Frances de la Tour credited as playing...
Mrs. Lintott
- Mrs. Lintott: History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
- Mrs. Lintott: Can you, for a moment, imagine how depressing it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude?
- Mrs. Lintott: Actually I wouldn't have said he was sad. I would have said he was cunt-struck.
- Hector: Dorothy!
- Mrs. Lintott: I'd have thought you'd have liked that. It's a compound adjective. You like compound adjectives.
- [at a mock interview for entrance to an Oxford college]
- Tom Irwin: Um, Rudge...
- Mrs. Lintott: Now. How do you define history Mr. Rudge?
- Rudge: Can I speak freely, Miss? Without being hit?
- Mrs. Lintott: I will protect you.
- Rudge: How do I define history? It's just one fuckin' thing after another.
- [raucous laughter from the other students, but the interview board is appalled]
- Mrs. Lintott: I see. And why do you want to come to Christ Church?
- Rudge: It's the one I thought I might get into.
- [talking about Tom Irwin]
- Headmaster: He comes highly-recommended.
- Mrs. Lintott: So did Anne of Cleves.
- Headmaster: Who? He's up-to-the-minute, more "now".
- Mrs. Lintott: [dryly] Now? I thought history was "then".
- Mrs. Lintott: Durham was very good for history. It's where I had my first pizza. Other things too, of course, but it's the pizza that stands out.
- Headmaster: Ah, Irwin! Splendid news!
- [pops the cork of a bottle of champagne]
- Headmaster: Splendid news! Posner a scholarship! Dakin an exhibition! And places for everybody else!
- [cops a feel of Fiona's bum]
- Headmaster: It's... it's more then one could have ever hoped for! Irwin you are to be congratulated! A remarkable achievement! Oh and, you too, you too Dorothy of course, you, ah, laid the foundation.
- Mrs. Lintott: Not Rudge headmaster.
- Headmaster: Not Rudge. Oh, dear.
- Tom Irwin: He said nothing, the others have all had letters.
- Headmaster: There's always an outside chance. It's a pity, it would have been good to have a clean swoop.
- [Rudge appears at the door, but only seen by Mrs. Lintott]
- Headmaster: Still as I've said all along, you can't polish a turd.
- Mrs. Lintott: [Rudge leaves and Mrs. Lintott takes after him down the hallway] Rudge!
- [Rudge stops and turns around]
- Mrs. Lintott: You haven't heard from Oxford?
- [Rudge shakes his head]
- Mrs. Lintott: Perhaps you'll hear tomorrow.
- Rudge: Why should I? They told me when I was there.
- Mrs. Lintott: I'm sorry.
- Rudge: What for? I got in.
- Mrs. Lintott: How come?
- Rudge: How come they told me, or how come they took a thick sod like me?... I had family connections.
- Mrs. Lintott: [incredulously] Somebody in your family went to Christ Church?
- Rudge: In a manner of speaking, my Dad, before he got married he was a college servant there. This old, parson, who just been sitting there most of the interview, suddenly said was I related to Bill Rudge who was a scout in staircase seven in the ninety-fifties. So, said he was my Dad, and they said I was the kind of candidate they were looking for. Mind you I did do the other stuff, like Stalin was a sweetie and Wilfred Owen was a wuss. They said I was plainly someone who thought for himself, and exactly what the college rugger team needed.
- Mrs. Lintott: Are you not pleased?
- Rudge: It's not like winning a match.
- Mrs. Lintott: The smallest of incidents... the junction of a dizzying range of alternatives... any one of which could have had a different outcome.
- [after Hector explains his version of events]
- Mrs. Lintott: Hector darling, as much as I love you, that is the most colossal balls! A grope is a grope!
- Mrs. Lintott: I'm reluctant at this stage in the game to expose you to new ideas, but having taught you all history on a strictly non-gender-orientated basis I just wonder whether it occurs to any of you how dispiriting this can be? Can you for a moment imagine how depressing it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude? Why do you think there are no women historians on TV? I'll tell you why: Because history's not such a frolic for women as it is for men. Why should it be? They never get around the conference table. In 1919, for instance, they just arranged the flowers, then gracefully retired. History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. And I'm not asking you to espouse this point of view, but the occasional nod in its direction can do you no harm.
- [Mrs. Lintott smokes in the Teacher's Lounge]
- Wilkes: Dorothy...
- [points to the No Smoking sign]
- Mrs. Lintott: Oh, fuck.
- [about the motorbike/boys, to Hector]
- Mrs. Lintott: Well of course the boys knew, they had it first hand.