How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Breakfast Club.
Quote #1
BRIAN So you're saying you'd subject yourself to the violent dangers of the Chicago streets because your home-life is unsatisfying?
ALLISON: I don't have to run away and live in the street... I can run away and, go to the ocean, I can go to the country, I can go to the mountains. I can go to Israel, Africa, Afghanistan...
Allison hates her home life because her parents totally ignore her—as made evident when her dad drops her off without appearing to acknowledge her at all. So she fantasizes about escaping into some more exotic and adventurous life, though it's unclear if she really plans to act on her fantasy.
Quote #2
BRIAN: Andy... you wanna get in on this? Allison here says, she wants to run away, because her home life is unsatisfying...
ANDREW: Well everyone's home lives are unsatisfying. If it wasn't, people would live with there parents forever...
BRIAN Yeah, yeah I understand. But I think that hers goes beyond, you know, what guys like you and me... consider normal unsatisfying...
ALLISON Never mind... forget it, everything's cool!
Andrew thinks that Allison's home life is unsatisfying in the same way that his is. But it's apparently a deeper issue. We're meant to get that Allison's parents are these toxically self-involved baby-boomers who don't care about their kid at all.
Quote #3
CARL: Aw bulls***, man. Come on Vern, the kids haven't changed, you have! You took a teaching position, 'cause you thought it'd be fun, right? Thought you could have summer vacations off, and then you found out it was actually work, and that really bummed you out.
VERNON: These kids turned on me. They think I'm a big f***in' joke...
Vernon doesn't get that he's the one who's out of touch. None of the kids act in a way that's entirely unexpected—Bender's the only one who's overtly disrespectful toward him. It's really Vernon's own forgetfulness about what it's like to be young that's making him so paranoid about what the kids think of him.
Quote #4
BRIAN: It's like me, you know, with my grades... like, when I, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I, when I look in at myself you know? And I see me and I don't like what I see, I really don't.
CLAIRE: What's wrong with you? Why don't you like yourself?
BRIAN: 'Cause I'm stupid... 'cause I'm failing shop. See we had this assignment, to make this ceramic elephant, and um... and we had eight weeks to do it and we're supposed to, and it was like a lamp, and when you pull the trunk the light was supposed to go on... my light didn't go on, I got a F on it. Never got a F in my life...
Brian's dissatisfied with himself, but it's not just because he values high grades. It's because his parents do and he has to buy into those values. He has to live up to a standard he isn't free to set for himself, which is why he feels like he doesn't like himself.
Quote #5
BRIAN: I can't have an F, I can't have it and I know my parents can't have it! Even if I aced the rest of the semester, I'm still only a B. And everything's ruined for me!
CLAIRE: Oh Brian...
BRIAN: So I considered my options, you know?
CLAIRE: No! Killing yourself is not an option!
Brian doesn't actually try to kill himself. He brings in a flare gun—perhaps intending to shoot himself with it—but it goes off in his locker and is discovered. It makes Brian look sad—obviously—but the same technical incompetence that ruined his elephant lamp also ruins this half-cocked suicide attempt. Irony…