Mary Tyler Moore credited as playing...
Sister Michelle
- Sister Irene: I think our neighbours are Catholic.
- Sister Michelle: Yes, it's too bad they're not Christian.
- Sister Michelle: You certainly have a way with a compliment, doctor.
- Dr. John Carpenter: It's Southern charm, we call it.
- Sister Michelle: You're the doctor?
- Sister Barbara: You don't look like a doctor.
- Dr. John Carpenter: Well, man doesn't live by bread alone, especially the kind of bread you make in a free clinic. John Carpenter, M.D.
- Sister Michelle: Don't you see, we can't be identified with the old order. If we're gonna reach these people, we've got be accepted first as women, then as nuns.
- Sister Irene: Yeah, well, I think we're about to be accepted as women.
- Sister Michelle: Doctor, we were sent here by the Catholic Action Committee.
- Dr. John Carpenter: Look, don't try to con me, honey.
- Sister Michelle: We were given to understand that you were desperately in need of nurses.
- Dr. John Carpenter: Well, that's my problem. It's got nothing to do with you chicks.
- Sister Michelle: We are the nurses they sent!
- Dr. John Carpenter: The last three nurses who worked here couldn't take it. Two of them got raped. One even against her will.
- Sister Michelle: We are very hard-nosed. Cute. But not hard enough.
- Dr. John Carpenter: [touches Michelle's nose] Cute. But not hard enough.
- Dr. John Carpenter: Which one of you is in trouble?
- Sister Michelle: I beg your pardon?
- Dr. John Carpenter: Look, I know the whole story. You don't want to go to your family doctor uptown, so you figure you'd come here and get everything straightened out, right?
- Sister Michelle: We were sent here.
- Dr. John Carpenter: You came to the wrong place. 'Cause I won't do any more for you than I would any other kid who finds herself in the same fix. Whichever one of you is the lucky girl, follow me. I'll give you some vitamin pills and a diet sheet. Just try not to gain too much weight, especially in the first three months. All three of you? Uh, just out of curiosity, was it the same guy?
- Sister Michelle: I think she's autistic.
- Amanda: Artistic? Nah. She don't even lift up a crayon.
- Sister Michelle: No. Autistic. Sometimes, when a child's rejected very early in life, they crawl inside themselves and shut out the whole world as if they're trying to punish the rest of us along with themselves.
- Dr. John Carpenter: We celebrate by having a drink.
- Sister Michelle: Oh, we don't drink.
- Dr. John Carpenter: We don't drink?
- Sister Michelle: Well, uh, what I mean is - a little wine, occasionally.
- Sister Barbara: Ah, Sisters, why don't you go on to the Clinic without me. Please tell Dr. Carpenter I'll be there as soon as I can. I have a rendezvous with destiny at the Ajax Market.
- Sister Michelle: Sister Barbara!
- Sister Barbara: I know, order and discipline, Well, I'm being wilfully disobedient.
- Sister Irene: That is called doing your own thing.
- Sister Irene: I must have said a million Hail Marys to get out of a neighborhood just like this. I suddenly realize how safe I felt in my habit.
- Sister Michelle: We argued that out before. It's just a symbol of authority, like a policeman's uniform.
- Sister Irene: Yeah, well, you never see a policeman getting mugged.
- Sister Michelle: We're gonna live the way other people live and dress the way they do. For once in our religious lives, we're not going to be different.
- Sister Irene: There's a lot to be said for being different.
- Sister Michelle: We're not what you think we are.
- Rose: Sure, and they're calling themselves "massosies" now. I read it in the Enquirer.
- Lily: We don't want any monkey business around here, I'm warning ya. We have friends at the precinct.
- Sister Michelle: Well, we want to be friends too.
- Rose: Call Father Gibbons. He'll want to know what's coming into his parish now. And tell him one of em's black as the ace of spades!
- Sister Barbara: If you don't like my noodle ring, you should have accepted Dr. Carpenter's invitation to dinner. I would have.
- Sister Michelle: That'll be five 'Hail Marys'.
- Sister Irene: Nuns and men don't mix.
- Sister Barbara: Oh, I think he's cute.
- Sister Irene: Fifteen.
- Sister Barbara: Honest. He's groovy.
- Sister Irene, Sister Michelle: Twenty-five.
- Dr. John Carpenter: What do you know? We're finally alone.
- [moves closer]
- Sister Michelle: John, uh, please don't.
- Sister Michelle: I get the feeling there's a message here. Like maybe there's somebody else?
- Sister Michelle: You - could say that, yes.
- Sister Barbara: Well, me for the sack.
- Sister Michelle: And me for the sack cloth and the ashes.
- Sister Barbara: Church?
- Sister Michelle: I've got to talk to somebody.
- Sister Barbara: Oh, you're not going all the way uptown to the convent at this hour.
- Sister Michelle: No. We have a church right here in the neighborhood.
- Sister Barbara: Father Gibbons? He will burn you at the stake.
- Sister Michelle: Ah, not exactly an apostle of the Ecumenical Movement.
- Sister Barbara: Ah, no. More The Inquisition.
- Sister Michelle: But still a Priest.
- Sister Michelle: Father, we've done nothing to be ashamed of.
- Father Gibbons: Men in your rooms. Late parties. Profane music until all hours. Forsaking the habit was one thing, but now you're not even dressed like females.
- Sister Michelle: It's from Barbara. What's an 'infrastructural sphere of mechanistic behaviorism'? Do you think she's a Communist?