Annie Camden quotes from 7th Heaven

Lucy

And how much rent is Robbie willing to pay? Because whatever it is, I'll double it.

Annie

You don't have a job.

Lucy

Right. I don't have anything.

Annie

Oh, Luce, Luce!

Annie

The point is that you...you...you don't understand what I'm going through. And I wasn't supposed to go through it for a long, long time.

Eric

Me too.

Annie

What?!

Eric

I'm trying my best. I am--but I just seem totally unprepared to deal with this stage of your life. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I'm lost. I'm completely lost. And you, my dear, are completely....

Annie

Nuts!? Is that what you were going to say? Because the problem is not that I'm nuts. You want to know what the problem is? More specifically, do you want to know what your problem is? Your problem is that you feel sorry for yourself and and the person you should be feeling sorry for is me. Yes, I am a nut! I'm the one who let that guy in here. I'm the one who had to deal with him until the ambulance got here. I'm the one who had to go to the hospital and deal with him because you didn't. And then I'm the one who got hauled off by security. So, if you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for me!

Eric

[to himself about Annie] Why don't you just take your hormones and go drive someone else crazy besides me?

Annie

I heard that!

Eric

I think you're more you than you have been for a long time.

Annie

What?

Eric

So, I...I just find it funny that I'm having so much trouble adjusting because we're both just adjusting to you being you.

Annie

What?

Eric

The first year that I knew you, you were just like this. You in no uncertain terms told people of what you thought and that was one of the things that attracted me to you, that and the fact that there was never any predicting when you were going to tell someone what you thought. I remember you let my dad tell you like twenty seven times how to put a diaper on Matt before you told off the The Colonel like, like I'd wanted to tell off The Colonel my entire life.

Annie

What are you saying, I've always been a nut?

Eric

Pretty much. But you've mellowed over the years. And now you're back without warning and it's a beautiful thing. I love you. I've always loved you. And I'm always gonna love you, till death do us part. Even if it kills me.

Annie

You know, you think you are so smart. I liked you better when you were feeling sorry for yourself.

Eric

We haven't spent time together for a long time.

Annie

It's been a week.

Eric

A week is a long time when you're in love.

Annie

I'm quitting school.

Eric

What?

Annie

I'm quitting school. No more college.

Eric

I didn't know how much teaching meant to you.

Annie

Well, it's not the teaching really. It's being around kids. You know how much I've always loved having children in my life, working with them, helping them. You know, in a couple of years, Sam and David, they'll be in school. Ruthie's doing great. Simon's in high school. Robbie and Lucy are in college, Mary's in New York and Matt's going off to medical school. So...our kids need me, but they don't need me. If I teach every year, I'll have a new batch of kids who I'll need to help the way I helped our kids. It's the perfect job for me. All I have to do is take what I've been doing at home for the last 20 years and put it in the classroom. I can do it. I think I'll be good at it.

Eric

I'll help. I've always supported you in whatever you wanted to do. I love you. I want you to be happy.

Annie

I want to be happy, too.

Annie

Lately, with all the changes I've been going through I found that sometimes I'm more comfortable in the company of women. I love you, but you know, sometimes I need to talk to a woman.

Eric

Why is that?

Annie

I don't know. Women: we're all part of a club. Rich, poor, fat, thin, happy, unhappy, we're all going through the same things. And you can be a lot of things for me, but no matter how hard you try, you'll never be a woman.

Eric

Never wanted to be until now. But I get your point. You and me, we're okay?

Annie

We're better than okay.

Matt

(to Eric and Annie) I'm gonna be... a gynecologist.

Annie

Well, he does love women.

Annie

[to the class] I know we just started reading "Swiss Family Robinson" today but can anyone tell what they think the moral of the story is?

I think the author is showing us that even though you may not be shipwrecked with your family that all families have to figure a way to get along.

Annie

Yes, good. The author, Johann David Wyss, is telling us that all relationships require a lot of work. Patience, tolerance and love. He wrote this book to teach his own sons life lessons.

If two people fight all the time, they should break up, right?

Annie

Well, yes, if two people are fighting all the time then maybe they shouldn't be together, but you're young.

That's what I think, too. Thanks, Mrs. Camden.

Annie

Well, I don't know what Christy's parents are fighting about, but whatever it is it can't be more important than their daughter. Don't they see how their fighting is affecting her?

Eric

You know, there are a lot of parents who believe that as long as they are not yelling at their kids their kids aren't affected by their yelling. They don't seem to understand that a parent's relationship with each other affects their children for the rest of their lives. If we can learn how to have a good relationship from our parents, we can learn how to have a bad relationship from them too.

Annie

Thanks, but of course, I know all that, which is one of the many reasons they asked me to teach.

Eric

Hey, I'm just trying to be supportive.

Ruthie

(to Eric and Annie) You know, you guys fight a lot.

Annie

Do we fight a lot?

Eric

Maybe, I don't know.

Annie

You don't know if we fight a lot?

Eric

I don't know what answer won't cause a fight. Maybe I need to find a better way to communicate with you.

Annie

And maybe if I take hormones, everything will go back to normal?

Eric

I didn't say that.

Annie

But you wanted to.

Eric

No, I didn't. I want you to do whatever you need to do. And I want us to stop fighting.

Annie

But we've always had fights, and we're always gonna fight.

Eric

Well, then maybe we need to find ways to fight that are more productive and friendly.

Annie

You're right.

Eric

I honestly was just trying to help.

Annie

But I don't always need your help. I want to solve my own problems by myself.

Eric

We're a team. A good team. We've always worked together and our relationship has been the better for it.

Annie

But lately I feel the need to have things that are just mine and I'm going to try to be nicer.

Eric

And I'm going to be more considerate of your feelings.

Annie

I do love you.

Eric

I love you, too.

Annie

I guess we need to show it more, huh?

Thank you, Mrs. Camden. Christy is lucky to have you as a teacher.

Annie

Considering everything that has happened today that is very sweet of you to say.

Eric

Mary tells me she's here permanently.

Annie

Permanently? That's the best news I've ever heard. We have our whole family back together again.

Eric

Don't you want to know what happened with Wilson?

Annie

I'm sure she'll tell us eventually.

Eric

[to himself] What's wrong with this picture?

Annie

I've got something to say to you and I think you're old enough to hear it. Life isn't fair, so get over it.

Ruthie

Thank you for letting me know that. Only a parent, a mother, would care so much that she, you, would explain such an important lesson in such a simple and direct...way.

Eric

[about Mary] She's still incredibly irresponsible and she seems to have absolutely no awareness of that. How are we going to make her conscious?

Annie

Oh, you mean how are we going to make her confess. Here we go! It's Richard Nixon all over again! I love Richard Nixon.

Eric

Since when did you love Richard Nixon?

Annie

Since I heard someone saying that what God is showing us through parents is that he loves us despite the things we do, not beacuse of the things we do. You don't even recognize your own sermon, do you?

Annie

[to her kids] You know what's really unfair? What's really unfair is that your father and I have worked around the clock for 20 years to give our children a good home. To send our children to school. To buy them the clothes that they want to buy, and yet those children, the very same children that we sacrificed ourselves for over and over again think that they should decide who gets what and when they should get it.

Simon

No...

Annie

Don't speak. I will give your sister Mary anything I want to give her, anytime I want to give it to her, because I love her and I am happy that she is home. Mary needs us. She needs her father. She needs me. And she needs you. And I've got some news for all of you: we need her. We need to embrace each other and support each other because that's what families do. And until you're ready to do that, you know what? You can just live out here! (referring to the garage) You've got a change of clothes, one week's allowance and some school books. You're more or less on your own. Until you're allowed the privilege of telling me that just how much you regret you're total lack of respect for me and my decisions. And then at that time, if I like what you have to say, I just might let you back into the home that your father and I created. Until then, take care of the rebellious one known as Ruthie. You can come in and use the toilets, nothing else! Not the kitchen, not the laundry, not the shower, not the phone and not the TV. Enjoy.

Annie

Do you have a problem with my punishing the children without your approval?

Eric

While I don't want the garage apartment for my own, I can understand why they're upset about your giving it to Mary. We don't even know if she needs it.

Annie

So? They don't know if she doesn't. Maybe she and Wilson need it.

Eric

I got the feeling from Wilson that they broke up and he's just letting Mary tell us, and I gotta know why that is. Because it suggests the why, it won't be something we like.

Annie

What do you feel her problems are?

Eric

I feel her problems are that she's irresponsible, self-centered, and inconsiderate of other family members.

Annie

I think she wants to be responsible, and that's something. I think it's good for her to be self-centered right now. It's good for her to focus on herself and come to love herself, because that's the first step in loving others. And I don't think she's inconsiderate of other family members. On the contrary, I think other family members, including you, are inconsiderate of her and her needs at this time.

Eric

So we can agree to disagree about Mary and who she is and what her future holds, but I think that Matt and Lucy and Simon and Ruthie are in agreement.

Annie

With you, and you are wrong, just like you were wrong about Nixon.

Eric

(to the twins) He should have apologized.