The History Boys Character Quotes

Character quotes

Hector

• “schoolmaster of fifty or so”
• “all knowledge is precious"
• “Exams are the enemy of education.”
• “studied eccentricity... he wears a bowtie”
• “Hector came in first”
• "And what does Mr Hector want? He has no answer for this and so will desist”
• “The hitting never hurt... We lapped it up”
• “I am an old man in a dry season”
• “It’s locked against the Force of Progress, Sir”
• “turn it into a dinky formula”
• "Don't mind Hector, he is trying to be the teacher they will remember" 
• “He was a good man, but I do not think there is time for his kind of teaching anymore”

Irwin

• “You are very young”
• “... How come there’s such a difference between the way you teach and the way you live?”
• “Have a heart. He’s only five minutes older then we are”
• “fourteen foreskins of Christ
• “Go to Newcastle and be happy”
• “Our eyes meet looking at Dakin”
• “I wasn’t like Hector”
• “Distance yourselves” “Whom shall I put it to"
• “I enjoyed your programmes but they were more journalism than history” 

Mrs L

• “plain stated and properly organised facts need no presentation”
• “Hardest thing for boys to learn is that a teacher is human”
• “five centuries of masculine ineptitude”
• “Their A…