- 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: [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.
- Katie: No, the allusion was to the stage which used to be my profession.
- Headmaster: Indeed.
- Headmaster's Wife: You're an actress, Mrs. Chipping?
- Katie: Well, not even my best friends would call me that.
- Headmaster's Wife: [snidely] Aw, and what would they call you?
- Katie: A soubrette. That's the girl in musical comedy who sings the big number and, in the end, loses the man.
- [Chuckles]
- Katie: In real life, they nearly always end up the wives of earls. I nearly did. But luckily... I met Chips.
- 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 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: Ursula, darling, you must see the bell tower. And here's your guide (pointing to Herr Staefel).
- Ursula: The bell tower? (realizing Katie's unspoken intention) Oh, yes, of course... the bell tower! (Laughs) Later...
- Staefel: I hope you like early English perpendicular.
- Ursula: Darling, I revel in early English perpendicular!
- Headmaster: Clipping's waiting for his wife, I think.
- Headmaster's Wife: [skeptical] His wife?
- Sutterwick: Flabbergasting. Who on earth?
- Headmaster's Wife: Who on earth indeed?
- [hoots]
- Headmaster's Wife: It's what we've all been asking ourselves ever since we heard the news.
- Headmaster: It's apparently someone he met on one of his excursions to the ancient ruins of Pompeii.
- Headmaster's Wife: Somewhat of an ancient ruin herself, no doubt.
- [chuckles]
- Headmaster: An ancient ruin did you say, my dear?
- Sutterwick: [upon seeing Katie] This isn't a joke, is it?
- Headmaster's Wife: Chipping's lost all sense of proportion.
- Headmaster: Some people might think he'd found it.
- Katie: I'm so terribly sorry about being late. Chips says it's almost as bad as being off your number.
- Headmaster: I'm afraid I don't quite understand that allusion, Mrs. Chipping.
- Katie: Oh, Mrs. Chipping! I just love when I'm called that.
- Headmaster: And you are that, yes?
- Katie: Oh, yes! Well and truly! Well, unless Chips is a bigamist which I rather suspect. How else could he have escaped... until now?
- Ursula: Oh, but I adore English public schools! I simply worship them all! Even that idiotic Westchester... where you can't ask a boy out to tea without everyone asking the most extraordinary questions.
- 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)