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 : Among 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 treacherous.

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

  Chips : Since you cannot conceivably know what my age is, your most flattering compliment 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 thought I'd never laugh again. I suppose it's your being a schoolmaster.

  Chips : [insulted]  I fail to see what is 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. C'mon... there's so much to see before the sun goes down on us...

• 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 here.

  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.

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

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

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

  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.

  Staefel : It's in Webster.

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

  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."

  Staefel : I didn't invent it.

  Chips : How do *I* know?

  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.