The History Boys (2006)

Share this quote on facebook The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

Share this quote on facebook Remember boys: festoon your answers with gobbets, and you won't go far wrong.

Share this quote on facebook I would hate to turn out boys who, in later life, would claim to have a love of literature, or speak of the lure of language, and their love of words. Words, said in a way that's somehow... Welsh.

Share this quote on facebook Pass the parcel. That's sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys. That's the game I want you to learn. Pass it on.

Share this quote on facebook But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.

Share this quote on facebook The truth was, in 1914, Germany doesn't want war. Yeah, there's an arms race, but it's Britain who's leading it. So, why does no one admit this?

Share this quote on facebook [on Hector being sacked] No more genital massage as one speed along leafy suburban roads. No more the bike's melancholy long withdrawing roar as he dropped you at the corner, your honor still intact.

Share this quote on facebook How do I define history? It's just one fuckin' thing after another.

Share this quote on facebook History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind... with a bucket.

Share this quote on facebook The more you read, though, the more you'll see that literature is actually about losers... It's consolation. All literature is consolation.

Share this quote on facebook Turning facts on their heads. It's like a game.

Share this quote on facebook They're good... but they're crass. They need polish... edge.

Share this quote on facebook I want to be up there with Manchester Grammar, Haberdasher Askes, Leighton Park... or is that an open prison? No matter.

Share this quote on facebook One oddity: Rudge. And Christ Church of all places! Might get into Loughborough... on a bad year... otherwise all brights!

Share this quote on facebook I said it from the start: you can't polish a turd! (About Rudge)

Share this quote on facebook On enquiry I find his pupils know all the words of "When I'm Cleaning Windows". And Gracie Fields, Dorothy, Gracie Fields.

Share this quote on facebook I was a geographer. I went to Hull.

Share this quote on facebook Meet The Boys Who Are Making History!

Share this quote on facebook History. It's just one fucking thing after another.