"A writer creates a book, an individual creates a life! For a writer to create a masterpiece, he's got to think beyond what he knows! For an individual to create a life, even a half-way decent one, he's gotta go beyond what he knows. Go beyond the poverty, the dope, the disease, the degeneracy. Go beyond the oceans to the Alps (he pointed to a map), a magnificent replica of which the Board of Education has generously donated. Stick with what you think, and that's what you're gonna be stuck with! You may as well get out. Now! All of you... Miss Barrett's class dismissed. All of you dismissed for the rest of your crummy lives. Some of you prefer to leave by the window. I prefer to leave by the door. Punch me out. Will ya, Teach?"

"[to Miss Barrett] I've just seen your type before, that's all. There's one every year. "Not living up to your potential," they say. Is that what you were going to say, teach? "Just wanna help you, Joe?" "Just wanna be your friend?" Then they get to feeling very sorry for your about your "environmental factors", and your "low socio-economic level". Till you've just have to tell 'em; "Get your nose outta my environmental factors, will ya? Keep your damn hands off my potential"... and then they turn you in."

"Sandy Dennis - Sylvia Barrett"

"Ruth White - Beatrice Schachter"

"They say a writer should stick to what he knows. What nonsense. What did Dickens know about the French Revolution? What did Shakespeare know about Moors in Venice? If he'd stuck to what he knew, we'd have no Othello. We'd have no Alice in Wonderland. We'd have no Treasure Island. You brats think that I and Miss Barrett stand up there day after day, talking about books, and the writing of books, just for the hell of it? You think it's got nothing to do with YOU?"

"Jean Stapleton - Sadie Finch"

"When I finally get the chance, the first few precious minutes to talk to them about something I want them to understand, and I find that I am some kind of enemy... the butt of some enormous joke."

"If you deny what you know, or what you are, or where you are, you deny the simplest part of being alive, and then you die."

"Ever tried "punctuation sex", Henrietta? Hyphens are kisses, commas are maybes, and a period is a definite no. And then of course, there's the... limitless realms of semicolons and apostrophes. I shudder to think what an exclamation point might mean."

"Sorrell Booke - Dr. Bester"

"Simple words that start a war: "Good morning. My name is Miss Barrett. I am your Home Room teacher...""

"The first mistake this pretty young teacher made was to get off the bus. The second was to walk into Calvin Coolidge High School for the first time. The third was to fall in love with it."

"It’s much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things. I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And I’m going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn’t do or what they didn’t know. I don’t know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It’s just different. Maybe it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it’s okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite."

"I don't know if I will have the time to write any more letters because I might be too busy trying to participate. So if this does end up being the last letter I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school and you helped me. Even if you didn't know what I was talking about or know someone who has gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don't happen. And there are people who forget what it's like to be 16 when they turn 17. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening, I am here and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are infinite."

"Mary Elizabeth is a nice person underneath the parts of her that hate everybody."

"If my Aunt Helen were still here, I could talk to her and I know she would understand how I'm both happy and sad. And I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"Dear Friend, I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile, but I've been trying hard to not be a loser."

"Let's go be psychos together."

"Welcome to the island of misfit toys."

"You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."

"Oh, my God. My life is officially an after school special."

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

"Reece Thompson - Craig"

"Johnny Simmons - Brad"

"Nicholas Braun - Derek"

"Dylan McDermott as Charlie's father"

"Melanie Lynskey - Aunt Helen"

"Joan Cusack - Doctor Burton"

"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there."

"Kate Walsh - Charlie's mother"

"Nina Dobrev - Candace"

"Ezra Miller - Patrick"

"Mae Whitman - Mary Elizabeth"

"I, I wish you could swim like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim Though nothing, nothing will keep us together we can beat them, for ever and ever Oh we can be heroes, just for one day."

"Logan Lerman - Charlie"

"Emma Watson - Sam"

"Paul Rudd - Bill"

"Tom Savini - Mr. Callahan"

"Penelope Branning - Becky's Grandma"