- Psychiatrist: Your parents say you're always lying.
- Antoine Doinel: Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I'd tell them the truth and they still wouldn't believe me, so I prefer to lie.
- Antoine Doinel: Dad, I need some money.
- Julien Doinel: What?
- Antoine Doinel: I just need 1,000 francs.
- Julien Doinel: Which means you're hoping for 500, meaning you really need 300, so here's a hundred. All right, 500. But your mother should pay for that.
- English Teacher: Last and simple question. Where is the father?
- Rene: Ze fazer...
- English Teacher: No. The father.
- Rene: Ze fazer.
- English Teacher: No, the tip of the tongue between the teeth. As if you had a lisp. Father.
- Rene: Fazer.
- English Teacher: No.
- Rene: But I can't, sir. Not everybody has a tongue like yours.
- Examining Magistrate: I think we'd best put the boy in an observation center.
- Gilberte Doinel: Oh, could it be near the seashore, Your Honor?
- Examining Magistrate: It's not a vacation resort, ma'am.
- Juvenile Delinquent: I'm an unstable psychotic individual with perverted tendencies.
- Juvenile Delinquent: Every time I cried, my father would imitate me on his fiddle, just to drive me nuts. One day I got fed up and I knocked him out.
- Gilberte Doinel: My boss drove me home.
- Julien Doinel: Your boss.
- Gilberte Doinel: I couldn't very well refuse, could I?
- Julien Doinel: I hope you get overtime for that.
- Gilberte Doinel: I will, at the end of the month.
- Julien Doinel: Those services are usually paid in cash.
- Gilberte Doinel: Oh, knock it off!
- Julien Doinel: No wonder madame needs to rest on Sunday. By the way, where's my Michelin guide?
- Gilberte Doinel: How should I know? Ask the boy.
- Julien Doinel: He said he didn't touch it.
- Gilberte Doinel: He lies through his teeth.
- Julien Doinel: Like someone else I know.
- Gilberte Doinel: If you raised him better...
- Julien Doinel: I gave him my name, damn it! I put food on the table!
- Gilberte Doinel: I've had enough of your criticism! Fine! We'll send him to the Jesuits or the army orphans. At least I'd have some peace and quiet!
- Gilberte Doinel: He's a liar!
- Julien Doinel: Like you!
- Gilberte Doinel: If you raised him right...
- Julien Doinel: Shit! I gave him a name! I feed him!
- Gilberte Doinel: I'm sick of your complaints! Fed up! If you can't stand him, say so. We'll put him in an orphanage so I can have some peace!
- Petite Feuille: Doinel, if your paper is first today, it's because I've decided to give the results beginning with the worst.
- Antoine Doinel: [heard thinking aloud, as he is writing on a wall] "Here lies poor Antoine Doinel, unjustly punished by Sourpuss for a pinup fallen from the sky. It will be an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth!"
- Juvenile Delinquent: If she drops her pen, pick it up, but don't look at her legs. Or else it will be on your record.
- Julien Doinel: Women are always taken advantage of at the office, and they don't know what to do about it.
- Gilberte Doinel: The best thing is to eat out until the end of the month.
- Julien Doinel: For that, I need a clean shirt.
- Juvenile Delinquent: [to Antoine about another boy in the reformatory] He escaped a week ago, but they got him. Around here to escape is bad enough, but getting caught is worse.
- Gilberte Doinel: Antoine! He saw me!
- The Lover: Which one's he?
- Gilberte Doinel: With dark hair. But he should be in school!
- Rene: You'll get it!
- Antoine Doinel: She won't dare tell Dad.
- Julien Doinel: You don't seem surprised.
- Gilberte Doinel: Should I be? Nothing that boy does surprises me.
- Rene: You can sleep here. No one will know.
- Antoine Doinel: What about your parents?
- Rene: They never come in here. My mother drinks and my father spends all day at the races.
- Petite Feuille: Now, Doinel, go get something to win that rubbish off the wall, or I'll make you lick it off, my friend!
- Prostitute #1: I saw a police station in a movie. It was cleaner.
- Prostitute #2: I once saw a dirtier one.
- Prostitute #3: And I, a more cheerful one.
- Petite Feuille: Your quest of the absolute led you straight to a zero. For you who don't know Balzac, it concerns "A Shady Business".
- Rene: First off, we've got to think of a way to make some money.
- Antoine Doinel: Right, that's the first thing to do.
- Rene: Right. Meanwhile, I'll take an advance on my inheritance.
- Petite Feuille: We have a young Juvenal in our class, though he doesn't know an Alexandrine from blank verse. Doinel, for tomorrow you will conjugate.
- Petite Feuille: What class this year! I've known idiots before, but at least they were polite! They kept their heads down.
- Antoine Doinel: Sourpuss is a real asshole.
- Rene: That's his job.
- Antoine Doinel: Still, I'm gonna smash his face in before I go to the army!
- Julien Doinel: Look at your little flour boy here.
- Gilberte Doinel: That's not funny!
- Julien Doinel: I thought it was.
- Julien Doinel: Your cousin called. His wife's expecting again.
- Gilberte Doinel: Four kids in three years? Like rabbits. It's disgusting.
- Julien Doinel: I'll make contacts at the races. You'll see. I'll be VP one day.
- Gilberte Doinel: You'll never be VP. They like you puttering along where you are.
- Gilberte Doinel: Once when I was your age, we were on vacation, and I ran away with a young farm boy. Puppy love. They caught us right away. Mother made me promise never to see him again. She never told my father. I cried and cried, but I obeyed her, because you should always obey your mother.
- Antoine Doinel: I want to quit school and earn a living.
- Gilberte Doinel: That's nonsense! Don't you understand? If you knew how sorry I am I stopped after high school! And your father never even finished! It's hurting his career now.
- Gilberte Doinel: I know they teach you a lot of useless stuff in school. Algebra. Science. Nobody uses that stuff in real life. But what about French? French. One always has letters to write.
- Gilberte Doinel: I was your age once too, you know. You kids always forget that. I was stubborn too and didn't want to confide in my parents. I preferred writing in my diary. No one's ever read it. I'll show it to you one day.
- Overheard Man: [while Antione reads Balzac's "The Quest of the Absolute"] "The dying man pulled himself up and gave his children a piercing look. The hair bristled on the nape of his neck. His eyes lit up. A breath caressed his face and made it sublime. He raised his hand in anger and shouted Archimedes' famous last words: 'Eureka! I have found it.'"
- Julien Doinel: The boss is sleeping with the new secretary. She's well-armed, that girl, and she used it to get promoted to executive secretary. She has all the necessary talents for the position.
- [makes a gesture that she has a well developed bust]
- Julien Doinel: Now I'll have to watch out for her. Pillow talk and all that.