Up the Down Staircase (1967)

Sandy Dennis: Sylvia Barrett

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Lou Martin gives an oral book report] 

  Lou Martin : My book is...

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar]  The book you read.

  Lou Martin : Yeah. The title is called "Macbeth," by Shakespeare.

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar, again]  The title 'is.'

  Lou Martin : [Finishing her sentence]  "... Macbeth."

  Sylvia Barrett : Isn't "Macbeth" required reading for last English term?

  Lou Martin : I ain't never read it before.

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar, again]  I' ve never read it.

  Lou Martin : Me neither.

  [Class laughter] 

  Lou Martin : In this book, the author depix...

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar, again]  "De-picts."

  Lou Martin : Depix how this guy, he wants to...

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar, and beginning to lose track]  Who.

  Lou Martin : Him.

  Sylvia Barrett : [Correcting his grammar ,again]  He.

  Lou Martin : Yeah.

  Sylvia Barrett : [Giving up trying to correct him]  All right, what is the theme of Macbeth?

  Lou Martin : Well, the author narrates this murder.

  [Pretending to be strangled to death] 

  Lou Martin : Uhh! Ugh! Ugh! Uhh! Uhh! Strangling! Uhh Ughh!...

  [Class breaks out in laughter, and eventually Miss Barrett does too] 

• [Mr. McHabe notices Miss Barrett walking towards class with a homemade suggestion box] 

  J.J. McHabe : Oh. Suggestions, Miss Barrett, ahh? I must say you've got guts.

  Sylvia Barrett : It's just an idea, Mr. McHabe. It seems to me that if the students have a chance to speak freely without fear of punishment...

  J.J. McHabe : Listen, you start running this school with ideas, you'll have riots in your rooms. Fear - That's all they understand.

• Sylvia Barrett : The theme of Macbeth is that too much ambition can lead to ruthless ambition, and end up in disaster. That's what words are for - to be used. Who can tell me what "ruthless" means? Joe?

  [Gets no response, decides to ask...] 

  Sylvia Barrett : Eddie?

  Eddie Williams : Steps all over.

  Sylvia Barrett : Use it in a sentence.

  Eddie Williams : Steps all over, like white people. I know because I'm colored.

• Sylvia Barrett : 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.

• Sylvia Barrett : 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.

• [urging Mr. Barringer to dance with a student] 

  Sylvia Barrett : Why do you always say "maybe later"? Maybe sometime, maybe Thursday, and there never is a Thursday.