditchie? That's not too bad.

  Chips : It's short for "ditchwater," and that is a simile for "dull."

• Max Staefel : I don't think the boys do dislike you.

  Chips : Yes, they do. I can't blame them. If I were one of them, I'd dislike myself, I think.

• Chips : What is a worse failure than a teacher who can't make his pupils grasp the importance of what he has to teach? Can you answer me that?

  Max Staefel : Yes. A teacher who doesn't try to.

• Headmaster : I don't know what Sutterwick's father's going to say.

  Chips : I do. Something very smooth, very offensive and quite beside the point.

• Chips : [singing]  What does the future show? Spring will return again next year, And when she does, She'll find me here, Wondering still, I know, Where did my childhood go?

• Mrs. Summersthwaite : It's a divine show, quite divine. and a very big hit.

  Chips : Hit?

  Mrs. Summersthwaite : That means a success.

  Chips : Does it?

  Mrs. Summersthwaite : "Flossie from Fulham" is a divine show and you'll adore it.

• Chips : "Wine-dark sea" is a perfectly acceptable description of the Aegean Sea, Barker. I agree Homer does use it rather a lot. But then there are some epithets we all use rather a lot, don't we? I believe your favorite is: "stinky." Isn't it? Forgive me if I prefer Homer's more colourful imagery.

• Chips : Well, boys, I've finished. You've all hated me for this, I know, but I am paid to teach you and your parents pay Brookfield for you to learn. We have a mutual duty, in fact, and it's not a duty that I, for one, am prepared to betray. This is goodbye for 10 weeks. May I wish you all a happy holiday. You may go.

• Chips : The plot I found a shade tortuous, but the exposition of it, remarkably adroit.

• Johnny Longbridge : This is Chips. I told you about him, remember?

  Katie : Of course. Hasn't he any other name?

  Johnny Longbridge : Well, if he has, I can't remember it.

  Katie : Then I'd better call you Mr. Chips. That's rather a nice name. How do you do, Mr. Chips?

  Chips : How do you do, Miss Bridges?

• Johnny Longbridge : Goodbye, Katie. Marvelous seeing you. Goodbye.

  Chips : Goodbye, Miss Bridges.

  Katie : Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

• Chips : My name is Chipping.

  Katie : Mine is Bridges. Golly. Well, one thing's fairly certain. We'd never be cast opposite each other.

• Chips : Good gracious, you're not the girl in that awful--ly jolly musical comedy?

  Katie : Oh, thank you for making me laugh. It's the first time I have for over a month. Cheers.

  Chips : Cheers. I didn't mean it as funny.

  Katie : Well, no, if you had, I wouldn't have laughed.

• Katie : Well, it's been really thrilling to be shown around Paestum by the world's greatest authority on ancient Greece.

  Chips : I am *not* the world's greatest authority on ancient Greece, just one of them.

• Katie : Oh, what a wonderful day it's been.

  Chips : Yes. Yes, indeed. Quite wonderful.

  Katie : Can't we make it a wonderful night too?

  Chips : Ah. Well, as it happens, Miss Bridges, for tomorrow, I have a rather tight curriculum.

  Katie : Well, loosen it. Tonight, Mr. Chips, you and I are going to make whoopee.

  Chips : The term is new to me. What does it mean?

• Chips : Looking forward to it enormously.

• Chips : Musical-comedy actresses can't be quite normal - with all that dressing up and skipping around.

• Chips : It was all rather a pity. Until that moment, I'd found her really, rather surprisingly, civilized. Tiny little thing, very pretty hair. But, why pick on me? An old stick in the mud.

  Max Staefel : It's a very accurate description of you.

  Chips : Don't rub it in, Max.

• Chips : Absolutely blind drunk, my dear fellow. It was most embarrassing. I mean, I'm known in Naples and can you imagine? I was almost raped.

• Chips : When the drink has worn off, do you imagine that I would give up my profession, my true vocation, as you know it is, to come to London to live in your house, off your money, amongst all those awful Ursulas and bright young things? No. Dear Miss Bridges, I'm sorry to turn down a suggestion which most men would give up everything for. But I'm a schoolmaster - and a schoolmaster is all I ever want to be.

  Katie : Well, now, isn't that convenient? Because all I ever want to be is a schoolmaster's wife.

• Chips : Who was that lady I just had the pleasure of meeting?

  Katie : Ursula? She's just Ursula.

  Chips : Indeed.

  Katie : Very famous actress, Ursula Mossbank. But, well, she's just Ursula.

  Chips : She seemed just Ursula.

• Katie : Now I know. Not that I needed to, but now I know for sure.

  Chips : What?

  Johnny Longbridge : [Katie kisses Chips, Johnny to Chips]  Well, If that's how you do your best for me, I'd be interested to see how you do your worst.

  Chips : My dear old fellow, you really mustn't leap to insane conclusions.

  Johnny Longbridge : It wasn't a very long leap, was it? Anyway, it's not insane. If she won't have me, and she won't, you're much the next best thing. It's very sane, I think, for both of you.

  Katie : Go away, Johnny. You're putting a large foot in it. Let me handle things.

• Max Staefel : Oh, dear fellow. I do hope you've been wise.

  Chips : Of course I've been wise, you old idiot.

• Chips : There's a certain tendency to tastelessness in your jokes. Humor ceases to be humor.

  Katie : Hello, Mr. Chips.

• Chips : I know all about Sutterwick, his threats to tell the governors about your past. I know all about your "unsuitability". Horrible word. Both our unsuitabilities - the plural is even worse. But how you'd ever imagine that a word like suitability - which is only in Webster, mind you, not in the Oxford, or is it? Could ever prevail over a word like love - which is in all the dictionaries.

• Chips : Is my wife here?

  Ursula : Wife? Which wife, darling?

  Chips : She was called Katherine Bridges.

  Ursula : Katie! Of course she's here. Did you say "wife," darling?

  Chips : Yes.

  Ursula : But that would make you her husband, wouldn't it?

  Chips : Yes.

  Ursula : Then she's not here, darling. She's nowhere near the place. That's what I was told to say if you came in. She's in the kitchen, darling. making scrambled eggs.

• Katie : You think I ran away from you because of sheer, paralyzing bloody funk?

  Chips : Yes.

  Katie : You don't think it might'n have been just because I love you?

  Chips : Yes, but it was still funk.

• Katie : Your grammar is too perfect - and your prose style too impeccable.

  Chips : You can't qualify superlatives.

  Katie : Can't you?

  Chips : Well, you can, if you want to. You can do anything if you want to.

• Katie : Ursula, we must go.

  Ursula : We? You're not taking him? Of course, you two are married or something, aren't you?

  Chips : Married, madam. and quite definitely not something.

  Ursula : I adore this man. When you've finished with him, Katie, lend him to me.

• Chips : [singing]  Red roses, Orange marigolds, Yellow buttercups, Green leaves, Blue cornflowers, Indigo lilacs, And violets, Violets, My happy eye perceives...

• Sutterwick : I see no reason why I should stand here and be insulted.

  Chips : Except that you are standing here and are being insulted. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• Chips : It's unlucky for you, isn't it, that I've nipped your pranks in the bud? Yes, Mrs. Chipping? And what precisely do you have to say to that?

  Katie : How do you nip a prank in the bud?

• Chips : I've never known anyone more wickedly or wantonly extravagant than my wife.

• Chips : There's a lesson in it all somewhere. I suppose.

  Katie : Yes.

  Chips : If only I knew what it was.

• Chips : Brookfield for me will be only memories. And they can't change an old chap's memories however hard they try. They are memories that I will always cherish and for which I am now most truly and deeply grateful.

• Chips : I wonder if we were any use at all. I mean, what did we ever teach the boys? How to parse a sentence in ancient Greek? Was that going to help them today? Was it? Well, I suppose we did teach them one thing: how to behave to each other. Yes, we did try to teach them that. And is there anything more important to teach people than that, is there?