How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Mary Poppins.
Quote #1
GEORGE: I feel a surge of deep satisfaction, much as a king astride his noble steed…When I return from daily strife, to hearth and wife, how pleasant is the life I lead!... I run my home precisely on schedule. At 6:01, I march through my door. My slippers, sherry, and pipe are due at 6:02. Consistent is the life I lead! It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910! King Edward's on the throne, it's the age of men! I'm the lord of my castle, the sovereign, the liege! I treat my subjects, servants, children, wife with a firm but gentle hand, noblesse oblige. It's 6:03, and the heirs to my dominion are scrubbed and tubbed, and adequately fed. And so I'll pat them on the head, and send them off to bed. Ah, lordly is the life I lead!
George acts like all is well in his world. He's a man in "the age of men" but, in reality, his assumptions are about to be shattered. Mary Poppins is going to demonstrate his own workaholic joylessness to him and make him chill, instead of being a rule-obsessed stiff.
Quote #2
GEORGE: A British bank is run with precision. A British home requires nothing less! Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools! Without them: disorder, catastrophe! Anarchy! In short, you have a ghastly mess!
George thinks you can run a home the same way you run a bank, with efficiency and discipline—but he's forgetting about love and the basics of being a dad.
Quote #3
WINIFRED: We're clearly soldiers in petticoats, and dauntless crusaders for women's a-votes! Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid.
Winifred is an ardent suffragette—trying to find some equality between the sexes. Even though this is a good thing, the movie depicts Winifred as being so caught up in her social activism that she doesn't pay enough attention to Michael and Jane.
Quote #4
WINIFRED: I'll try to do better next time.
GEORGE: Next time? My dear, you've engaged six nannies in the last four months. And they've all been unqualified disasters.
George and Winifred are both so caught up in their own lives that they keep ditching their kids with nannies—and do a bad job of picking those nannies, besides. George thinks that he's the man to solve this, but it's actually the children's own ad which gets Mary P.'s attention.
Quote #5
JANE: Oh Michael, the city! We'll see all the sights and father can point them out to us!
MARY: Well, most things he can. Sometimes a person we love, through no fault of their own, can't see past the end of his nose.
It's not that George doesn't love his kids. It's just that he's so wrapped up in his worldly problems at the bank that he can't see that life is passing him by.
Quote #6
WINIFRED: But you're always saying that you wanted a cheerful and pleasant household.
GEORGE: Winifred, I should like to make a slight differentiation between the word cheerful and just plain giddy irresponsibility.
George thinks Mary is irresponsible—an anarchist. But that's not actually the case. Mary does have rules and order, and she makes the children clean up the nursery (albeit with magic) and things like that. But Mary injects fun into these things. She realizes that it's easier to follow the rules if you don't really feel like you're following the rules.
Quote #7
BERT: You've got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone... Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve... And all too soon they've up and grown, and then they've flown... And it's too late for you to give - just that spoonful of sugar to 'elp the medicine go down - medicine go dow-wown, medicine go down.
Bert is holding up a mirror to Mr. Banks face (metaphorically) and saying, "Hey, this is what you're doing. And it's not so great." Banks is obsessed with his job, and acting like he's a strict disciplinarian—denying the softie that lies underneath. Bert's helping to show him the light, with some harsh truth-telling.
Quote #8
DAWES JR.: In 1773, an official of this bank unwisely loaned a large sum of money to finance a shipment of tea to the American colonies. Do you know what happened?
GEORGE: Yes, sir. Yes, I think I do. As the ship lay anchored in Boston Harbor, a party of the colonists dressed as red Indians boarded the vessel, behaved very rudely, and threw all the tea overboard. This made the tea unsuitable for drinking. Even for Americans.
George is on the verge of getting fired—and at the same time, his inner, fun-loving side is starting to peek out. George always thought losing his job would be terrible, but instead, he finds himself making a joke about how Americans can't appreciate the correct way to make tea.
Quote #9
DAWES SR.: From that time to this, sir, there has not been a run on this bank—until today. A run, sir, caused by the disgraceful conduct of your son. Do you deny it?
GEORGE: I do not deny it, sir, and I shall gladly assume responsibility for my son.
George "gladly" assumes responsibility for his son. He's not trying to excuse himself or anything—he's biting the bullet and accepting his family for who they are, finally (or he's getting close). And this makes him happy rather than miserable.
Quote #10
JANE: Mary Poppins, don't you love us?
MARY: And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?
Mary Poppins didn't really come to make the children get attached to her. She actually came to make Mr. Banks become a better dad and connect with his kids on a personal level. Now that her job's done, she has no reason to stick around—even if she really is emotionally attached.
Quote #11
UMBRELLA: Look at them! You know, they think more of their father than they do of you!
MARY: That's as it should be.
Mary's basically saying, "mission accomplished" to her talking umbrella. She didn't really come to make the kids realize how cool it is to venture inside illustrations and fly by laughing—she came to make their father realize that he needed to connect with his kids the way Mary was connecting with him. She gave Mr. Banks emotional tools he didn't have before.
Quote #12
UMBRELLA: Is that so? Well, I'll tell you one thing, Mary Poppins: you don't fool me a bit!
MARY: Oh, really?
UMBRELLA: Yes, really. I know exactly how you feel about these children, and if you think I'm going to keep my mouth shut any longer, I'll...
MARY: That will be quite enough of that, thank you.
Mary Poppins retains her classically British stiff upper lip. Sure, she actually loves Michael and Jane but, having restored the Banks family to harmony, she's got to keep on keepin' on, wherever the wind takes her.