"They ain't that good, man. We're better. And it means much more to us. You know? When this all started, man, coach, he said we'd be winners. I thought he was full of shit, man. I hated y'all. Didn't want no part of it. But then we made a team. We showed people somethin'. Coach is right. We changed. We're not losers no more. All we gotta do is go out there and show it one more time. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"[Closing lines] We played the championship game the next week. We lost 17-14. But we played a helluva game. And no one called us losers. I told 'em, far as I was concerned, they were champs. Since then all the kids have been released. 24 are goin' to school. Three are working full-time jobs. And only five are back in jail. That's a lot better than the average failure rate of 75 percent. After his release, Junior Palaita got a job working for a furniture company and lives with his family. Kelvin Owens recovered from his bullet wound. He's gonna play for Washington High next season. Miguel Perez and Donald Madlock went back to their old gangs and are now in California Youth Authority prisons. Kenny Bates is goin' to school in Redondo Beach and living with his mom. Leon Hayes is trying to resist the crack dealer's lifestyle. He's gonna play football for Dorsey High this year. Bug Wendal was killed in a drive-by shooting in Compton. Willie Weathers got a full scholarship to play football for a top boarding school. A school that's long way from 88th Street. And how'd things change for me? Not a whole lot."

"Ya got nobody but yourself, but, goddamn it, that's all you need. Believe in yourself and knock me on my ass!"

"I know you're a good football player. You may even be great. And I am gonna push you until we find out."

"Lemme tell you somethin' else, I still don't believe that they're 38 points better than you. I still don't believe that they're the better team. I would not trade you for them. I want you to hold your heads up high."

"It's time to prove to everyone out there that even though you're locked up, you are somebody."

"Then let's try the impossible, because the possible just ain't workin'."

"[First lines] Most 16, 17-year-old kids, they make a bad choice, something gets broken, they screw up in class, hurt somebody's feelings, show up at the prom drunk, they get sent to the principal's office, have their car keys taken away, or get grounded. Then there's kids, they make a bad choice, somebody ends up shot dead in a parkin' lot. Those kids get sent here."

"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."

"Clive Merrison - The Headmaster"

"Sacha Dhawan - Akhtar"

"Samuel Barnett - Posner"

"Dominic Cooper - Dakin"

"Jamie Parker - Scripps"

"Russell Tovey - Rudge"

"Andrew Knott - Lockwood"

"Frances de la Tour - Mrs. Lintott"

"Richard Griffiths - Hector"

"Stephen Campbell Moore - Irwin"

"James Corden - Timms"

"Samuel Anderson - Crowther"

"History. It's just one fucking thing after another."

"Meet The Boys Who Are Making History!"

"I was a geographer. I went to Hull."

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

"I said it from the start: you can't polish a turd! (About Rudge)"

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

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