Rochelle: Well, can you check the kitchen drain? It's stopped up.
Julius: Since when?
Rochelle: I don't know. It was slow a couple of days ago, and now it's totally clogged.
Julius: You know, this would all be over if you just go apologize to that woman.
Rochelle: Well, I guess it's not gonna be over, because I'm not gonna apologize for being right.
Adult Chris: [v.o.] Men do it all the time.

Adult Chris: [v.o.] While the fire alarm rang, Drew and Tonya were burning up.
Julius: So you just gonna go to work and leave us like this?
Rochelle: There is no mojo, Julius. The children are sick. You refuse to give them real medicine.
Adult Chris: [v.o.] Just like the government.

Chris: Where you been?
Greg: I've been at the emergency triage area with heart palpitations.
Chris: Don't worry. Everything's gonna be fine.
Greg: How do you know? This whole place could blow. Metal chairs flying like shrapnel everywhere.
Chris: Greg, I called in the bomb threat.
Greg: What?! Where would you get such a crazy idea?
Chris: From you, with that story about your cousin Benny.
Greg: Oh. I may have exaggerated a bit.
Chris: What's wrong with you? Why would you make up a story like that?
Greg: I have a penchant for hyperbole to aggrandize myself. I've been working it out with my shrink.

Chris: Look, bottom line is, the school is not gonna blow up. They're gonna send us all home for the day, and I won't have to recite that stupid speech.
Captain Williams: [over bullhorn] Attention, everyone. I'm Captain Tyrone Williams of the Bomb Squad. The school has been cleared and the bomb threat is over. Thank you for your cooperation.
Adult Chris: [v.o.] I've never seen a Black man on that side of a megaphone.
Ms. Morello: [over bullhorn] We would send you all home, but with finals next week, it's best if you go back to your classes. So, we'll resume with fifth period, and Tyrone will resume searching my office and my person.

Ms. Morello: There, there, Chris. It's perfectly natural for you to freak out after a bomb scare. It's called Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. But being from the ghetto, it never occurred to me that your stress would ever end.

Chris: Look, I memorized it, I'm gonna recite it, and you're gonna listen to it.
Thurman: Is that a fact? Sit down.
Chris: "Called from a retirement which I had supposed would continue for the residue of my life."
Thurman: All right, that's enough. You know it. Take your seat.
Chris: "to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation." [bell rings]
Thurman: Talk.
Chris: "which will govern me in the duties of these discharge which I had to perform."
Thurman: Enjoy. Good-bye.
[later, Chris is still talking as Thurman visits a urinal:]
Chris: "I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence."
[later, Chris in the passenger's seat of Thurman's car as he drives off:]
Chris: "I, too, well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed "from the magnitude of the power, which it has been the pleasure"
[later, Chris is talking on the phone as Thurman reads a book at home:]
Chris: [on the phone] "If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep"
Thurman: All right, all right! I get it. Now leave me alone. You know the speech. I'm sorry.
Chris: Thank you.

Greg: Maybe if I start you off, you'll remember the speech. All right, it starts like this. "Called from a retirement in which I had supposed..."
Chris: I don't know the speech, and I cannot go back into that class!
Greg: What are you gonna do?
Adult Chris: [v.o.] Panic!
[Chris screams as he slaps Greg, pushes two guys out of the way, decks Caruso, knocks over some books, and is restrained by two teachers]
Adult Chris: [v.o.] I didn't freak out like that again until Big Puddin' died.

Adult Chris: [v.o.] The week before finals was the most pressure-packed time of the year. Kids reacted to the pressure in lots of different ways. Some kids took it out on themselves. Some kids took it out on others. When I got stressed out, only one thing ever worked for me: cracking jokes.
Chris: I saw your mama standing outside the free clinic reading a bottle of aspirin. I asked her what she was doing. She says, "Studying for my drug test."
Greg: [laughs] That's good.
Thurman: Very good, very good, very good. Very funny. You got a way with words. Which would be a good thing if this was you-got-a-way-with-word-ology! But is this that?
Chris: No.
Thurman: You're right. Do you know William Henry Harrison?
Chris: Yeah, wasn't he that guy who cleaned up that woman in My Fair Lady?
Thurman: No, that was Rex Harrison.
Chris: Oh.
Thurman: William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States, and he gave the longest inaugural address in history. And guess what?
Chris: What?
Thurman: Since you like to talk so much, you are gonna memorize that speech! But I have to study for finals. Not if you don't get that speech memorized-- because if you don't, you're gonna get suspended! And then you won't be here to take final exams! You got a mama joke for that?
Adult Chris: [v.o.] If I tell it, I'll get suspended right now.

Adult Chris: [v.o.] In 1987, there was no Internet. If you wanted information, you actually had to walk out of your house and get it.
Librarian: William Henry Harrison's inaugural speech. There you go.
Chris: Thanks. Uh, which page is it on?
Librarian: All of 'em.
Chris: I can't memorize all this.
Librarian: Memorize? Harrison couldn't memorize that, and he wrote it.
Chris: Well, I guess I'm gonna need to take it home.
Librarian: Can't. It's a reference book.
Chris: Can I make a copy?
Librarian: Sure. [offers Chris a pack of lined paper]
Chris: Don't we have a copy machine?
Librarian: We did, but it turned out to be a fake. It was a copy of a copy machine. The Xerox police confiscated it. If your hand starts to cramp up, use the other one.
Adult Chris: [v.o.] I was quite familiar with that principle.

Tattoo: Your battery's dead.
Julius: Dead? Tattoo, that doesn't make sense. I gave my wife money to buy a new one two months ago.
Tattoo: I don't know, man, I never seen anything like this before. It look like this battery been in here three or four years.
Julius: How much to replace it?
Tattoo: Sixty dollars. But that don't include the spare tires, the shocks or the brake pads.
Julius: What? When did all that happen?
Tattoo: I don't know.
Adult Chris: [v.o.] Just now.
Tattoo: It's your car.