Educating Rita

• “It’s not their fault; they can’t help it. But sometimes I hate them. God, what’s it like to be free?” • “Frank: Do you know Yeats? Rita: The wine lodge? Frank: Yeats the poet. Rita: No” • “They come to the hairdreser’s cos they wanna be changed. But if you want to change y’ have to do it from the inside, don’t y? Know like I’m doin’.” • “I’m not, y’ know, confident like, but I wanna be, honest.” • “I think you’re marvellous. Do you know, I think you’re the first breath of air that’s been in this room for years.” • “I’ve been realizin’ for ages that I was. Y’ know, slightly out of step. I’m twenty-six. I should have a baby by now; everyone expects it.” • “I don’t wanna baby yet. See, I wanna discover meself first.” • “I tried to explain that I wanted a better way of livin’ me life.” • “Frank: What can I teach you? Rita: Everything” • “But you’re different. You want a lot, and I can’t give it. Everything I know…is that I know absolutely nothing.” • “If I’d stated takin’ school seriously I would have had to become different from me mates, an’ that’s not allowed…By your mates, by your family, by everyone. So y’ never admit that school could be anythin’ other than useless. Like what you’ve got to be into is music an’ clothes an’ lookin’ for a feller, y’ know the real qualities of life. Not that I went along with it so reluctantly. I mean, there was always somethin’ in me head, tappin’ away, tellin’ me I might have got it all wrong. But I’d just play another record or buy another dress an’ stop worryin’…Till, one day, y’ own up to yourself an’ y’ say, is this it? Is this the absolute maximum I can expect from this livin’ lark? An’ that’s the big moment that one, that’s the point when y’ have to decide whether it’s gonna be another change of dress or a change in yourself. An’ it’s really temptin’ to go out an’ get another dress y’ know, it is. Cos it’s easy, it doesn’t cost anythin’, it doesn’t upset anyone around