“HEADMASTER: I was a geographer. I went to Hull.IRWIN: Oh. Larkin.HEADMASTER: Everybody says that. 'Hull? Oh, Larkin.' I don't know about the poetry...as I say, I was a geographer...but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we're told, women in droves. Art. They get away with murder.”

“I don't always understand poetry!''You don't always understand it? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now and you will understand it...whenever.”

“TIMMS: I don't see how we can understand it. Most of the stuff poetry's about hasn't happened to us yet.HECTOR: But it will, Timms. It will. And then you will have the antidote ready! Grief. Happiness. Even when you're dying. We're making your deathbeds here, boys.LOCKWOOD: Fucking Ada.HECTOR: Poetry is the trailer! Forthcoming attractions!”

“All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.”

“Archbishop. Why do I never read the lesson?” “I beg your pardon, ma’am?” “In church. Everybody else gets to read and one never does. It’s not laid down, is it? It’s not off-limits?” “Not that I’m aware, ma’am.”“Good. Well in that case I’m going to start. Leviticus, here I come. Goodnight.” The archbishop shook his head and went back to Strictly Come Dancing.”

“I am the King. I tell. I am not told. I am the verb, sir. I am not the object. (King George III)”

“...But what is it all about, what am I trying to do, is there a message? Nobody knows, and I certainly don't. If one could answer these questions in any other way than by writing what one has written, then there would be no point in writing at all.”