Welcome Back, Kotter Quotes

Woodman: Now today, we will discuss the Revolutionary War. Now, who can tell me where that war started? Mr. Washington?
Freddie: Right. [whispers to Kotter] What's the answer?
Kotter: [whispering] Lexington and--
Freddie: Right. [stands up, clears throat] Lexington Avenue. Probably near 129th Street, by that barbecue, man. It's a tough neighborhood. A lot of wars went on over there.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Vinnie: You're not our friend. You're nothing but a teacher.
Kotter: Why can't I be your teacher and your friend?
Epstein: It don't work that way, Kotter. You see, in this vast universe of ours, people are divided into two groups, us and them. You're them.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Woodman: The world is divided into two parts--us and them. They're them! And come to think of it, you're them too.
Kotter: Yeah? Well, thank you. [in Groucho voice] That's the nicest remark I ever hoid.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: Maybe Epstein has decided that there's more to being a man that winning or losing a fight. That manliness is not measured by the amount of macho a guy's got.
Horshack: Right you are, Mr. Kotter! I get along without any macho at all.
Vinnie: Yeah, I'm holdin' it for him 'till he gets older.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Epstein: I ain't goin' to class, man. I ain't never goin' to class.
Kotter: Where you goin' then?
Epstein: I don't know, uh, into the religious life.
Kotter: Brother Epstein, huh? I can see the headlines: 'Puerto Rican Jew enters monastery, becomes the first 'Schlamonk.'

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: You went to the library where they keep the books?
Vinnie: Yeah. And for three whole days we spent lookin' up what you call legal 'presidents'.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: I'm a teacher. That's what it says on my locker, "Mr. Kotter, teacher." And I'm teaching a bunch of students called Sweathogs. Now, contrary to popular opinion, Sweathogs are not dumb. I mean, a dumb person does not think of a way to make it rain in the gymnasium.
Vinnie: I did that.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Lyle: Gabe, all through school I wanted to be a Sweathog, but dirt never stuck to me. I was... too perfect.
Mary Frances: It's lovely being perfect.
Lyle: It's boring being perfect. It's boring being rich. I have five boring bedrooms.
Mary Frances: Am I included in those five boring bedrooms?
Lyle: Mary Frances, no one has a headache for seven years!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: I have a bad case of Lyle Flannigan.
Freddie: When did you first notice that something was wrong with your Flannigan?

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
[Kotter asks Freddie where his report card is]
Freddie: My momma's got it, you dig? Yeah!
Kotter: I dig it! Didn't she sign it?
Freddie: Heh, no. She just took it in her left hand, and then she hit me upside my head with her right. See, man, and then, and then, she threw a chair at me. And then she tried to cave my back in with a TV set!
Kotter: All right, all right, have your father sign it.
Freddie: You crazy? He's the one with the bad temper!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Judy: You know, Vinnie, you're so low, you could crawl under a pregnant ant!
Kotter: That's a good one, Vinnie.
Vinnie: Oh, yeah? Well, listen, Blimpo, you better watch yourself, or I'll let the air out of your dress.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: What's your first name?
Bambi: It's Bambi. [giggling] But, uh, my friends call me Sunshine.
Freddie: Well, uh, let the sunshine in, darlin'!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Bambi: Didn't we live together in another life?
Epstein: Oh...oh, I would have remembered that!
Bambi: [giggling] Oh, he's magic!
Kotter: Yeah, maybe one day he'll disappear.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: Has it occurred to any of you that by trying to help Horshack, you're hurting him? You're not giving him a chance to prove himself outside the Sweathogs. You gotta let him try and make new friends.
Vinnie: Something wrong with his old friends?
Epstein: Yeah, you couldn't give friends like us away.
Kotter: You got a point there, Epstein.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Freddie: [to Horshack] You know, I never really thought I would miss you, but you sort of grow on a guy... like mold.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Vinnie: I happen to know this girl. She's a little too, uh, old for me. She's nineteen. But believe me, she's ready to trot!
Kotter: Ready to trot?
Vinnie: Yeah.
Kotter: Then take her out to Yonkers Raceway.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Epstein: Well, you had your little fun, now, Arnold. Now you're gonna fold, right?
Horshack: Ep-stine, I think it's high time I made a stand! [stands up]
Epstein: Horshack!
Horshack: I fold! [sits back down]

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: Hello, Arnold. Haven't you noticed you're wearing a green plastic bag?
Horshack: I'm disguised as a green bean.
Kotter: [in deep voice] Ho, ho, ho...and how are things in the valley, Little Sprout?
Horshack: [in high-pitched voice] Fine and dandy, Jolly Green Giant! How's your niblets?

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Julie: [to Kotter about the Sweathogs] They're not students, they're inmates! And you are the head cuckoo!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Freddie: You're the leader of the Sweathogs, right?
Vinnie: Am I the leader of the Sweathogs? Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope live in the woods?

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: Epstein, what are the advantages of the two-party system?
Epstein: Oh, that's an easy one. In the two-party system, you get to go to two kinds of parties... two kinds of dancin', two kinds of chip dip, and two kinds of hopin' you'll, uh, make out.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Horshack: A woman is a sometime thing.
Epstein: She'll take your heart and give it a fling.
Horshack: But when true love runs off its course...
Epstein: Then she'll sue you for divorce.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: All right, Epstein, come on. Let's have it so we can get to work.
Epstein: What?
Kotter: One of your famous notes that'll read something like, 'Please excuse Juan for being late. He was kidnapped by the jet set and left tied up on a lawn in Hyannis Port.' Signed...
Sweathogs: Epstein's mother!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Ms. Helms: Mr. Epstein just doesn't have the numbers! I have no other answer for him!
Kotter: Yeah? Well, I have an answer for you, lady—up your nose with your computer hose! And twice as far with a chocolate bar!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: What would have happened if George Washington quit, huh? If Abraham Lincoln quit? What would have happened if Murray Cornfeld quit?
Freddie: I ain't never heard of no Murray Cornfeld!
Kotter: You know why you never heard of him? 'Cause he quit!

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Woodman: [about Kotter and the Sweathogs] They do a lot of pretending in that class. They pretend to be students; he pretends to be a teacher.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Epstein: Hey, I got an idea, listen to this. ISB.
Kotter: ISB?
Epstein: In-School Betting. Yeah. It's about time we get bettin' off the streets, into the school here, where it belongs! [Sweathogs cheer]
Kotter: Are you kiddin'? I'll lay you 5-2 that'll never happen.
Freddie: I'll take that bet.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Kotter: Julie, baby, did I ever tell you about my uncle Ben?
Julie: No. Did he make rice?

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
Horshack: An integer is a counting number. If the sequence is 1,2; 2,3; 3,4; etc., the integer is apparent.
Kotter: It's apparent to who?
Horshack: So find the value of 'X'?
Kotter: 'X'? I don't know.
Horshack: Right! 'X' is unknown! So what's 'Y'?
Kotter: 'Y'?
Vinnie: Where?

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter
[Epstein and Freddie bring the blackboard from the class into the Kotters' apartment]
Kotter: You guys can't do things like this. It's against the law. It's robbery! It's five to ten!
Epstein: [holding an alarm clock] Nah, its ten to ten.
Freddie: Hey, besides, we tend to think of it as... creative borrowing.

TV Show: Welcome Back, Kotter